Do you hear that? Can you feel it underneath your seat? 2021 finally gave us the chance to return to cinemas, that rare gift where a handful of carefully curated trailers whets our appetites for the year ahead—without having to desperately refresh browser windows with a looming sense of dread with no end in sight. 

READ MORE: The Best Film Posters Of 2021

That’s not to say we’re completely out of the woods, but it’s certainly offered a new sense of gratitude for the very best trailers of the year as we’ve been able to appreciate them the way they should be: big, loud, full of hope and optimism for the wondrous selection of movies this year and the next will have to offer us—wherever we watch them. 

“Licorice Pizza”
The first glimpse of Paul Thomas Anderson’s blissful valentine to the San Fernando Valley was teased in a small handful of cinemas around the world, building anticipation and then crashing into focus all at once—as the revered filmmaker has always done with his work.

Continue reading The Best Movie Trailers Of 2021 at The Playlist.

Iconoclastic Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson (“Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence,” “You, The Living, Songs from the Second Floor”) has been long considered among the world’s top filmmakers, but he’s not the most prolific (just six films and two shorts in five decades). Andersson’s latest — and by credible accounts, the last — film, the bleakly, blackly comic “About Endlessness” (Om det oändliga), justly won Andersson the Silver Lion prize for Direction at the Venice International Film Festival in 2019— the first for a Swedish filmmaker—but it’s been a long, circuitous, possibly-pandemic-related delay in receiving the movie in North America.

Continue reading ‘About Endlessness’: Roy Andersson’s Reportedly Final Existential Statement Mixes Despair & Gentle Absurdism [Review] at The Playlist.

Filmmaker Roy Andersson broke out in a pretty big way with his debut feature in 1970, “A Swedish Love Story.” However, in more than 50 years since that film’s release, the director has only released five more features, including his latest, “About Endlessness.”

READ MORE: ‘About Endlessness’ Trailer: Roy Andersson Presents A Beautiful Peek At His Award-Winning Drama

With Andersson’s “About Endlessness” arriving today, we’re thrilled to present an exclusive clip from the film that showcases what makes his films so unique and interesting.

Continue reading ‘About Endlessness’ Exclusive Clip: Roy Andersson Returns With A New Reflection On Human Life at The Playlist.

Trying to describe the context of images you see in the new trailer for “About Endlessness” is a difficult task. The synopsis of the film (seen below) calls the feature a “reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty.” But one thing is abundantly clear from the footage shown, filmmaker Roy Andersson has crafted a gorgeous piece of art.

Each frame of the trailer (let alone the finished film) for “About Endlessness” could be its own painting.

Continue reading ‘About Endlessness’ Trailer: Roy Andersson Presents A Beautiful Peek At His Award-Winning Drama at The Playlist.

He who laughs last, laughs best, right? That’s probably the case for director Todd Phillips, whose much-anticipated “Joker” had perhaps the most contentious film festival premiere in recent memory. While comic book fans were excited to see an infamous—and, let’s face it, beloved—character receive a prestige treatment, not everyone regarded “Joker” as a joyful combination of populist and auteurist filmmaking. Our own Jessica Kiang was a little skeptical, praising the film while also half-seriously noting that it’s the kind of movie that may inspire “background checks and a mandatory three-day waiting period” at movie theaters across the country.

Continue reading Todd Phillips’s ‘Joker’ Takes Home The Golden Lion At The 2019 Venice Film Festival at The Playlist.

What does it mean to be human in a world that is as dark as it is comedic? There is no one more qualified to ponder the mysteries of imperfect existence than the great filmmaker, Roy Andersson. All of his films speak to the banality of life, while never giving up on the prospect that something more could be lingering just under the surface.

The details and depth of his latest film, “About Endlessness,” carry on the missions that seemed completed as the “Living Trilogy” finally came to fruition.

Continue reading ‘About Endlessness’ Trailer: Acclaimed Filmmaker Roy Andersson’s Latest Is A Kaleidoscopic Odyssey at The Playlist.