Movies

A man deemed an “alien” has his face crushed into the pavement by a masked thug. He’s then renditioned to a top-secret black site prison where he’s tortured. No, these aren’t images from today’s news — it’s from James Gunn’s new take on “Superman.” What this iconic superhero faces in the film indeed reflects reality back to us, not necessarily because Gunn could predict the future, but because he read the tea leaves (or the history books) accurately in the right moment.

It’s 1980 in Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, and a war rages, while a high-stakes election could change this country forever. For 7-year-old Bobo (Lexi Venter), life continues on at her white English family’s rural farm, where she’s grown accustomed to their military escorts for trips to town, and that she’s not allowed in her parents’ bedroom at night, lest they mistake her for a “terrorist” and shoot her.

Between streaming services and superhero blockbusters, the way we watch and think about movies has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. But through that period of upheaval, which films have truly stood the test of time?

Dinosaurs ruled the box office once again this weekend as “Jurassic World Rebirth” hauled in a strong $147.3 million domestically over the five-day Fourth of July period to kick off what industry insiders hope will be an impressive month at movie theaters.

Michael Madsen, the actor who was a staple in numerous Quentin Tarantino films including "Kill Bill" and "Reservoir Dogs," has died. He was 67.

“Jurassic Park” is literally about clones — dinosaurs brought back to life by DNA extracted from mosquitoes preserved in amber — and the many sequels in the franchise are the same thing: iterations upon iterations of the same ideas, genetic mutations either monstrous or awe-inspiring or both, as different filmmakers have tried to capture the magic that Steven Spielberg brought forth with the 1993 original.

Danielle Deadwyler is one of the most captivating screen actors working today, bringing visceral, intense emotion to her performances in “Till” and “The Piano Lesson,” and elevating schlocky genre fare like “The Woman in the Yard” and “Carry-On.” But not even Deadwyler can save the dystopian action-horror film “40 Acres,” despite her Herculean efforts. The feature directorial debut of music ...

Thieves broke into a Los Angeles home owned by Brad Pitt on Wednesday and ransacked the actor's abode while he was out of town, according to law enforcement sources.

Lalo Schifrin, the Grammy-winning composer who brought a jazzy, pulsating immediacy to dozens of film and TV scores - most memorably the “Mission: Impossible” theme - and who chose a radical absence of music to supply tension in the exhilarating car-chase scene in “Bullitt,” died June 26 at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 93.

Any technology we don’t fully comprehend we turn into horror, a truism that reaches back to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (medical science) and ahead to “The Ring” (VCRs). Of late, the bogeymen have been AI and robotics, so we get movies like “Ex Machina” and villains like the Entity in the “Mission: Impossible” movies.

If you’ve ever swum in the ocean, chances are this thought has entered your mind: Could there be a shark down there?

Halfway through “28 Years Later,” our young hero, Spike (Alfie Williams) learns a new phrase: “Memento mori,” Latin for “remember death.” In a world bound by death – borders and culture defined by it – one would be hard-pressed to forget. But for Spike, just 13 years old, the phrase becomes a lesson that to honor death, even in a circumstance where death, dying and the undead are ubiquitous, is to honor life itself. Funerary rites serve a purpose: to celebrate life while we acknowledge death.

The new Pixar animated film “Elio” takes up a question famously posed by astrophysicist Carl Sagan: “Are we alone?” It’s in reference to the search for extraterrestrial life, but the idea, according to Sagan, is “the deepest of human concerns.” It’s a question both existential and intimate; galactic and earthbound. It dictates our day-to-day experience and our wildest dreams, motivating our every action and reaction. For our hero, Elio (Yonas Kibreab), the worry that he might be entirely alone on Earth is what spurs his desire to look for community elsewhere – in the stars.

When looking back at the impact of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” which premiered in theaters on June 20, 1975, it’s easy to focus on the financial.

LOS ANGELES — “Spaceballs 2” is incoming, director Mel Brooks confirmed Thursday on social media, 38 years after the original “Spaceballs” crashed onto the space-opera scene. Hey, what’s a few decades between friends, amirite? Given that three-quarters of the current moviegoing audience was not even born 38 years ago, a person might wonder why they should care about a “Spaceballs” sequel. ...

Whenever any novel, movie or miniseries deals with some sort of mystery involving a missing person, the name Harlen Coben tends to come up.

Sealed with a kiss? How about a handshake instead. That’s how Lucy (Dakota Johnson) prefers to do business when it comes to matters of the heart, whether breaking up or making up. As a professional matchmaker, she approaches every potential connection as a deal to be made — people as balance sheets to be weighed, equations to be solved. If only the math were as simple as she believes it is.

Blake Lively was beaming as she posed for photos at a Tribeca Festival event Monday, hours after a New York judge dismissed Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against the actress.

 For more than a quarter century, director Kevin Smith has tried to resurrect "Dogma," his religious satire about two fallen angels looking to get back into heaven. Recently, his prayers for the 1999 comedy were finally answered.