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The 18th annual Asian Film Awards (Afa) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District’s Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 16, 2025. Sixteen competitive prizes and five honorary prizes were given out. The Afa ceremony featured a glamorous Red Carpet and Award Ceremony attracting participants from all over Asia, and was a great success. At this year’s Afa, the Hong Kong actor-director Sammo Hung served as the jury president leading other jury and voting members composed of filmmakers from around the world in selecting the winners. Daishi Matsunaga, along with fellow director Stanley Kwan, served as presenters.

Here are all the awards and nominees of this year’s edition

Best Film

All We Imagine as Light (India, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)

Black Dog (Mainland China)

Exhuma (South Korea)

Teki Cometh (Japan)

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong)

Best...

Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s poignant drama All We Imagine as Light went home with the best picture prize Sunday night at the 18th Asian Film Awards. It was the film’s final stop on a ten-month festival and awards season journey that began last May when it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

“Thank you so much to my lead actors — three incredible artists and human beings. They are the ones who made this film what it is,” Kapadia said from the stage inside Hong Kong’s gleaming Xiqu Centre, where the ceremony was held. “I’m so happy that we could end our journey here in Hong Kong, a city that has meant a lot to me, watching the amazing films from this city over the years.”

Legendary Hong Kong filmmaker and martial arts star Sammo Hung served as president of the jury that selected the winners of the 2025 AFAs,...

Payal Kapadia’s Indian co-production “All We Imagine as Light” won best film at the 18th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, capping a remarkable journey that began with a Grand Prix win at Cannes last year.

Yoshida Daihachi won best director for “Teki Cometh,” while Sean Lau won best actor for “Papa” and Shahana Goswami best actress for “Santosh.” Sandhya Suri won best new director for “Santosh,” capping a strong year for Indian co-productions at the awards, where the country has been a bridesmaid in recent years.

Honors were evenly spread otherwise, with “Exhuma,” “Stranger Eyes” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” all collecting a brace of awards each.

Proceedings kicked off with a performance featuring the composer of the film that is the toast of Asia at the moment – “Ne Zha 2,” Chu Wan Pin, alongside Jonathan Wong.

During the awards, Dr. Wilfred Wong, chair of the Asian Film Awards Academy,...

Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu has revealed he is currently developing an adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem” author Liu Cixin’s science fiction work “Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming” and Liu Zhenyun’s acclaimed novel “One Sentence Is Ten Thousand Sentences.”

“Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming,” featured in the collection “To Hold Up the Sky,” dives into electronic warfare during a conflict between a resurgent Communist Russia and NATO forces. The military sci-fi story explores the technological arms race as Russia deploys desperate measures to counter NATO’s advanced electronic capabilities.

Meanwhile, “One Sentence Is Ten Thousand Sentences,” winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2011, is a sweeping meditation on loneliness spanning generations in rural China. The novel follows two intertwined narratives: Wu Moxi, a solitary man from early 20th century Yanjin County who embarks on a journey through Shanxi, Shandong and Hebei after losing his only true connection, and a century later, his grandson Niu Aiguo,...

The documentary Between Goodbyes by the Korean-American director and producer Jota Mun, has won the CinemAsia Audience Award 2025. The film had its European premiere at the CinemAsia Film Festival and resonated with audiences through its honest and layered exploration of diaspora, transnational adoption, family bonds, and identity.

The 17th edition of CinemAsia Film Festival took place from March 6-11, 2025, in four Amsterdam cinemas, with a diverse and dynamic program of 38 films, and concluded on a high note on March 11 with Fly Me To The Moon by Sasha Chuk in Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Following its main festival, CinemAsia goes On Tour to Forum Groningen (April 5-6), Kino Rotterdam (April 11-13), Filmhuis Den Haag (May 9-11), Natlab Eindhoven (May 17-18), and Lumiere in Maastricht (May 24-25), bringing CinemAsia’s audience award winner Between Goodbyes, and other festival favorites like Yen and Ai-Lee and Black Dog to a broader Dutch audience.

CinemAsia...

China’s animated mega-blockbuster Ne Zha 2 is heading to Europe. Distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired theatrical rights to the film from Beijing Enlight Media for 37 territories across the continent, including the U.K., Germany, France, Spain and more. The film will open in the U.K. and Ireland on March 21, with previews beginning March 14. Other European releases will soon follow, the distributor says.

Ne Zha 2 is already the highest-grossing animated film in movie history. Since its release over Chinese New Year in January, it has earned $2.06 billion at home in China (Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is history’s second-biggest animated film, with $1.7 billion in worldwide ticket revenue). In North America, Ne Zha 2 opened Feb 14 and has earned $18.8 million — tiny compared to the China total, but far better than most Chinese commercial blockbusters fare in the West.

Ne Zha 2 is an imaginative twist on Chinese mythology and a famous 16th-century novel.

Trinity CineAsia has secured theatrical distribution rights for “Ne Zha 2” across 37 European territories, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, France and Spain, from Beijing Enlight Media. The animated blockbuster, which has shattered box office records, will debut in the U.K. and Ireland on March 21, with previews beginning March 14.

The Chinese animated epic has made history as the highest-grossing animated film worldwide, surpassing “Inside Out 2,” and becoming the first non-Hollywood production to crack the global all-time top 10 box office chart. It currently ranks sixth behind only “Avatar,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and “Titanic.” The film has also achieved the unprecedented milestone of grossing $1 billion in a single market – China – where it was released on Jan. 29. It passed $2 billion in China over the weekend.

“Rarely do you get a film that truly defines the era, shows again the unique power of cinema to move audiences,...

UK-based, pan-European distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired theatrical rights from Beijing Enlight Media for record-breaking Chinese animation Ne Zha 2 across 37 territories, including the UK, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.

The film has grossed more than $2Bn, overtaking Inside Out 2, and ranking sixth among the highest-grossing films worldwide, behind Avatar, Avatar: The Way Of Water, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Titanic.

A theatrical release in UK and Ireland has been set for March 21 with previews from March 14. Other European releases will follow with theatrical outings expected for France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Benelux and Scandinavian territories. Trinity CineAsia managing director Cedric Behrel told Deadline that he plans to give the film a theatrical release in as many other European territories as possible.

It’s understood that streaming rights for the film are being negotiated separately. Four Hong Kong companies – Intercontinental Film Distributors, Emperor Motion Pictures, Mandarin Films...

Nerdly Presents Episode 8 of the Romford Film Festival Podcast… Proudly presented by Nerdly host Kevin Haldon who sits down to chat with directors Ed Kirk and Gage Zanghi to talk about their movies Black Dog and Grandma May I respectively, both of which are showing at this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival – which takes place February 27th through March 2nd 2025.

Black Dog

A Father and Son confront their history and navigate their grief within the crumbling walls of their moorland home. Black Dog takes a folk-horror lens to delve into the depths of the human psyche.

Grandma May I

An ancient, cunning spirit posing as a kindly grandmother offers solace and dark wishes to lonely children on Mischief Night. When a heartbroken boy stumbles into her grasp, she sees the perfect opportunity to fulfill his deepest desires—but at a chilling cost that will bind him to her forever.

Patrick Swayze was one of a kind. He’s the only actor I can think of who was as comfortable cutting a rug on the dance floor as demolishing a room full of bad guys with his fists of fury. When he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2009, we lost an icon who was never really recognized as the legend he is in his time. In the years since many Patrick Swayze movies have become cult favourites, and with a Road House remake recently a hit, we decided now would be a good time to pick the five best Patrick Swayze movies.

Red Dawn (1984)

John Millius’s cold war “what if” thriller goes down in the history books as the first-ever PG-13 movie. It was also Patrick Swayze’s first major leading role, with him best known up to this point for a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders.

George Jacques’ Black Dog is a restrained, meditative inward journey, the manifestation of which is paralleled by a road trip. We have two young boys, battered by life at a tender age, journeying up North in search of peace, identity, and companionship. Their lives – so diametrically opposed to each other – coincide with a purpose, and we see them help each other make sense of the world around them. Interestingly, the evocation of the inherent poignant mood can be ascribed to the personal histories of Jacques and his co-author, Jamie Flatters.

Spoilers Ahead

How do Nathan and Sam meet each other?

In London, Nathan, just about to turn eighteen, is abandoning his familiar ties with his foster home to go find his sister in Scotland. He bumps into a school-going boy, Sam, who gets stuck in a violent brawl. Although Nathan beats up the bullies who pinned down Sam, he picks up his wallet without permission.

The 40th annual Independent Spirit Awards took place in Santa Monica on Feb. 22, with Aidy Bryant as host for the second year in a row.

“Anora” was the biggest winner of the day, being named best feature while Sean Baker and Mikey Madison took home individual trophies for best director and lead performance. “Baby Reindeer” also won big, with Richard Gadd, Nava Mau and Jessica Gunning clinching the awards for lead, supporting and breakthrough performance, though “Shogun” won best new scripted series. And Sean Wang’s “Dìdi” clinched both awards in the debut film category: best first feature as well as best first first screenplay.

See the full list of winners below.

Best Feature

“Anora” (Winner)

“I Saw the TV Glow”

“Nickel Boys”

“Sing Sing”

“The Substance”

Best First Feature

“Dìdi” (Winner)

“In the Summers”

“Janet Planet”

“The Piano Lesson”

“Problemista”

John Cassavetes Award – Given to the best feature made...

As we gear up for the big afternoon on the beach this Saturday, now’s a great time to get to know your nominees. Hopefully you’ve seen their films, and if you’re a Film Independent member, watched your screeners and voted too. But there’s nothing quite like hearing about the process from the creative minds themselves.

That’s exactly what we did with this year’s Directors Close-Up, where we brought together the nominees from some of the top filmmaking categories, to talk shop. Over two weeks this February, we held Zoom sessions for our members, where these creators tell how exactly they got their projects off the ground, the creative choices they made, and what inspires them.

If you missed them live, we’ve got you covered. Let’s take a look at all the action from this year’s Directors Close-Up:

Spirit Of...

After recent patriotic blockbusters such as “My People, My Country” (2019) and “The Eight Hundred” (2020), director Guan Hu is back to his “sixth generation” roots, with a film that might not be low budget, but it has a big indie heart. “Black Dog” bagged the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in May of this year, and its lead canine, Xiao Xin, a Jack Russell-greyhound cross, received the Grand Jury Prize at the Palm Dog Award.

Black Dog is screening at Festival International des Cinemas d’Asie de Vesoul

It’s the summer of 2008 and the Beijing Olympics are about to kick off. On a dusty road in the outskirts of China’s Gobi Desert, a rickety minibus is heading towards its destination when a pack of feral dogs appears on the street in front of it and causes the bus to tip over. Within the shell-shocked passengers,...

With just two films to her name, Vivian Qu has become one of China’s most prominent female filmmakers. Her long-awaited follow-up to the excellent Angels Wear White (which premiered in 2017’s Venice competition) once again shines a light on the plight of young women in contemporary Chinese society and reunites her with many of the same cast and crew. With a noticeably larger budget at her disposal, Girl on Wire is the most polished but least hard-hitting film she’s made thus far; while it’s likely to draw a wider audience, true fans will be disappointed.

Told in interlocking timelines, the decades-spanning story centers on twenty-something Tian Tian (Liu Haocun) and her cousin Fang Si (Wen Qi). The two girls grew up like sisters, though their relationship is fraught with familial tension that eventually drove them apart. Tian Tian, stuck in their rural hometown and the vicious cycle...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Adamant Girl (P. S. Vinothraj)

While rural stories have become a topic du jour across the many industries within Indian cinema, P.S. Vinothraj has carved a unique place for himself with Koozhangal (Pebbles) and his follow-up Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl). He structurally breaks down family and community dynamics in rural areas with disquieting observation, his camera constantly tracking and intersecting movements of events. There are explosions of dialogue and emotion wrapped around long sequences of contemplation where just a glance can prove revelatory. Both Soori and Anna Ben, two well-established performers in Tamil cinema, are perfect ciphers for gender dynamics at play. Vinothraj refreshingly eludes sermons or obvious pleas, and The Adamant Girl respects its audience enough to let them unpack...

CinemAsia Film Festival 2025 presents its full program for the 17th edition, running March 6-11 in Amsterdam. Featuring 38 handpicked films – of which 27 feature films and 11 shorts, including 1 world and 4 European premieres – the lineup spans blockbusters, art-house gems, and independent productions.

Hosted at Eye Filmmuseum, Studio/K, Rialto De Pijp, and Rialto Vu, CinemAsia invites audiences on a cinematic journey through Asia’s rich storytelling, stunning visuals, and diverse cultural perspectives.

Grand Opening & Closing Films

Opening Film – Happyend by Neo Sora (Dutch premiere) – Director present at the festival.

The festival opens with the highly anticipated Happyend by Japanese-American filmmaker Neo Sora. Set in a dystopian near-future Tokyo overshadowed by an impending catastrophic earthquake, this visually stunning film explores identity and friendship in a world dominated by control and uncertainty.

Closing Film – Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong 2023) by Sasha Chuk (Dutch premiere) – Director present.

CinemAsia 2025 closes with Fly Me to the Moon,...

Guan Hu’s melancholic tale, Black Dog, seems to be a quiet statement at the festivals this season, trying to make its feeble voice heard amongst the loud clamor around the more prominent contenders. The tale of a man and a dog begins when the dog appears first as a nuisance, then as a golden goose, and finally as the surest companion amidst a rapidly altering face of a sleepy town. The story, almost allegorical in nature, does not rely too heavily on dialogue or conversations.

Spoilers Ahead

What is the film about?

Black Dog opens with the singular act of a passenger minibus being overturned by a sudden ambush of a horde of stray dogs in the Gobi desert. The bus is carrying our protagonist, Lang Yonghui. Recently released from jail, Lang heads back to his hometown on the outskirts of the desert. On his first day back in town,...

Led Zeppelin, if you take in the full measure of their annihilating sunburst grandeur, are a very hard band to categorize. They’re usually thought of as the gods of metal, and few would deny that — though it’s my opinion that the DNA of classic metal owes as much to Black Sabbath’s second album, “Paranoid,” as it does to Zeppelin. That said, Led Zeppelin loomed like figures on Olympus over the entire cosmos of metal: the hard-charging thunder chords and blistering guitar solos, the long-haired priapic strutting, the vocals that scream out their omnipotence, the eroticized vandalism, the power.

Yet I also think of Zeppelin as the Beatles of heavy metal. There was a yin to their destructive yang — the songs they would do, like “Going to California” or “Thank You,” that conjured a vision of life as incandescent and romantic and glorious. The place where the hippie spirit still lived in them.

Jessica Gunning, the standout star from 2024’s Netflix miniseries Baby Reindeer,has been cast in another dark comedic role, per Deadline. The Emmy and Golden Globe winner will join Sir Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings), Michaela Coel (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and James Corden (Cats) in the dark comedy, The Christophersfrom Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh.

The Christophers will begin production later this month in London. It follows the story of the estranged children of a once-famous artist who hire a forger to complete his unfinished works so that they may be discovered and sold after his death. The film’s script is written by Ed Solomon, who collaborated with Soderbergh on No Sudden Move (2021)and the Max miniseries Full Circle (2023).

RelatedSteven Soderbergh on How a Reality Ghost Story Show With Carrie Fisher Inspired His Newest Movie

One of the Oscar-winning director's favorite shows is a ghost-centric reality show...

Jessica Gunning, who recently won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for her standout performance as Martha Scott in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, has joined the cast of a new coming-of-age comedy romance film.

Per Variety, Sunny Dancer will also feature five-time Emmy-award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and BAFTA nominee James Norton (The Nevers). Emmy-nominee Bella Ramseywill star in the film which takes place at a camp for young people who are battling cancer. Louis Partridge (Enola Holmes) and Ruby Stokes (Bridgerton) round out the cast announcements thus far.

Related10 Best American High School Comedy Films, Ranked

The American High School comedy genre has been something that audiences always connect too and will continue to connect with for years to come.

Sunny Dancer was first announced at Cannes 2024 and is the second feature film from British filmmaker George Jaques, who directed and co-wrote 2023’s Black Dog.

Bella Ramsey is set to star in the coming-of-age film Sunny Dancer. The movie follows Ivy, a teenager in remission from cancer. Her spitfire mum and well-intentioned dad insist she attends Children Run Free Camp, a summer retreat for young adults affected by cancer. Ivy scoffs at the camp’s slogan, “Where kids come to kid,” and is more unsettled when a Google search reveals the camp’s cringe-worthy messaging and plastic promotion of smiles and picturesque sunsets. Horrified by what she’s found, Ivy dreads going to what she refers to as “chemo camp.” However, forced smiles and kumbaya-inspired campfire singalongs aren’t the only thing the camp has to offer.

Variety now reports that Neil Patrick Harris, James Norton and Jessica Gunning are now packing their bags to join the campers for the comedy. Their roles are yet to be announced, but the production is set to take off in April.

Five-time Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris, BAFTA nominee James Norton, and recent Golden Globe and Emmy winner Jessica Gunning (“Baby Reindeer”), have joined Bella Ramsey in the upcoming feature “Sunny Dancer.”

First launched in Cannes 2024 and announced by Variety, the buzzy project — the sophomore feature from rising British talent George Jaques (“Black Dog”) — is set to begin principal photography in April. The trio of new additions also join Louis Partridge and Ruby Stokes in the cast.

Embankment has currently pre-sold “Sunny Dancer” to all European and Latin American territories, with True Brit Entertainment planning a wide 2026 U.K. world premiere release. Ken Petrie is producing under his 27 Ten banner with Jaques and his Athenaeum Productions.

Pitched as a “deeply personal, coming-of-age, comedy romance,” “Sunny Dancer” follows Ivy (Ramsey), a young girl who is less than thrilled when forced to attend a summer camp for young people affected by cancer. Ivy...

The Asian Film Awards Academy (Afa Academy or Afaa) announced the nominations for the 18th Asian Film Awards (AFA18) and the Jury President for this year in Hong Kong today.

Thirty outstanding films from 25 countries and regions have been shortlisted to compete for 16 awards at AFA18, which celebrates artistic and technical achievements in Asian cinema. The prestigious lineup of nominees from around Asia includes seven Japanese films: Teki Cometh, Desert of Namibia (Yamanaka Yoko), All the Long Nights, My Sunshine, Happyend (Sora Neo), The Box Man (Ishii Gakuryu) and Black Ox.

Korean auteur Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma received eleven nominations, making it the most nominated film this year. It will compete for Best Film with Yoshida Daihachi’s Teki Cometh, Cannes Grand Prix-winning film All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia), China’s Black Dog (Guan Hu), which was screened in the 37th TIFF Gala Selection, and Hong Kong’s...

South Korea’s Exhuma has topped the field, earning 11 nominations at the 18th Asian Film Awards, followed by Hong Kong’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In with nine nominations.

Hong Kong martial arts legend Sammo Hung will serve as the jury president for the awards, which feature a selection of 30 films from 25 countries and regions, competing across 16 categories. The awards ceremony will take place on March 16 in Hong Kong.

Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, Exhuma gained nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Newcomer, Best Screenplay, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

Adapted from the novel “City of Darkness” by Yuyi, Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In gained nine nominations, including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

South Korean box office hit Exhuma and Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In lead the nominations for the 18th Asian Film Awards, with a jury led by martial arts icon Sammo Hung.

Supernatural thriller Exhuma, directed by Jang Jae-hyun, leads the pack with 11 nods followed by Soi Cheang’s action thriller Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In, which received nine nominations.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Both titles were named in the best film category alongside Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light; Guan Hu’s Chinese drama Black Dog,...

The 18th Asian Film Awards, the region’s leading cinema honors, unveiled its 2025 nominations Friday, with South Korea’s horror hit Exhuma leading the pack with 11 nods. Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, the supernatural thriller melds feng shui and shamanistic traditions in a haunting narrative about an ominous grave. The movie was both a critical favorite and a huge theatrical sensation in South Korea, becoming the country’s highest-grossing film of the year. Alongside its best film nomination, the film earned recognition across several major categories, including best director, best actor for Choi Min-sik and best actress for Kim Go-eun.

The Asia Film Awards will return to Hong Kong on March 16 with a glitzy ceremony at the city’s Xiqu Centre in the West Kowloon Cultural District. This year’s lineup of honorees includes 30 films from 25 countries and regions, spanning 16 competitive categories.

The Hong Kong throwback action epic Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,...

Martial arts legend Sammo Hung has been tapped as jury president for the 18th Asian Film Awards, while South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma” and Hong Kong action pic “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” dominate the nominations.

South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma,” helmed by director Jang Jae-hyun and marking the return of veteran actor Choi Min-sik, leads with 11 nods including best film, director, actor and actress. The film weaves elements of feng shui and traditional shamanism in its story of an ominous grave investigation.

Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness” novel and set in the 1980s Kowloon Walled City, the film is competing for best film, supporting actor and multiple technical awards.

Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness...

Exclusive: Sky has reset its awards team with Charlotte Mardon-Heath upped to become Head of Awards & Original Brands Lead and Elisa Christophe joining this week as Senior Awards Manager across film and TV.

Comcast-owned Sky is coming off hit TV Original The Day Of The Jackal, with Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch, while Kate Winslet-starring feature Lee was BAFTA longlisted in four categories last week including Outstanding British Film and Leading Actress. Redmayne was Golden Globe-nominated.

As we revealed late last year, Lee also became Sky’s best performer at the UK box office.

Mardon-Heath, who joined Sky in 2022 having previously worked at Netflix and Entertainment One, was promoted to lead the awards team late last year and is responsible for setting the overall awards strategy for Sky’s series and films, including campaigning, submissions and talent relations, while continuing to work across original brands for Sky Studios titles.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced on Monday the 207 feature films eligible for Best Picture consideration, two days before voting for the 2025 Oscar nominations begins.

There are 323 feature films eligible for the Academy Awards, but just 207 met the Best Picture competition eligibility requirements.

As stated by the Academy in a press release, “To be eligible for consideration in the general entry categories, under rules implemented for the 97th Academy Awards year, feature films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in at least one of six U.S. metropolitan areas: Los Angeles County; the City of New York; the Bay Area; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; and Atlanta, Georgia, between Jan. 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2024, and complete a minimum qualifying run of seven consecutive days in the same venue. Feature films must have a running time of more than 40 minutes.”

But Best Picture eligibility is different. Films under consideration...

There are 323 feature films eligible for the upcoming Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday, though a whopping 36% of those – 116 feature films – are not eligible for consideration in the Best Picture category.

The discrepancy between films that have qualified for the top category and films that are eligible in other categories comes either because the filmmakers did not attempt to qualify – likely the case for several documentary, animated or international films. Or because of new eligibility rules that require Best Picture candidates to meet additional benchmarks for diversity and inclusion. This is the second year that Representation and Inclusion Standards (Raise) have been enforced, though they did not appear to disqualify any serious contenders in the category.

Among titles excluded from Best Picture consideration are Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” starring Barry Keoghan, Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut “Woman of the Year,” Michael Keaton’s directorial debut “Knox Goes Away,...

Emilia Pérez and Conclave led the British Academy of Film and Television Arts longlist selections on Friday, the first step toward securing BAFTA Awards nominations when the list of official 2025 award contenders is revealed on Jan. 15.

Netflix’s top contender Emilia Pérez landed on 15 longlists — tying a record set by Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front two years ago and Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Barbie last year. Among its mentions were Best Film, Best Film Not in English Language, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jacques Audiard, and four longlist nods for its quartet of actresses — with Karla Sofia Gascon hitting the lead actress longlist and co-stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz all appearing on the supporting actress longlist. The four actresses shared the Best Actress honors at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Emilia Pérez made its debut.

Conclave was second with 14 longlist mentions,...

The BAFTA Film Awards have unveiled this year’s longlists for 25 categories, and in the lead are Jacques Audiard’s rollicking crime drama Emilia Perez and Edward Berger’s craft papal thriller Conclave. Scroll down for the lists in full.

Emilia Perez has landed on the most longlists with 15 nods. This haul includes Best Film, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Not In The English Language, and leading actress for Karla Sofía Gascón. Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña are longlisted in supporting alongside Adriana Paz. The haul of 15 longlist mentions equals the previous record first set by Edward Berger’s war feature All Quiet on the Western Front and matched last year by Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon.

Conclave nabbed 14 appearances on the longlists. This haul includes Best Film, Supporting Actress for Isabella Rossellini, Supporting Actor for Stanley Tucci,...

The British Academy has unveiled the results of the first round of voting across all 25 categories for the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards, with two very different thrillers leading the pack of longlisted features.

Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” a Spanish-language music-thriller that was picked up by Netflix in Cannes, has emerged ahead of the race with slots in 15 categories, including best film, director, leading actress and three in the supporting actress list. Meanwhile “Conclave,” Focus Features’ Papal mystery-thriller from Edward Berger set within the Vatican, has 14, including best film, director and leading actor for Ralph Fiennes.

Further down, a tight pack of films includes “The Substance,” “The Brutalist” and “A Complete Unknown” on 11 lists, “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” on 10 and “Anora” and “Gladiator 2” on nine. All, with the exception of “Gladiator 2,” are on the best film longlist. Ridley Scott’s epic return to the coliseum also missed out...

BAFTA on Friday unveiled its longlists for this year’s film awards with Emilia Pérez, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist and The Substance setting the pace.

Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical tops the longlists (15), including leading actress and supporting actress mentions for Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. Edward Berger’s Conclave follows with 14 nods, including leading actor and supporting actor for Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, respectively.

After that, it’s a three-way tie between Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (11). Sean Baker’s Anora is honored with nine mentions on the longlists, including for lead star Mikey Madison. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are included for their roles in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked, and Timothée Chalamet is among the leading actor list for his performance in A Complete Unknown.

Round two of voting kicks off Friday,...

Image courtesy of Day for Night

As though to provide a measure of solace in a year when the world news could hardly have been more depressing, 2024 has provided far more cinema of quality than has been seen for a very long time. I can come up with no less than twenty-five titles that count as exceptional works, at least half of which are close to perfection. Even so, that does not mean that 2024 has been a year without worries about where cinema is going. The great films are there but how readily can they be seen? This is a time when the range of what is on offer at mainstream cinemas fails to satisfy as many tastes as one would wish, when many films play mainly or exclusively on platforms too numerous for subscribers to embrace all of them and when the number of releases is so high that,...

Netflix quietly released one of the best K-dramas in recent years called Song Of The Bandits in 2023. Netflix is home to many exceptional K-dramas such as its most-watched series of all time, Squid Game, which returns for its highly anticipated second season on December 26, 2024. The rise in popularity of K-dramas and K-pop has produced several global phenomenons in music, film, and television. Some of the K-dramas with the highest budgets are also available to watch on Netflix.

Song Of The Bandits is a historical action western that takes place in the early 20th century. Season 1 of the series spans nine episodes, which were directed by Joon-Jyeok Hwang of Black Dog (2019) acclaim. Song Of The Bandits is set in the tumultuous period of Japanese colonial rule over Korea where a group of people end up in the lawless land of Gando. The Western aspects of the series are some of its most fascinating and immersive qualities.

As part of Apple TV+ and Apple Music’s A Carpool Karaoke Christmas, Chappell Roan and her parents Kara and Dwight joined host Zane Lowe for a special SUV sing-a-long of her song “Pink Pony Club” on Sunday night.

The segment featured Lowe driving Roan and her parents around rural Missouri in an SUV, complete with Christmas decorations strewn about the car. As Lowe played “Pink Pony Club,” Roan and her parents sang along, with the latter two getting emotional — especially during lines that reference her midwestern family.

After the song concluded, her parents discussed its impact. “That song… I love singing it with her at her shows, I love it when you can just see the people respond to that song so much,” commented her mother Kara. “Even when we’re growing up, we really care about what our parents think of us… I hope that’s something that she always knows,...

Exclusive: UTA has inked Chinese filmmaker and 2024 Un Certain Regard Prize winner, Guan Hu, for representation in all areas. 

Guan recently won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for his film Black Dog. The film has since screened at global festivals and has received several accolades. He was also nominated for Best Director at the Gotham Awards and is a nominee for Best International Film at the upcoming 2025 Independent Spirit Awards for the film.

The filmmaker is part of a sixth generation of Chinese directors, has directed and written numerous features including his 2020 war epic The Eight Hundred, which became the highest-grossing live-action film worldwide that year with close to a half billion. His 2015 film Mr. Six not only resonated with Chinese moviegoers, but saw its adaptation rights snapped up by several countries. Other titles include Cow (2009); Design of Death (2012); The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel (2013); and The Sacrifice (2020), among others.

“A Different Man” was named the best independent film of the year at the 2024 Gotham Awards, which took place on Monday night in New York City.

The win for the drama starring Sebastian Stan came as a surprise at the end of a show in which “Nickel Boys” and “Sing Sing” had been the big winners, and in which “Anora” came in with the most nominations but left empty-handed.

In the gender-neutral acting categories, Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin won the lead and supporting awards for “Sing Sing.” Domingo’s category also included Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths” and Mikey Madison for “Anora,” while Maclin’s included Yura Borisov for “Anora,” Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist,” Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain” and Danielle Deadwyler for “Nickel Boys.”

“Nickel Boys” star Brandon Wilson won the award for breakthrough actor, while that film’s director,...

A24’s “A Different Man” won best feature at the 2024 Gotham Awards Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Meanwhile, “Sing Sing” swept the acting categories, with Colman Domingo winning for best lead performance and Clarence Maclin for best supporting performance.

Each category for nominations is decided by a different jury of critics, journalists and other industry professionals, and screening links must be provided to all its jury members. An entirely different group determines the winners. That’s in contrast with the Oscars or the BAFTAs, which are determined by actors, filmmakers and other artists who are in the entertainment industry.

In addition to the nominees, the Gothams bestowed special tributes to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Oscar winner Angelina Jolie (Performer Tribute) for “Maria,” Emmy winner Zendaya (Spotlight Tribute) for “Challengers,” Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold (Visionary Tribute) for “A Complete Unknown,” and the...

When the 34th annual Gotham Awards took place in Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Monday, December 2, the Oscar race officially began. The Gothams traditionally occupy a spot on the awards calendar as the first major film-centric ceremony of the season, giving fans their first opportunity to see the year’s biggest stars on the red carpet. The event also marks awards watchers’ first chance to gauge the state of the race.

The night’s top prize went to “A Different Man,” Aaron Schimberg’s A24 body transformation comedy that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Sebastian Stan as a facially disfigured actor who undergoes an experimental surgery to boost his career, beat out Oscar frontrunners such as Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.” The win could boost the award chances of both Schimberg and his stars Stan and Adam Pearson.

The Gotham Awards red carpet at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City has opened.

Already spotted are Pamela Anderson, Guy Pearce, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Demi Moore, Colman Domingo, Justice Smith, Sebastian Stan and more.

“Anora” leads the Monday night ceremony — considered the unofficial launch of the months-long awards march to the Oscars — with four nominations, including best feature. “Nickel Boys,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers” and “A Different Man” are also vying for the top prize.

The best director race includes Sean Baker (“Anora”), Jane Schoenbrun (“I Saw the TV Glow”), Payal Kapadia (“All We Imagine as Light”), Guan Hu (“Black Dog”) and RaMell Ross (“Nickel Boys”).

The Gothams went genderless for acting awards starting in 2021, so this year’s best lead performance nominees include Demi Moore (“The Substance”), Pamela Anderson (“The Last Showgirl”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), Saoirse Ronan (“The Outrun”), Justice Smith (“I Saw The TV Glow”), Keith Kupferer (“Ghostlight”), Mikey Madison...

The Gotham Awards, honoring the best in American independent films, held their 34th annual event on Monday night, Dec. 2, launching the fall and winter awards season. So who were the big winners? Scroll down for the complete list of 2024 Gotham Awards champs in all categories, updating live throughout the night.

Nominees were decided by panels of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. The winners were then selected by juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors, and others directly involved in filmmaking. Those small juries change from year to year and from category to category, so these awards can produce surprising results.

Telling the story of a young sex worker from Brooklyn who meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, “Anora” led the nominations with four bids including Best Feature, as well Sean Baker for Best Director, actress Mikey Madison for Best Lead Performance and actor...

“Home” is the theme of the 4th edition of the Red Sea Film Festival as it returns to its original location, but in a sleek custom-built venue, in the recently renovated Al-Balad district in Jeddah, a Unesco World Heritage site.

Kaleem Aftab, the fest’s head of international programming, says that home is a fitting theme for this year’s edition since the festival increasingly serves as a key platform for Africa, Arab and Asian cinema, and its impact is now all-year-round through the work of the Red Sea Film Foundation.

“We’re focusing on what we can achieve as a foundation rather than just as a festival,” he explains, adding that 11 of the 122 films screening at this year’s edition have been developed within the Red Sea eco-system, including the opening film, “The Tale of Daye’s Family,” which is a Saudi Egyptian co-production.

“We are the best place...

Honors for and onstage appearances by Viola Davis and Egyptian star Mona Zaki (Perfect Strangers, Flight 404, Aserb: The Squadron, The Spider), Johnny Depp’s new movie as a director and a biopic about Robbie Williams will be part of this year’s Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, organizers said Monday.

They also unveiled the competition lineup for the fest’s fourth edition. Organizers said that the overall lineup features 49 world and international premieres, also highlighting that six female filmmakers will be featured in the competition program.

Among the 15 competition titles announced are Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon, which bowed at the Toronto Film Festival, and Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon, which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival where it won the special jury prize.

The Rsiff on Monday also added several galas to its lineup, plus unveiled its International Spectacular and its Families & Children programs.

Guan Hu’s win in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes this year with Black Dog grabbed headlines — and deservedly so.

One of the true stars of China’s Sixth Generation of filmmakers who emerged in the early 1990s, the 56-year-old Guan has, across the past three decades, found a sweet spot that allows him to balance a career making commercial films that ensure his own financial survival, such as the chest-thumping war epic The Eight Hundred, and far edgier and more personal films that satisfy his creative urges.

Black Dog was a case of the latter, with dark humor framing its gritty tale of an ex-con returning to his rural hometown to start his life again. Guan’s win continued a tradition that dates to the 1990s and has seen the Sixth Generation dominate international festivals — and awards — ever since thanks also to the likes of fellow fifty-somethings Jia Zhangke,...

Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu has been on the move relentlessly in 2024.

In May, his tenth feature as a director, Black Dog, won the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard competition, giving him the highest international honor of his career to date. A few weeks later he premiered another finished film, the pandemic-set character study A Man and A Woman, in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival. By July, he was prepping production on Dong Ji Dao, a big-budget WWII action film that is expected to be released next year. And now, Guan’s Black Dog is in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

A key member of China’s influential sixth generation of film directors, Guan debuted in 1994 with Dirt, a gritty portrayal of the Beijing rock scene in the early 1990s. He has since alternated between well-received low-budget projects, such as the black comedy Cow...

“Anora,” a free-wheeling comedy about a sex worker who becomes entangled with the family of a Russian oligarch, led the Gotham Awards, picking up four nominations, including a nod for best feature.

“Nickel Boys,” the story of two African-American teens who are sent to an abusive reform school, and “I Saw the TV Glow,” a psychological horror film about high schoolers who begin to lose touch with reality, were close behind with three nods apiece.

“Nickel Boys” will vie for best feature alongside “Anora.” Other nominees for the top prize include the erotic drama “Babygirl,” the black comedy “A Different Man” and “Challengers,” a love triangle that unfolds against the backdrop of professional tennis. There were several notable omissions, with critically heralded films like “The Brutalist” and “Conclave” passed over for a best feature nomination. “The Brutalist” did earn two nominations for its star Adrien Brody and for the supporting turn of Guy Pearce.

The Gotham Film and Media Institute announced Tuesday the nominations for the 34th annual Gothams, honoring 39 features and 25 performances across nine award categories. Nominees were chosen by a group of journalist- and programmer-led committees. This is the first major awards body to share nominations for the year in film, and here, the Gothams are led by “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” in the Best Feature category.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Gotham Film and Media Institute executive director Jeffrey Sharp.

Per the Institute, nominees are chosen by committees of film critics, journalists,...