Today, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, SFFILM announced it will present the prestigious Sloan Science in Cinema Prize to Academy Award-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s sci-fi hit movie Project Hail Mary. The Sloan Science in Cinema Prize celebrates the compelling depiction of scientific themes or characters in a narrative feature film and is accompanied by a $20,000 cash prize. The special screening and event will take place at the Premier Theater at One Letterman on Wednesday, October 28 at 6:30 pm. Anne Lai, SFFILM's Executive Director, explained how support from the Sloan Foundation inspires audiences to understand how intimately science and technology influence our lives, both real and imagined.

Over the past two years alone, the three film adaptations of Colleen Hoover’s wildly popular novels have grossed nearly $500 million at the box office, creating a new kind of reliable IP. The characters often have comically unique names (Diem and Ledger in Reminders of Him come to mind) and face dramas that make soap-opera storylines feel realistic, but the escapism in Hoover’s stories has a stronghold over her audience. The film adaptations have similarly found their niche, as It Ends With Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him…

The S.W.A.T. team was out in full force recently to celebrate a show that seems to have nine lives. Since its 2017 debut, the Shemar Moore-led drama has survived cancellation, earned an unexpected eighth season and, after ending its CBS run, found a new home for its next chapter on STARZ, with S.W.A.T. Exiles. Moore is back as Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson, the Los Angeles S.W.A.T. leader he played for eight seasons. In S.W.A.T. Exiles, Hondo’s next assignment puts him in charge of a young team still learning how to work together.

The American Film Institute (AFI) today announced the complete lineup for AFI FEST 2026 presented by Canva, taking place in Hollywood from October 21 to 25. Joining the already announced titles are include Lee Chang-dong’s Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize winner Possible Love; Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden, starring Cannes Best Actress winners Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto; Werner Herzog’s latest Bucking Fastard, starring Kate Mara and Rooney Mara; Andrew Haigh's A Long Winter, starring Fred Hechinger, Kit Connor, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Caitríona Balfe; Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert's…

Early in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest film, Digger, our protagonist, Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), describes the origin story of his unusual name. With an exaggerated Texas twang and a storyteller’s bravado, he points to a golden shovel on the mantel and shares that his grandfather was a fellow oilman who (you guessed it) made their family fortune digging for oil. It’s a comical, if not on-the-nose, detail in Iñárritu’s script that’s befitting of the style of theatrical storytelling he’s aiming for, and yet, it highlights the film’s primary issue. Like other entries in Iñárritu’s filmography (

Netflix has released the first full trailer for the award-winning Spanish hit La Bola Negra, starring starring Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Julio Torres, Oscar winner Penélope Cruz, and 8-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close. La Bola Negra is a bold tapestry spanning nearly a century of Spanish history as it tells the story of three generations of men whose lives are intimately connected through desire, pain, and love in from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. La Bola Negra won Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, the first non-English language film to do so in 15 years.

The Queen of Pop remained on her throne tonight as Madonna walked away from the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards with the most wins for any artist, taking seven trophies, the most in a single night in her career and her first VMA wins since 1999. Madonna famously, or infamously, performed "Like a Virgin" at the very first VMAs in 1984 and even remarked her speech when she won Artist of the Year that most people in the audience probably weren't even born yet.

On episode 174 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter are joined by Awards Watch contributor Trace Sauveur and film critic Jesse Nussman to discuss the next film in their Edward Yang series, A Brighter Summer Day (1991). Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating.

Today, the American Film Institute (AFI) announced I Play Rocky and Ray Gunn will complete the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI FEST presented by Canva. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. AFI also announced that 14th, Ashes, Behemoth!, Bitter Christmas, Bunker, Clarissa, Elsinore, Josephine, The Man I Love, Mouse, Tangles and Wild Horse Nine will be featured in the Special Screenings section. Festival passes, which include the opportunity to access tickets to the Red Carpet Premieres, are available now at 

Today, the American Film Institute (AFI) announced that Academy Award-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller will serve as the Guest Artistic Directors for AFI FEST 2026 presented by Canva. This year’s Guest Artistic Directors Program will include “An Evening with Lord and Miller” which will include a Q&A with the directors followed by a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Saturday, October 24. Additionally, they have curated a selection of films that inspired their work on their most recent hit Project Hail Mary…

After its inaugural year as a new category last season, diving into who will be nominated this year gives us just one example of how the casting branch thought about what makes a nominee and a winner in this new Oscar field. How much did it help us and how much did it make things even harder to predict? Let's work our way backwards a bit. Cassandra Kulukundis won the award for One Battle After Another (and gave an hilarious speech teasing director Paul Thomas Anderson before he started winning his multiple Oscars that night) in what, for some, was seen as a bit of an upset.

Today, SFFILM announced the next special event of its fall film season: Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid. The talk of the Cannes Film Festival, Club Kid was acquired by A24 after a heated battle from multiple studios following its premiere. SFFILM will present the film on a 35mm print on Monday, November 2, at 7:00 pm at The Castro Theatre, with Firstman appearing in person for a post-screening conversation about the film.

Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl will have its World Premiere at the 40th edition of AFI FEST presented by Canva on Thursday, October 22 at the TCL Chinese Theater. Directed and co-written by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon), the film follows four top college football stars — John McLaughry (Nicholas Galitzine), Bob Bauman (Bill Skarsgård), Tony Butkovich (Ray Nicholson)and David Schreiner (Tom Francis) — who set fame aside to enlist in the Marines. Eager to serve, they are immediately pulled out of their idealistic youth and into the violent realities of World War II.

On episode 364 of the Awards Watch podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade, Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello break down the winners and losers of the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festivals, which films rise and fall in the Oscar race, and offer a preview of some of the big titles headed to the New York Film Festival.

Few series this decade have served as better social medicine than HBO’s How To with John Wilson. Targeting topics the average viewer has only thought of in passing, Wilson’s series highlighted an essential truth to life in a time when any straining thought can feel two prompts away from fixing: we have never known so much, and we have never comprehended so little. Level-headed yet unafraid to ponder, non-judgemental and self-aware, Wilson’s style transcends its YouTube docuseries concept because of how formally attuned it is to his personality. He’s fully unpreoccupied by his most direct, awkward sensibilities, allowing him to reflect the honesty and humanity of his subjects.

It all starts with the script. Whether it's an original idea borne from personal experience, a fascinating human story or an adaptation of classic literature, it all begins here. This year's crop of screenplays offers everything imaginable, pulling from real life stories of actors, activists and miscreants to newcomers and previous Oscar winners alike. While tracking closely to Best Picture and Best Director, as we're in a consistent trend of filmmakers writing or co-writing their features, this is also where the screenwriting branch sets itself apart a bit. If they love a directors screenplays, like Mike Leigh, it almost feels like a safe bet to have them in (although this year for Leigh feels on the cusp for some).

On episode 363 of The Awards Watch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson and contributor Griffin Schiller to review the latest film from director Zach Cregger, Resident Evil (2026). You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more. You can also listen on the AW YouTube page. This podcast runs 1h8m. We will be back later this week with an awards temperature check post Venice/Telluride/TIFF and a preview of the 2026 New York Film Festival. Till then, let’s get into it. Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

When Jane Austen was first writing her debut novel, “Sense and Sensibility,” she penned it under the working title “Elinor and Marianne.” Like her best works, the book is an incisive look at marriage as an economic proposition, but, perhaps most importantly, it’s a tale of two sisters and how differently they approach love. There certainly isn’t a shortage of film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, so when it was announced that Georgia Oakley (

La Bola Negra (Netflix) Elsinore (Focus Features) La Bola Negra, the sweeping epic directed by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, has won the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award. The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this summer and won Los Javis the Best Director award, spans 85 years beginning with the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s to 2017 and details a triptych of stories surrounding closeted gay solidiers, the lost final work of Federico García Lorca and a modern day search of gay and trans history once thought buried forever.

Léa Seydoux, Jordan Firstman, Daniel Pemberton, Jack O’Connell, Nadia Stacey Among Honorees The Middleburg Film Festival announced today an initial lineup and select honorees and special guests for its 14th edition, set to run October 15-18, 2026. Launching the four-day festival on Thursday, October 15 is A24’s The Debut, written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg (“A Real Pain”), who will attend with Academy Award winner Julianne Moore for a post-screening Q&A.

Carly Rae Jepsen gets blissfully weird with synth-pop psychedelia on the sprawling, lovestruck Day and Night. Carly Rae Jepsen simply loves to sing about the moment when wanting somebody becomes absolutely unbearable. From handing a near-stranger her number on “Call Me Maybe” to asking a lover to run away with her on (you guessed it) “Run Away With Me,” Jepsen has built an entire career out of treating a crush like it could reroute your entire life, long before Olivia Rodrigo would nearly perfect the form in her own 2026 album.

The supporting categories have always been the spot for multiple nominees from the same film making the cut but this year, with the new Academy rule allowing a single person to be nominated more than once in the same category, has opened up an entirely new line of prediction thinking and in its inaugural year we have more than one chance to see that happen, but will voters go for it? Penélope Cruz is the best bet this season, with top tier performances in both The Invite from earlier this summer and…

While Matt Damon has held the course as one of the few Best Actor contenders with frontrunner status and the fortitude to maintain it, the fall festivals have revealed the likes of Andrew Scott (Elsinore) and John Malkovich (Wild Horse Nine) to play their siren songs to take that crown. Sundance gave us John Turturro in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, angling for his first (!!) career nomination and Cannes hosted a wealth of possibilities with dual Best Actor winners in Coward's Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne, plus Guitarricadelafuente in…

On episode 173 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter discuss the next film in their Edward Yang series, The Terrorizers (1986). Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love.

We're doing something a little different at Awards Watch with Oscar predictions. Very different, actually. If you've been an AW follower for a while, you might remember in the earlier days where it wasn't just me doing the predicting, I had a group, The Gold Rush Gang, along for the ride. After several years of lone wolfing the site's Oscar predictions, I'm bringing the team back together.

While the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival may not have the big, buzzy world-premiere titles of its competing festivals this year — something like Godzilla Minus Zero at the New York Film Festival or the grand slam of Telluride, which surprise-premiered You Can See Everything — you shouldn’t rule the festival out. Across the 250+ films premiering at TIFF this year, there are plenty of new discoveries in its program selections, with films lying in wait to find their audience.

The Old Bailey Court is the heart of the British legal system, hosting trials since Medieval times. In these hallowed halls lined with paintings and busts of old, white, conservatively dressed men, Tessa Ensler (Cynthia Erivo) sticks out like a sore thumb: Short, female, black. To her, the other people in the Court are thoroughbreds–the best around, bred for his milieu–while she is not, despite being in the same place.

NewFest, New York’s leading queer film and media organization, has announced the full lineup for the 38th edition of its annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival, featuring La Bola Negra, Club Kid, Elsinore, and Clarissa, as well and in person conversations with Cynthia Nixon (The Gilded Age), who will be receiving the 2026 Voice & Visibility tribute.

Misty Green is a mess. Let’s start with the titular character. Misty Green (Rosalind Eleazar, Slow Horses) is an Emmy-winning actress who showed strong early promise but has since fallen on hard times. Figuratively, of course, as we first meet her lying on a luxurious bed in an expensive apartment. Misty’s self-destructive behavior, including her drug use, brusque attitude, and affairs, has overshadowed her talent and burned nearly every bridge, leaving her functionally broke and on the cusp of being homeless.

After its rousing world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, the American Film Institute (AFI) announced today that Apple Original Films’ Being Heumann will close the 40th edition of AFI FEST presented by Canva on Sunday, October 25. The biographical drama is directed, produced and co-written by Academy Award winner Siân Heder (CODA, AFI DWW+ Class of 2005) and is an adaptation of Judith Heumann’s memoir, “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.” Led by star Ruth Madeley, and also starring Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo, the cast also includes Dylan O’Brien, Madeline Delp, Rob Delaney, Ray Fisher, Michael Patrick Thornton, Antwan Tolliver, Daniel Durant, Jon Beavers, Roberta Colindrez and Russell Harvard.

The Mill Valley Film Festival has added the West Coast premiere of NAZA, the new documentary film directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by The Guardian and …

When the apocalypse strikes, someone will be in a worse situation than you. This could only be a small solace while virus-infested hordes of acid-spitting, tentacle waving monsters skulk around cor…

Famously prickly author Patricia Highsmith gets the cinematic treatment turned back on herself courtesy of a new film by Anton Corbijn (A Most Wanted Man). Dame Helen Mirren delivers a vicious port…

Remember Rinko Kikuchi? The Oscar nominee for 2007’s Babel is back on the big screen with Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! In this personal, inventive, entertaining film, the grown-up star plays Ha-Chan,…

One night long ago in Harlem, boundary-pushing filmmaker William Greaves gathered as many surviving luminaries he could find from what became known as “The Harlem Renaissance.” He filmed them for n…

It may not be the next Martha’s Vineyard but it’s definitely not cursed. The freshman season of the Apple TV comedy thriller Widow’s Bay dominated the Primetime and Creative Arts …

On episode 172 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter discuss the first film in their Edward Yang series, Taipei Story (1985). Welcome back to Director Watch! On thi…

Telling the story of Rocky’s making means re-creating the essence of the iconic, Best Picture-winning, franchise-spawning film itself. As the film’s depiction of the young, hungry Sylve…

A famous Hadith in the Muslim faith, attributed to Prophet Muhammad, gives writer-director Bassam Tariq’s desperate, spiritual family drama and hit-man action thriller its title, and the foundation…

Is the grass always greener, even in old age? This is the question asked by Kornél Mundruczó’s eleventh feature Place to Be, which opens a little too pointedly with a shot of its 93-year-old star Ellen Burstyn strolling through a graveyard. This offbeat dramedy suggests that, though death is knocking, her character is still looking to find purpose. But finding a sense of direction also proves to be a struggle for Mundruczó and screenwriter Kata Wéber – the director’s longtime collaborator and partner – with their film’s bizarre premise, ambling pace, lazy plot leaps and mismatched characters.

Writer and director Siân Heder is well-positioned to tell the underdog tale of the fight for disability rights in America that encompasses her new film Being Heumann, world premiering at the 51st Toronto International Film Festival. The bones of the classic template for an accessible crowd-pleaser are plainly evident in the story of activist Judy Heumann (Ruth Madeley) and her coterie of fellow disabled reformers, who staged a 28-day sit-in in a San Francisco-based U.S.

The Creative Arts Emmys have been given out, so it’s time to look at what remains at the Primetime ceremony. The Pitt had a big showing at the Creative Arts Emmys, winning the all-important Casting award, which could be the biggest predictor for next week’s ceremony. The medical drama also won awards for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama for Ernie Harden Jr.’s performance, as well as Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. It will be the drama series to beat in all categories at the Primetime show next week, as Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa are sure to repeat last year’s wins.

On episode 362 of the Awards Watch podcast, it's a full house with Awards Watch Editor-In-Chief joined by Executive Editor Ryan McQuade, Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello, contributors Mark Johnson and Jorge Tenreiro, and AW friend and confidante Christina Birro of Pop Culture Confidential, as we break down last weekend's Telluride Film Festival. It was another whirlwind Telluride for the group, with splashy world premieres including Jesse Eisenberg's…

The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that the U.S. Premiere of LAIKA Studios' Wildwood will open the 40th edition of AFI FEST presented by Canva on Wednesday, October 21. The epic stop-motion fantasy is directed and produced by Academy Award nominee Travis Knight, written by Academy Award nominee Chris Butler, based on the novel by Colin Meloy and features cinematography by Academy Award nominee Caleb Deschanel (AFI Class of 1969).

“Why?” That is the question that arises every five minutes or so in Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s new documentary, You Can See Everything. Why did Elizabeth Holmes think it was a good idea to invite a documentary team to film every element of her family’s life about a month before she was set to go to prison? Why did they want Nathan Fielder to live in their guest house for all of this?

The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF49) announced today that director Marie Kreutzer and actor Léa Seydoux will both be honored for their work on Gentle Monster. Kreutzer will receive the Mind the Gap Award for Director, and Seydoux will receive the MVFF Award for Acting. Both will appear in person at MVFF49, running October 1–11 in Marin County, as part of a Spotlight program screening of…

When human life becomes a simple matter of numbers, no number is too high or too low for it to matter. Nazi Germany did that, and in a striking historical parallel, Israel is doing the same in Gaza. When does too much become too much? When will the people realize what they’re doing instead of telling themselves that they were just “carrying out orders”?

Every year, when I return to Telluride, the first thing I look for isn't a movie. It's Ajax Peak. Standing on Colorado Avenue in the early morning hours and looking east toward the mountain towering over the end of the box canyon, I'm reminded why this festival feels different. I've been fortunate enough to visit some beautiful places over the years, but nothing compares to that view.

On the opening night of the 2026 Telluride Film Festival, writer-director Andrew Haigh received the coveted Silver Medallion award, an honor that’s given to artists for their body of work, signaling them to be some of the very important people the festival deems in modern cinema. As per tradition for these medallion festivities, they are presented with the talent, followed by a clip reel of their previous work, and a moderated Q&A before showing the latest project they’ve come to screen at the festival.

The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF), presented annually by the California Film Institute (CAFILM), has revealed the full lineup for its 49th edition, taking place October 1–11, 2026. Hot off its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and stop at Telluride Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine will open the festival, and stars Oscar nominee John Malkovich and Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, who will receive the MVFF Actor Tribute; Peter Farrelly's…