TORONTO – The more you consider Nick Hamm’s “William Tell,” a gala world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, the more you realize how utterly wild it is. Set in 1307, it centers on a legendary archer, the title character (Claes Bang), and chronicles how this humble farmer in the Swiss Alps became a symbol of resistance against an evil Austrian kingdom. Like Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s Cannes premiere “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which was a crowd-pleaser in French cinemas this summer, it’s also a throwback to a style of big studio filmmaking that audiences haven’t experienced consistently since the ’90s.

Continue reading ‘William Tell’ Review: A Swiss Folk Hero Gets The ’90s Throwback Epic Treatment [TIFF] at The Playlist.

Think about the worst guy you know. What about the second-worst guy? Keep this up for a while longer, then combine them all, and you might start to get a mental picture of the world-class jerk at the center of “Bad Sisters.” The new Apple TV+ series from “Catastrophe” co-creator Sharon Horgan is about a man who’s so off-putting and manipulative that when he meets his maker earlier than expected, the question isn’t who would want him dead, but who wouldn’t?

Continue reading ‘Bad Sisters’ Review: Sharon Horgan’s Latest Is A Frank, Darkly Funny Show About Family And Murder at The Playlist.

It’s not a hot take to say that times were tough for certain groups of people in the 1930s, especially in Europe. And in the new film, “The Affair,” we see how the state of the world during that time leads to an illicit love that threatens to destroy peoples’ lives.

READ MORE: ‘Night Of The Kings’ Trailer: Philippe Lacôte’s Festival Standout Arrives In Theaters In February

As seen in the trailer for “The Affair,” the story focuses on the friendship between two women in 1930s Czechoslovakia.

Continue reading ‘The Affair’ Trailer: Claes Bang & Clarice Van Houten Star In This Drama About Illicit Love In The 1930s at The Playlist.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage, and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This biweekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

Two potentially major productions caught in the wheels of the lockdown hit disc and (reasonable) VOD this week, alongside a Sundance doc on Apple TV+,  a lovely new musical bio-doc, and the usual bushel of marvelous catalog titles from Criterion, Warner Archive, and Kino-Lorber.

Continue reading The 13 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘The King of Staten Island,’ ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy’ & More at The Playlist.

Does anything good happen when a seemingly happy couple moves into a beautiful home in the countryside? If films are anything to base your ideas off of, every time someone buys a new home, it’s either haunted and/or brings nothing but misery to its new occupants. And though “The Bay of Silence” isn’t a horror film, in the strictest sense of the word, the new thriller is pretty terrifying as it shows a couple’s fight with trauma, secrets, and lies.

Continue reading ‘The Bay Of Silence’ Trailer: Claes Bang & Olga Kurylenko Go A Bit Mad In Their New Countryside Home at The Playlist.

The upcoming post-WWII thriller “The Last Vermeer” (formerly titled “Lyrebird“) aims to put a different spin on the typical film in this subgenre. Instead of just focusing on the crimes of the Nazis during WWII, the new film instead turns the focus on a piece of art and how the Nazis gained control of it.

READ MORE: ‘The Painted Bird’ Trailer: Director Vaclav Marhoul Tells A Story Of Hope In The Face Of The Holocaust

“The Last Vermeer,” as the title suggests, follows the true story of a painting discovered by a soldier who is going through the artifacts left by the Nazis.

Continue reading ‘The Last Vermeer’ Trailer: Claes Bang, Vicky Krieps & Guy Pearce Star In This Post-WWII Thriller at The Playlist.

There is a point in Giuseppe Capotondi’s film, “The Burnt Orange Heresy,” where the film turns from what seems to be a tale of a torrid romance between an American woman and an ambitious art critic into a thriller/heist film about priceless art. And that shift in tone and plot is perfectly shown in the new trailer for the film.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Movies Of 2020 We’ve Already Seen

As mentioned, “The Burnt Orange Heresy” is a film that follows an art critic that finds himself in a brand-new love affair that quickly gets interrupted by an art dealer and the quest to steal a priceless painting from a reclusive artist.

Continue reading ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy’ Trailer: Claes Bang & Elizabeth Debicki Attempt To Steal A Painting at The Playlist.

Remember the age of TV when you basically had breaks every now and then between debuts of huge, highly-anticipated series? Well, those days are long gone as the era of Peak TV rules all and with that, a never-ending flood of TV shows that your friends, family, and co-workers will swear that “you must watch!” We’re barely a few days into 2020 and Netflix has the latest series to fit that bill — “Dracula.”

“Wait, Dracula?

Continue reading Final ‘Dracula’ Trailer: The Legendary Vampire Returns This Week On Netflix at The Playlist.

Actor Claes Bang is busy prepping for the launch of his “Dracula” re-imagining coming to Netflix and BBC in 2020, but that doesn’t mean he’s not also getting other projects on his slate. And for film fans, even if “Dracula” turns out to be a huge hit and a great series, the most exciting thing on Bang’s schedule for the new year has to be “The Northman.”

According to Deadline, Bang is the latest actor to join the upcoming film “The Northman,” which is co-written and directed by Robert Eggers.

Continue reading Claes Bang Joins The Cast Of Robert Eggers’ Upcoming Viking Revenge Film ‘The Northman’ at The Playlist.

Ripping off fingernails is always unsettling. The same with extreme close-ups of bloody red meat and a fly crawling on someone’s eyeball. Obviously, if you’re trying to freak people out in a trailer, these are the types of images you show. And that’s exactly what Netflix has done in the new teaser for its upcoming “Dracula” series.

This new take on Bram Stoker’s classic tale comes from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the two men responsible for coming up with a great reimagining of Sherlock Holmes in the BBC drama “Sherlock.” And if the new teaser for “Dracula” is any indication, the guys are taking their unique viewpoint and putting it through a horror lens, creating a series that aims to tell the classic story of Count Dracula, but with the style and creativity that was shown in “Sherlock.” And yes, it looks pretty scary.

Continue reading ‘Dracula’ Teaser: Netflix Teams With ‘Sherlock’ Creators For A Disturbing Take On Bram Stoker’s Tale at The Playlist.

If you’re a filmmaker in 2019 and you want to do a film based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” then you better have a damn good reason. Not that remakes and adaptations don’t happen all the time, but we’ve really seen quite a few “Dracula” films and TV series over the decade, with many being really great. But thankfully, it appears Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are bringing something unique to their adaptation of the horror classic, which is coming to BBC and Netflix soon.

Continue reading ‘Dracula’ Trailer: ‘Sherlock’ Creators Take A Stab At One Of The Biggest Horror Icons at The Playlist.

What better than a tight, eloquent, Italian-set romance-thriller about the nature of an unctuous, drug-addled art critic to appear on the fall film festival circuit? Critics, industry folk, and fans all meeting at their wit’s end after multiple events’ worth of unrelenting conversation and rumination on film, only to find themselves in front of yet another feature—the meta-experience that is Giuseppe Capotondi’s second film, “The Burnt Orange Heresy.” Scott B.

Continue reading ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy’: Elizabeth Debicki & Donald Sutherland Carry Giuseppe Capotondi’s Thriller [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

The 2019 Venice Film Festival has an opener in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “The Truth.” We won’t learn what the rest of this year’s competition slate is until later this week, but today we learned what will close the festival, Giuseppe Capotondi’s “The Burnt Orange Heresy.”  

Adapted from Charles Willeford’s 1971 novel, the feature stars Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland. The screenplay is by Scott Smith who is best known for his 1993 novel “A Simple Plan” which was adapted into an acclaimed 1998 film directed by Sam Raimi.

Continue reading ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy’ With Elizabeth Debicki & Mick Jagger Will Close 2019 Venice Film Festival at The Playlist.

We already knew that the folks behind the hit BBC series “Sherlock” were setting their sights on the classic tale of Dracula for a new series, but now we know who will embody that iconic vampire.

According to Deadline, Netflix and BBC have found their headliner for the upcoming “Dracula” series in actor Claes Bang. The series, as you might presume, tells the story of Count Dracula, inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic novel, who makes plans against Victorian London.

Continue reading ‘Sherlock’ Creators Hire ‘The Square’ Actor Claes Bang To Star In Netflix/BBC Series ‘Dracula’ at The Playlist.

It’s been an incredible nine months for Ruben Östlund.  The Swedish filmmaker took home the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival for his thought provoking satire “The Square.”  The Claes Bang, Elisabeth Olsen and Dominic West film then took seven awards at the 2017 European Film Awards including Best Film.  And, unlike Östlund’s critically acclaimed “Force Majeure,” “The Square” earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film last month.

Continue reading ‘The Square’s’ Ruben Ostlund On Oscar Night And Jumping Into ‘Triangle Of Sadness’ at The Playlist.

The turkey carcass is nearly bare and extremely unappetizing by now. The tinsel has gone limp and the dog has chewed off all the low-hanging tree baubles. It can only mean the year is ending, and so what better time to look at some of the new starts it’s given us? Over the last twelve months, while most of us have been having, let’s be honest, a pretty terrible time of it, a lucky few have had their big breaks and will look back on 2017 with a fondness the rest of us can only dimly relate to.

Continue reading The Breakout Talents Of 2017 at The Playlist.

You don’t need great performances for a great movie, we suppose — Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s mesmerizing 2016 documentary/art piece “Homo Sapiens,” for instance, doesn’t feature a single human being on screen and is still excellent. But on the whole, the two things go hand in hand: it’s impossible to imagine “Lawrence Of Arabia” without Peter O’Toole, “Star Wars” without Harrison Ford, “Cabaret” without Liza Minnelli, or “Tokyo Story” without Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama, to name but a few.

Continue reading The Best Performances Of 2017 at The Playlist.

There was another big event last night besides the world premiere of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” While everyone was freaking out about porgs (or whatever), the European Film Awards were handed out in Berlin. And one film ruled them all.

Ruben Ostlund‘s comedic takedown of modern art and the ignorance of the bourgeois, “The Square,” swept the ceremony winning Best European Film, Best European Comedy, Best Actor for Claes Bang, and Best Director.

Continue reading ‘The Square’ Sweeps European Film Awards at The Playlist.

It’s rare that entire world gets to see your breakthrough performance all at the same time, but the globe sat up and took notice of Cameron Britton in Netflix‘s “Mindhunter.” The actor crafted one of the most chilling portrayals of a serial killer in his turn as Edmund Kemper, and now, Hollywood wants him for a big time blockbuster.

Britton has signed on for “The Girl In The Spider’s Web.” The followup (of sorts) to “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” will have “The Crown” star Claire Foy taking on the role of Lisbeth Salander, with “The Square” star Claes Bang as the villain.

Continue reading Edmund Kemper From ‘Mindhunter’ Joins ‘The Girl In The Spider’s Web’ at The Playlist.

This is a reprint of our review from the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

King of the cringe-inducing confrontation, nabob of the nervous laugh — if he hadn’t already laid claim to the titles with the withering “Force Majeure,” Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with “The Square,” an excoriating razor-burn of a movie that deploys drollery like an instrument of torture. Broadening out his canvas from the family dynamics of his previous avalanche movie before slashing it to similarly precise shreds, “The Square” is made up of dozens of scenes of such perfect, short-story polish and bite that it almost feels like a vignette anthology rather than a feature.

Continue reading ‘The Square’ Is An Excoriating Razor-Burn Of A Movie [Review] at The Playlist.

TORONTO – It’s September and the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing. Elisabeth Moss is a weekend away from finally winning her first Emmy. Claes Bang still had hours of transatlantic air travel, publicity stops and interviews ahead of him. Yet, in this nondescript Toronto hotel room, the two stars of Ruben Östlund’s latest conversation piece, “The Square,” were reunited, having not seen each other since the Cannes where the film surprised many by winning the Palme d’Or.

Continue reading Elisabeth Moss, Claes Bang, ‘The Square’ And The Truth About Losing Awards [Interview] at The Playlist.

Here at The Playlist, we called Cannes Palme d’Or Winner “The Square” “an excoriating razor-burn of a movie that deploys drollery like an instrument of torture” and a “schadenfreude boomerang. Directed by Ruben Östlund (“Force Majeure”), “The Square” has already achieved notoriety for its hard-edged satirical cringe-comedy aimed at the cultural elite. Here’s the synopsis from Cannes (pardon me if I avert my eyes, my goal is to go into the theater knowing as little as possible about this one):

Christian is the respected curator of a contemporary art museum, a divorced but devoted father of two who drives an electric car and supports good causes.

Continue reading ‘The Square’: Elisabeth Moss Shines In The Trailer For 2017’s Palme d’Or Winner at The Playlist.

About once a year, we take stock of all the exciting movies we’ve seen, and all the tantalizing announcements we’ve covered, and picked out the names that we’re most excited about in a variety of fields for a series we call On The Rise.

Covering actors, filmmakers, composers, cinematographers, screenwriters and more, we’ve been ahead of the curve on names including David Oyelowo, Joel Edgerton, Emma Stone, Dane DeHaan, Daniel Kaluuya (back in 2012!), Brie Larson, Alicia Vikander, Colin Trevorrow, Benh Zeitlin, Dee Rees, Graham Moore, Bradford Young, Rachel Morrison, Steven Price, Jack Thorne, Pilou Asbaek, Emory Cohen, Will Poulter, Ruth Negga, Maika Monroe, Ryan Coogler, Sean Baker, Ava DuVernay, Natasha Braier, Mica Levi, Johan Johansson, Andre Holland, Jack O’Connell, Lisa Joy, Tessa Thompson, Katherine Waterston, LaKeith Stanfield, Damien Chazelle, Yann Demange, Taylor Sheridan, Bel Powley, Sterling K.

Continue reading On The Rise: The 50 Most Exciting Emerging Actors & Filmmakers In 2017 at The Playlist.

King of the cringe-inducing confrontation, nabob of the nervous laugh — if he hadn’t already laid claim to the titles with the withering “Force Majeure,” Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with “The Square,” an excoriating razor-burn of a movie that deploys drollery like an instrument of torture. Broadening out his canvas from the family dynamics of his previous avalanche movie before slashing it to similarly precise shreds, “The Square” is made up of dozens of scenes of such perfect, short-story polish and bite that it almost feels like a vignette anthology rather than a feature.

Continue reading Ruben Östlund’s Smart, Sharp, Deliciously Uncomfortable ‘The Square’ [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.