‘I’m Your Man’ Director Maria Schrader on Extending Germany’s ‘Very Earnest Image’ Into Something a Bit Lighter

BEST PICTUREYes, the Motion Picture Academy membership is becoming more international, but the Hollywood guild awards are still the strongest indicators of what will do well with Oscar voters. And those guilds have been reinforcing what we suspected when “The Power of the Dog” premiered in Venice and “Belfast” followed in Toronto.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentIn a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard. “The Worst Person in The World” competed at Cannes where it was acquired by Neon for domestic rights and earned its star Renate Reinsve a best actress award. The critically lauded romantic drama rounds out Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, which began with “Reprise” in 2006 and continued with “Oslo, August 31st” in 2011.

Manchester City have made another big investment in their future by securing new deals for promising academy starlets Oscar Bobb and Josh Wilson-Esbrand.

The BAFTA Film Awards nominations announced this afternoon in London offer up a diverse crop, and the highest number of female nominees on record; they’re also notable for a strong British presence and Will Smith’s first-ever mention.

The results of a successful uncoupling! Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin remained friends after their divorce, and since then, his girlfriend, Dakota Johnson, has been welcomed into the family.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorWith Oscar nominations just around the corner — they’ll be announced on Feb. 8 — pundits wonder if Academy members will embrace a superhero movie by giving a best picture nod to “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”Variety’s film awards editor Clayton Davis wrote in a Dec.

The Television Critics Association’s (TCA) Winter 2022 Press Tour is in full swing, which means many trailers, first looks, and more. STARZ showed off their wares today.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentHere, Variety talks with Fernando León de Aranoa, director of the Javier Bardem-starring “The Good Boss” (“El Buen Patron”), Spain’s Oscar entry, which is a big box office hit on home turf and has scored more Spanish Academy Goya nominations than any other film in history.What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?I feel a mix of joy and responsibility. It means following the steps of some of the greatest Spanish filmmakers who have done it before, being among a group of brilliant directors from all over the world and having the opportunity of showing “The Good Boss” to a wider audience.What’s been the most challenging aspect of your campaign thus far?To make our film visible amidst the strong contenders.

Zack Sharf “John Wick” fans may not have seen the last of Halle Berry’s ex-assassin Sofia, although they certainly won’t be seeing her when “John Wick: Chapter 4” arrives in theaters on May 24, 2023. Berry confirmed in an interview with IGN this week that she is not appearing in the next “John Wick” movie. The Oscar winner made her debut as Sofia in the 2019 sequel “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.” Sofia is an ally of Keanu Reeves’ John Wick and the manager of the Continental Hotel in Casablanca.“Sofia’s not in the next ‘John Wick’ movie,” Berry said, although the character might be getting her own spinoff film.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large**********KEVIN BRAY Succession, “Retired Janitors of Idaho” (HBO)MARK MYLOD Succession, “All the Bells Say” (HBO)ANDRIJ PAREKH Succession, “What It Takes” (HBO)ROBERT PULCINI & SHARI SPRINGER BERMAN Succession, “Lion in the Meadow” (HBO)LORENE SCAFARIA Succession, “Too Much Birthday” (HBO)LUCIA ANIELLO Hacks, “There Is No Line” (HBO Max)MJ DELANEY Ted Lasso, “No Weddings and a Funeral” (Apple TV Plus)ERICA DUNTON Ted Lasso, “Rainbow” (Apple TV Plus)SAM JONES Ted Lasso, “Beard After Hours” (Apple TV Plus)MIKE WHITE The White Lotus, “Mysterious Monkeys” (HBO)BARRY JENKINS The Underground Railroad (Amazon Prime Video)BARRY LEVINSON Dopesick, “First Bottle” (Hulu)HIRO MURAI Station Eleven, “Wheel of Fire” (HBO Max)DANNY STRONG Dopesick, “The People vs. Purdue Pharma” (Hulu)CRAIG ZOBEL Mare of Easttown (HBO)Get the full list here.**********“Cobra Kai” (Netflix) – Seasons 3 and 4“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO) – Season 11“Hacks” (HBO Max) – Season 1“Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu) – Season 1“Ted Lasso” (Apple TV Plus) – Season 2“Dopesick” (Hulu)“Mare of Easttown” (HBO)”The Underground Railroad” (Amazon Prime Video)“WandaVision” (Disney Plus)“The White Lotus” (HBO)See the rest of the nominees here.**********Without fail, the Academy Awards always winds up as one of the top 10 most-watched telecasts of the year in primetime.

Clayton Davis Pencils down, pass your ballots to the front because the Oscar nomination voting is now closed.Speaking to voters over the past week, it’s been relatively clear about what voters like and who they’re supporting in a strong year for film.Nominations will be announced on Tuesday, Feb. 8, and we have the 10 burning questions we want to be answered.There have been three films that have been nominated for 14 Oscars in history — “All About Eve” (1950), “Titanic” (1997) and “La La Land” (2016). We likely won’t see any film get near tying or beating that record.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentIn a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.Valdimar Jóhannsson’s feature debut “Lamb” was acquired by A24 ahead of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Prize of Originality. Starring Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason and Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, the supernatural drama follows a childless couple in rural Iceland who make an alarming discovery in their sheep barn.

EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to the public health documentary The End of Medicine, executive produced by two-time Oscar nominee Rooney Mara and Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital and VOD platforms this summer.

Zack Sharf Thandiwe Newton took a stand against Sean Penn after the actor and filmmaker made headlines for comments about men becoming too feminized in American culture. The “Milk” and “Mystic River” Oscar winner said in an interview with The Independent last week that it’s a “cowardly gene” that leads men to wear skirts.“Dude what are you saying?” Newton wrote on Twitter in reaction to Penn’s comments. “Like for real? You’re a jibbering fool…you used to be sexy but now you’re just tragic.”The “Crash” and “Westworld” star added, “In front of your daughter!? That poor little mite.

K.J. Yossman Saoirse Ronan has been tapped as the lead in “The Outrun,” the memoir of alcoholism and nature from writer Amy Liptrot.“The Unforgivable” helmer Nora Fingscheidt is set to direct.In “The Outrun,” four-time Oscar nominee Ronan stars as recently-out-of-rehab Rona who heads for home in Scorland’s wild Orkney Islands after an absence of over a decade.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorIn a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.In “Great Freedom,” the winner of the runner-up prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Austrian director Sebastian Meise takes an empathetic look at the relationship between two prisoners in a German jail: convicted murderer Viktor (Georg Friedrich), and a gay man, Hans (Rogowski), imprisoned repeatedly over three decades under the country’s homophobic Paragraph 175 statute. The film is Austria’s entry in the International Feature Film category of the Oscars, and is one of 15 films to be shortlisted. What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?It’s incredibly exciting, and personally, I wasn’t expecting it at all.

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Hanks comedy A Man Called Otto is full-steam ahead with filming set to begin next month in on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we can reveal.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorNazi-era drama “The Forger,” starring Louis Hofmann of Netflix’s supernatural series “Dark” and the Oscar nominated “Land of Mine,” has debuted its trailer (below) ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival. Beta Cinema will be selling the film at the European Film Market.Based on a true story, Maggie Peren’s film centers on 21-year-old Cioma Schönhaus, who won’t let anyone take away his zest for life.

Naman Ramachandran In a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.Two of Abner Benaim’s films, documentaries “Invasion” (2014) and “Ruben Blades Is Not My Name” (2018), were Panamanian entries to the Oscars, but his “Plaza Catedral” is the first time a film from the country has been shortlisted. The film, which portrays a violent society with a gulf between the rich and poor, won major awards at the Guadalajara and Panama film festivals.

Clayton Davis It was a big swing for writer and director Mike Mills to cast Joaquin Phoenix in his beautiful drama “C’mon C’mon,” something he didn’t expect he would take on. “I think Joaquin is an incredibly smart and multiple layered person, who will always be surprising,” says Mills.

Zack Sharf Sean Penn doubled down in an interview with The Independent on his belief that “men have become quite feminized.” The two-time Oscar winner generated headlines earlier this month after telling one newspaper, “I am in the club that believes that men in American culture have become wildly feminized. I don’t think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect for women is anything to do with masculinity, or ever did.

There they are! Charlize Theron gave a rare glimpse of her two daughters while wishing her mom, Gerda Maritz, a happy birthday.

As voters across the Academy branches mull over their Oscar nomination ballots, among the films they’re considering are two that deal with the Deaf experience. One, CODA, is the fictional coming of age story of a girl raised by Deaf parents. The other – Audible – tells a coming of age story as well, but this one is real.

have now made their choices for the best film accomplishments of 2021, culminating this week with a day in which the Producers Guild, Writers Guild and Directors Guild all announced their nominations within a few hours of each other.And when the dust cleared, the Oscar race looked pretty much the same way it did before the guilds started announcing nominations.“Belfast?” Check. “The Power of the Dog?” Yep.

It is very rare for a married couple to be nominated for acting Oscars in the same year, but it has happened three times in the past.

West Side Story‘s Steven Spielberg, The Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion, Dune‘s Denis Villeneuve, Licorice Pizza‘s Paul Thomas Anderson and Kenneth Branagh of Belfast have been nominated for the top feature film prize as the Directors Guild unveiled nominations Thursday for its 74th annual DGA Awards.

The Writers Guild of America has penciled in the film nominees for its 74th annual WGA Awards, which will be virtual again this year.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBhutan’s first Oscar entry in 23 years, Pawo Choyning Dorji’s feature debut “Lunana: A Yak in The Classroom” is handled by Samuel Goldwyn Films in North America. The movie follows a young teacher from Bhutan’s capital who dreams of emigrating to Australia to become a singer and instead finds himself assigned to a school in the most remote village in Northern Bhutan, where he unexpectedly bonds with local children and finds happiness.What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar? The shortlisting has meant so much because it’s a historic moment for our little Himalayan Kingdom.

Of all the contenders vying for Best Picture attention at the Oscars this year, no one really had Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home in the mix. Other than the social phenomenon of Black Panther, no comic book film has ever even been nominated, and Academy voters have been seemingly more inclined to nominate small, more independent-style films, to say the least.

Clayton Davis Penélope Cruz is luxuriously refined in “Parallel Mothers,” a performance that has picked up critical acclaim and notable accolades since debuting at Venice. The voting bloc of the international community is a key demographic that pushed last year’s “The Father” from Florian Zeller, another Sony Pictures Classics feature, to perform exceptionally well with the Academy despite significant misses from key guild groups leading to nominations.

The words and characters of Min Jin Lee’s multigenerational novel Pachinko have come to life in the first look images for Apple TV+’s upcoming drama of the same name.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThere has been media debate whether “Spider-Man: No Way Home” could get a best picture Oscar nomination, since voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have been reluctant to celebrate movies in that genre. But describing this as a superhero movie is like saying “The Godfather” is a gangster film. It IS, but it’s much more.The box-office success proves that the film is hitting a nerve with audiences: They needed this film.

Manori Ravindran International Editor“Golda” director Guy Nattiv has joined the Oscar-shortlisted short film “The Criminals” as executive producer.Written and directed by Serhat Karaaslan, a Kurdish director from Turkey, the film centers on a young couple in a small Turkish town looking for privacy. Shortlisted in the live-action short category for the 2022 awards, the film uses genre to discuss the way an oppressive society pushes its civilians to police each other, ultimately turning sex into a subversive act.“The Criminals” is produced by Laure Dahout through her French production company Tiresias Films.

A 'creepy' Currys driver has been fired and dumped by his girlfriend after he was alleged to have sent 'creepy' messages to two separate customer.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAsghar Farhadi, a two-time international Oscar winner for “A Separation” and “The Salesman,” is in the running for a third time with “A Hero,” which marks the Iranian auteur’s return to shooting in his country.It’s a drama about a man named Rahim (Amir Jadidi) who, while on furlough after being imprisoned for debt, returns a lost handbag full of gold coins. This apparently heroic act spirals out of control due to social media, which plays an important part in the pic as it exposes the pitfalls of media manipulation in Iran but also, by extension, the world. The fact that the movie made it up to this stage creates curiosity for audiences to watch the film.

A five-year-old 'loving son and brother' drowned in the bath on New Year's Eve while his mum was wrapping presents in another room, an inquest heard.