Movies
Samuel L. takes to provocative roles with attitude
Andrew Purcell Best known as Quentin Tarantino's leading man, high-grossing actor Samuel L. Jackson almost didn't get the part that changed his life.
Latest reviews All the latest movie reviews
Spotlight
PAUL BYRNES True story of The Boston Globe's investigation into child sex abuse by Catholic Church a worthy Oscar contender.
Carol
PAUL BYRNES An immaculate movie in which Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara take us inside a story of desire and retribution that's both satisfying and disturbing.
The Hateful Eight
JAKE WILSON The new Tarantino conjures up a western, a murder mystery and a horror film.
The Big Short
JAKE WILSON For all its liveliness, it can be heavy going: the dialogue remains weighed down with jargon, and the storytelling gimmicks distract more than they clarify.
Goosebumps
CRAIG MATHIESON It may not inspire the nightmares R.L. Stine's novellas can still elicit from young readers, but its commentary on creation and cause is bang up to date.
Cemetery Of Splendour
PHILIPPA HAWKER Set in a hospital for soldiers suffering from sleeping sickness, this Thai film blurs the boundaries between waking and sleeping, dream and memory.
The Revenant
JAKE WILSON Birdman director's latest is a star vehicle that assumes our willingness to take the suffering of the white male protagonist more seriously than anything else.
Sisters
CRAIG MATHIESON Inspired comic chemistry from frequent collaborators Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Point Break
SANDRA HALL Remake of the famous action movie is in the same vein, but comes with a few modern embellishments.
All movie stories
Looking for Grace: sadness, comedy and the spaces between
PHILIPPA HAWKER 7:02pm Looking For Grace is about space, quiet and mystery, about what's said and unsaid, revealed and concealed, a measured embrace of the bleak and the comic.
Disney princesses outspoken by males in Frozen, The Little Mermaid, research shows
AAP 12:01pm Female characters in the new wave of Disney animated films are being significantly outspoken by the men, research has found.
Abe Vigoda, best known for The Godfather and Barney Miller, dead at age 94
7:57pm Abe Vigoda, best known for The Godfather, died on Tuesday after spending three decades jokingly refuting rumours of his demise.
Filmmaker forces UK censorship board to sit through 607-minute film of paint drying
NICK MILLER 10:53am The disgruntled director revealed that 'to my great shame, I have not watched the film in its entirety'.
Le Tigre
Heidi Klum almost steals spotlight from Ben Stiller at Zoolander No. 2 premiere
Amy Croffey Zoolander No. 2 has a star-studded cast, and the purple carpet for the Sydney premiere at the State Theatre on Tuesday was no different.
Ben Stiller reveals sadness behind selfie-laden Zoolander sequel featuring Justin Bieber, Anna Wintour and more
SARAH THOMAS Famous names are lining up again to join the fashion-focused sequel - but there's a tragic twist in Zoolander 2's creation.
Still in hospital
Molly Meldrum has a dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs after fall
An update on the music industry icon's condition shows how serious his fall in Thailand was.
'Profoundly immoral'
Short Cuts: Australian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour hits out at Hollywood war porn
GARRY MADDOX A new film set in Afghanistan aims to answer the likes of American Sniper and Zero Dark Thirty.
'Do white people not think?'
Brief social media storm sees Kristen Stewart wrongly branded racist
The Twilight star's comments on gender diversity were initially reported as being about the hottest topic in Hollywood - diversity.
All a-Bard!
Ian McKellen to host London bus tours for Shakespeare film season
Eminent thespian and star of TV and film Sir Ian McKellen has landed perhaps the strangest role yet of his stellar career - hosting a series of literary bus tours of London.
Best sex-free first date
When Barack met Michelle: warm reviews for movie Southside With You about their romantic first date
GARRY MADDOX An American filmmaker has charmed with a romance about the future US president falling for his wife over a meeting, a movie and ice-creams in Chicago.
Anu Singh breaks silence ahead of release of film Joe Cinque's Consolation
A former ANU law student who drugged and killed her boyfriend has criticised the makers of a film documenting her case.
The Big Short tops Producers Guild of America Awards
The Big Short has suddenly got serious momentum heading into the home stretch of the Oscars race.
Dead weird
Sundance 2016: Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe stars in Swiss Army Man as farting corpse
NICK GALVIN A bizarre indie film starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse with supernatural powers that turn him into a flatulent jet ski has left audiences at the Sundance Film Festival perplexed.
Oscars: Academy pledges to double its membership of women and minorities by 2020
Piya Sinha-Roy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces ambitious plan that includes stripping some older members of voting privileges.
Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling: Diversity outcry is 'racist to whites'
Kelly Lawler Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling is adding her views to the growing controversy about the Oscar nominations, claiming that the campaign to boycott the February 28 ceremony is, in fact, racist to white people.
Oz so white? Diversity on Australian screens
PHILIPPA HAWKER It's not only in Hollywood that non-white faces barely get a look in on big and small screens.
Mad Max, Katniss Everdeen, Fallout 4 and the lure of the apocalypse
Jake Cleland In books, on film and on gaming consoles, dystopia is the new utopia: we just can't get enough of the bad times. Is life really that good?
Review: The Danish Girl is "an exercise in constructed melodrama"
PAUL BYRNES The Danish Girl is as purposefully constructed as its subject.
Spotlight: a brilliant film with such explosive subject matter it died several deaths before being made
STEPHANIE BUNBURY Spotlight’s scandalous subject matter – the sexual abuse of children by priests – meant it had a long, difficult gestation.
Our pick of what's showing on the big screen
JAKE WILSON An Andy Warhol classic, an Australian classic or a classic Mad Max on offer.
Marvel anti-hero
Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds wishes a happy Australia Day
Actor Ryan Reynolds has taken a friendly swipe at Hugh Jackman and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Michael Keaton moved by his role in Spotlight
Helen Pye The actor plays the leader of a team of reporters who exposed widespread child abuse in the Boston Catholic Church.
#OscarsSoWhite: Will Smith won't attend awards but says it's 'so deeply not about me'
JOSEPHINE TOVEY The unprecedented backlash against the film awards continues to grow in the US.
Why Odessa Young, star of Looking for Grace and The Daughter, is one to watch
STEPHANIE BUNBURY Odessa Young already has two films under her belt and has already had two nights on the red carpet at Venice, at only 17.
Australian films hit new heights at box office
AAP It would be pretty hard not to indulge in the Australian films of 2015 with movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dressmaker and The Water Diviner hitting the big screens.
The 'dirty' truth about road trip movies like Dirty Grandpa
Bryan Alexander Road trip movies are back and getting cruder, though there are occasional quirks.
Script rewrites
The next Star Wars film release delayed by seven months to December 2017
Disney has announced that the release of the untitled second film in the third Star Wars trilogy, episode VIII, will be delayed by seven months.
Buying votes
Oscars 2016: How million-dollar campaigns decide who walks away with the statue
EBONY BOWDEN Ever wondered what it takes to win an Oscar? A new report says it's expensive schmoozing which helps movies get over the line.
Bumper crop
Australian box offices enjoy biggest year ever in 2015
PHILIPPA HAWKER It's official. Last year was not only the biggest year at movie box offices in Australia, it was also the best year for local films.
Woeful
The Ridiculous Six review: lazy, racist and woeful pastiche of westerns
Brad Newsome Even 12-year-old boys would have to concede that the jokes in this Adam Sandler abomination are too stupid for the schoolyard, let alone a Netflix original movie.
Feminist icon
Wonder Woman: sneak peek at her first ever film
PETER VINCENT It's taken 75 long years to bring Wonder Woman to the big screen, but the first release of footage from her big screen debut suggests a film rich enough to forgive the shocking oversight.
Competition
Irrational Man: win a new TV and a DVD pack
Fairfax Media and Entertainment One are giving you the opportunity to win a brand new Samsung TV to mark the release of Woody Allen's latest movie on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital HD.
Columns
Simon Baker closes in on cast for Breath, his Tim Winton movie
Simon Baker is close to casting the two central roles of thrill-seeking teenage surfers in his film adaptation of Tim Winton's novel Breath.
Why Hollywood movies are so bad
Hollywood has abandoned high-quality, artistic drama in favour of big-budget, action-based, computer-generated, cookie-cutter movies featuring robots, men in capes, and giant scary machines.
Trailers
Joy
The true story of the woman who rises to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business dynasty.
Hail Caesar!
A Coen brothers comedy about the kidnapping of the star of a 1920s movie, and the Hollywood 'fixer' sent to retrieve him.
Born To Dance
An ambitious young man from Auckland dreams of being a professional hip-hop dancer.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (trailer 3)
Director JJ Abrams picks up the story 30 years after the events of episode VI (film three, 1983's Return of the Jedi).
Downriver
Release from prison, James tries to find the body of the boy he was accused of drowning, for his sake and that of the boy's grieving mother.
The Daughter
A man returns to his hometown after a long departure and discovers the costs of uncovering deeply-buried family secrets. The Daughter opens in Australian cinemas on March 3, 2016.
The Hateful 8
In post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunters try to find shelter during a blizzard but get involved in a plot of betrayal and deception.
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
Three scouts and lifelong friends join forces with a cocktail waitress to become the world’s most unlikely team of heroes when their peaceful town is ravaged by a zombie invasion.
The Crow's Egg
Two children from the slums of Chennai, India go to extreme lengths to taste some pizza.
The Finest Hours
The remarkable true story of the greatest small boat rescue in US Coast Guard history.
Our Brand Is Crisis
Feature adaptation of a documentary about the use of American political campaign strategies in South America.
Point Break
A young FBI agent infiltrates a team of thrill-seeking athletes suspected of carrying out a spate of daring crimes.
A Month of Sundays
One night Frank Mollard gets a phone call from his mother. Nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from the fact that she died the year before.
