24 h. ago ‘Visceral, sensual wonders’: why The Talented Mr Ripley is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers detailing their most rewatched comfort films is a reminder of Anthony Minghella’s starry, sad and sinister 1999 thrillerSixteen is a great age to see a movie, there on a threshold between wide-eyed wonder and something like maturity. That’s how old I was when I first laid eyes on The Talented Mr Ripley, Anthony Minghella’s ravishing, exquisitely grim 1999 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s flinty 1955 novel. I’d been a movie fan for years at that point, but something about its elegant menace, its beauty flecked with blood, grabbed ahold of me like little had previously. It is by no means a feelgood film, this story of queer longing and loneliness giving way to murderous deed. But watching it now (as I do perhaps embarrassingly often) still evokes the primal thrill of art cracking open a young mind.Minghella, who died in 2008, was a master of style, crafting wholly credible visions of the past. His prowess is perhaps best on display in Ripley, whic...

Politics

5 d. ago Twilight fans 'crying' over cryptic update 12 years after last film

The official Twilight social media accounts have shared a cryptic update

Politics

5 d. ago Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?

When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs. But is there a happy ending?When the annals of 2025 at the movies are written, no one will remember The Electric State. The film, a sci-fi comic-book adaptation, is set in a world in which sentient robots have lost a war with humans. Netflix blew a reported $320m on it, making it the 14th most expensive film ever made. But it tanked: though The Electric State initially claimed the No 1 spot on the streamer, viewers quickly lost interest. Today, it doesn’t even feature in the company’s top 20 most viewed films, a shocking performance for its most expensive production to date. It became just another anonymous “mockbuster”, crammed with the overfamiliar, flashy signifiers of big-screen film-making: a Spielbergian childhood quest, a Mad Max post-apocalyptic wasteland, Fallout-style retro-futuristic trimmings.Another way of classif...

Technology

5 d. ago Does buying a film digitally mean you actually own it? | J Oliver Conroy

A new lawsuit aimed at Amazon questions the legitimacy of the word ‘buy’ when it comes to owning a movie on your devicesA possible class-action lawsuit against Amazon Prime, one of the world’s biggest platforms for streaming film and television, has raised an odd question: what does it mean to buy something?The proposed lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court and first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, alleges that Prime’s practice of offering users the chance to “buy” (as opposed to “rent”) content is inherently deceptive. The suit argues that buying something implies perpetual possession – but that Amazon, like many other streaming services, is really just selling its customers viewing licenses that can be revoked at any time, in keeping with fine print that most customers do not read or understand. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Think you actually own all those movies you've been buying digitally? Think again | J Oliver Conroy

New lawsuit aimed at Amazon questions the legitimacy of the word ‘buy’ when it comes to owning a movie on your devicesA possible class-action lawsuit against Amazon Prime, one of the world’s biggest platforms for streaming film and television, has raised an odd question: what does it mean to buy something?The proposed lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court and first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, alleges that Prime’s practice of offering users the chance to “buy” (as opposed to “rent”) content is inherently deceptive. The suit argues that buying something implies perpetual possession – but that Amazon, like many other streaming services, is really just selling its customers viewing licenses that can be revoked at any time, in keeping with fine print that most customers do not read or understand. Continue reading...

Economics

6 d. ago Netflix ‘moving forward’ with sequel to their biggest movie ever after smashing four

Netflix fans’ biggest wish of summer 2025 has come true as a sequel the streamer’s biggest movie ever is moving forward

Events

6 d. ago ‘A movie star turn of the highest calibre’: we were wrong about Mother! – and Jennifer Lawrence

By the end of the 2010s, audiences soured on Lawrence as quickly as they’d fallen in love with her. But her performance in this much maligned film is utterly fearlessFind more from our Stream team series hereNo actor defined the 2010s more than Jennifer Lawrence. Less than halfway into the decade, at the age of 22, Lawrence had won the hearts of audiences as the hero Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, and a best actress Oscar for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook (famously tripping en route to accept it). She was bold, beautiful, brash and inescapable; her self-deprecating humour paired with megawatt talent made her a Messiah for millennials – until she wasn’t.By the decade’s midpoint, the internet seemed to sour on Lawrence as quickly as they’d fallen in love with her. Her foot-in-mouth disease began to offend instead of charm, and her dominance in the media teetered into overexposure. “I just think everybody had gotten sick of me,” she later reflected in 2021. “I’d got...

Politics

8 d. ago Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing review – candy

A garbled story of metaverse musicians based on a mobile game leaves its audience little to grasp hold ofEven by the standards of franchise anime that caters to the faithful and drops newcomers in blind, this is particularly incomprehensible. Based on the mobile game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, it features a barely characterised blur of wannabe musicians and actors who ascribe Manhattan Project importance to writing syrupy J-pop. As they interact with virtual counterparts in metaverses called “Sekai” created from users’ emotions, the film is like The Matrix if Neo had huffed a nitrous oxide canister before having every edition of Pop Idol downloaded into his cranium.One of the virtual pop stars, a rogue version of Hatsune Miku (voiced by Saki Fuijta), keeps invading high-school kids’ mobile phones and flatscreens, begging for help. Apparently issuing from a Sekai created by the emo angst of everyone about to give up on their creative ambitions, she is hoping to connect with these...

Politics

8 d. ago Disney+ confirms Marvel's Thunderbolts* streaming release date

Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan star as the dysfunctional New Avengers in this Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster.

Economics

8 d. ago ‘I would not feel safe’: Americans on the sorrow – and relief – of leaving Trump’s US for Europe

As relocation firms report a surge in inquiries, US citizens who have made the move talk about why they left – and what they think could happen back homeThe scramble began in November as news broke that Donald Trump had been re-elected. Benjamin and Chrys Gorman had long said they would leave the US before seeing Trump inaugurated again, giving them exactly 76 days to sell their home, cars and most of their belongings and move four people, three dogs and two cats to Barcelona.“I was saying: we’ve got more time than that, it won’t go that fast,” said Gorman. “My wife said no, we need to be out of here – not just on inauguration day, but a few days before. And she was so right.” Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Obsession, blackmail and Instagram: inside Lurker, the year’s most compelling thriller

The Talented Mr Ripley gets an upgrade in a buzzy and biting film about a desperate outsider who infiltrates the inner circle of a singer on the riseIf Tom Ripley lived in LA in 2018 and was really into lo-fi bedroom pop, he might look something like the main character of Lurker. The debut feature from Alex Russell, The Bear and Beef writer-producer, is an elegantly creepy thriller about one super-fan’s scheme to become close to his musical idol, transposing author Patricia Highsmith’s “two-man theme” into a murkier grey territory, with parasitic attachment giving way to co-dependence that blooms into something that looks like a twisted kind of love.The lurker of the title is Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), an isolated twentysomething who lives with his grandma and works shifts at a local vintage boutique to make ends meet. After a chance run-in with his idol Oliver (Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe) at the vintage store where he works, Matthew worms his way into Oliver’s entourage and makes ...

Politics

1 week ago Eenie Meanie review – middling comedy thriller has its moments

Ready or Not’s Samara Weaving is a getaway driver tasked with saving her dirtbag ex in a slick yet inconsequential caperBack in the 2000s or early 2010s, a film like Eenie Meanie would have been a late summer theatrical play, a mid-budget star vehicle with enough genre elements to hopefully lure back the blockbuster crowd. There are car chases and shootouts with absurdly attractive people in the middle of them and recognisable “that guy from” faces surrounding. But even back then it would have been a gamble without an A-lister attached, the film probably going the way of the many non-Fast & Furious car flops like Driven, Speed Racer, Drive Angry and Need for Speed.Now, it’s a much more obvious, and far safer, fit for streaming, with Disney wisely nudging this one to a Hulu/Disney+ premiere. Eenie Meanie still has the feel of something that was once on a bigger screen, though, with a reported $50m budget edging it above many of the season’s multiplex offerings (more than say Weap...

Politics

1 week ago Previously unheard Beatles tracks to accompany new Peter Jackson documentary episode

Songs announced as ‘The Anthology’ series, long-hailed as the definitive documentary about the Fab Four, is set to stream exclusively on Disney+

Politics

1 week ago ‘Good energy’: Eveliina Summanen backs Spurs surge after manager change | Moving the Goalposts

Midfielder on Martin Ho, taking steps forward with the London club and playing for Finland at Euro 2025When Eveliina Summanen joined Tottenham from the Swedish side Kristianstad in January 2022, everything changed for her. The 27-year-old knew she was coming to a league with ambition, a league increasingly catching the attention of the best European talent, and a league that stood to benefit from a home European Championship that would catapult interest and growth further.“At Spurs I got enough support and time to kind of grow into things,” Summanen says. “I wasn’t just thrown into the deep end right away. I got the right support, right help on and off the pitch to get to where I am now. It didn’t just happen overnight, I just slowly, slowly kept building and that’s still what I want to do, keep taking steps forward.”This is an extract from our free email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is back to its ...

Politics

1 week ago Hollywood actors Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett set to join Rivals cast for upcoming second series as filming begins for Disney+ drama

Filming for the next instalment began in May, with stars such as Danny Dyer and Emily Atack sharing a behind-the-scenes insight from Disney+ set.

Culture

1 week ago The Map That Leads to You review – sugary Amazon romance works best as travelogue

Rising star Madelyn Cline is a charming lead in an unusually glossy streaming weepie that leads to overfamiliar territoryA book-loving American woman in her 20s decides to spend time in Europe before she settles into the safety of a finance job in New York City, but she ends up falling for a man who is harbouring a tragic secret about his future. She’s played by an in-house Netflix star, he’s played by a non-American actor known for his role in a hit TV show. The film is based on a novel and is premiering on a streaming platform this month. While this might not be dramatically similar enough to become a Dante’s Peak/Volcano situation, it’s hard not to watch Amazon’s The Map That Leads to You, out this week, and frequently think about Netflix’s loosely similar My Oxford Year, released at the start of August.What immediately separates the two, and often separates Netflix and Amazon movies in general, is the aesthetic. My Oxford Year is every bit a TV movie while The Map That Leads to ...

Politics

1 week ago Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest rages against the new but leaves him looking too old

The film-maker’s ‘reinterpretation’ of the Kurosawa crime drama rails against AI, online media and new hip-hop but can’t find much new to say“We’re jazz musicians,” the director Spike Lee recently said of his working dynamic with Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest, a new crime thriller that marks the fifth collaboration between the two Oscar winners. “We respect Julie Andrews singing My Favorite Things, but when John Coltrane did it, you know, or when Miles [Davis] did his standard of My Funny Valentine, it’s a different thing.”The metaphor is no throwaway. Since Lee’s breakout on to the cultural scene in the 1980s, the Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-made auteur has been at pains to style himself as an outgrowth of old school storytelling traditions even as critics tarred him as a new-school disrupter. From She’s Gotta Have It to Chi-Raq, Lee has made the extra effort to venerate the athletes, artists and thinkers who have shaped his distinctly analog worldview. Highest 2 Lowest was mean...

Politics

1 week ago Disney+ confirms free streaming date for 'Marvel's best movie in years'

Marvel fans say this comic book blockbuster is their best movie in years and soon you'll be able to stream it at no extra cost

Politics

1 week ago Disney+ sets free streaming date for Marvel’s ‘best movie of 2025’

Marvel fans say this blockbuster was their best movie of 2025 and you’ll soon be able to stream it at no extra cost

Politics

2 w. ago What year is Alien: Earth set? Where Disney+ series falls in the Alien timeline explained

Alien: Earth expands on the hit space horror series like never before, but when is it set compared to the Alien films?

Politics