Love it or hate it, True Crime TV is here to stay. But the genre’s renaissance has lasted a long time now; are there any infamous stories networks haven’t adapted (much less left well enough alone, for the sake of the victims and their families)? This week, Paramount+ greenlit one of the ’90s most notorious scandals for a limited series: the murder of 6-year-old beauty pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey on Christmas Day 1996.

Continue reading ‘JonBenét Ramsey’: Melissa McCarthy & Clive Owen To Star In Paramount+’s Limited Series About Infamous ’90s Murder Scandal at The Playlist.

To some, it may seem blasphemous to go anywhere near new content that centers Sam Spade. Who would dare pick up the pen of Dashiell Hammett or step into the shoes of Humphrey Bogart? Luckily, the pedigree behind AMC’s excellent “Monsieur Spade” is one of the highest in years. Co-created by Scott Frank and Tom Fontana, and executive produced by Barry Levinson, this brightly-lit noir is one of the best recent TV originals, a smart, sexy, deeply philosophical piece of storytelling that values things like dialogue, character, and theme over the high concepts that have defined so much TV in the 2020s.

Continue reading ‘Monsieur Spade’ Review: Clive Owen Headlines Smart, Accomplished Update Of Classic Character at The Playlist.

If you like narrative storytelling of any kind, either in movies or TV, chances are you’re a fan of writer/director/creator Scott Frank (screenwriter of “Minority Report,” “Get Shorty”), whether you know it or not. Frank had success in movies—he’s a two-time Oscar nominee for writing “Out of Sight” (1998) and “Logan”— and earned the respect of peers like Steven Soderbergh and Tony Gilroy, among many others, but it’s arguably not until Netflix started expanding their movie ideas into series form—which is precisely what Frank did with 2017’s Western “Godless,” that he really started to stretch his wings and shine.

Continue reading ‘Monsieur Spade’ Trailer: New Series From ‘Queen’s Gambit’ Creator Stars Clive Owen, Premieres January 14 at The Playlist.

The title of FX’s ambitious but frustrating new mystery series, “A Murder at the End of the World” has a very intended dual meaning. On the one hand, it takes place in an extremely remote location—an ice-covered hotel that is quite literally at the physical end of the world. However, it feels like creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij are also using their title in a chronological sense, weaving climate change concerns and A.I./tech conversation into their story in a way that implies that we may be at the end of the world as we know it all over the planet.

Continue reading ‘A Murder At The End Of The World’ Review: Intriguing FX Limited Series Feels More Like A Lecture Than A Mystery at The Playlist.

What’s not to love about this upcoming TV series? After the success of “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix in 2022, creators Scott Frank and Allan Scott went into high demand. And for Frank’s next project, he teams up with “OZ” and “Homicide” writer and “City On A Hill” showrunner Tom Fontana for a take on Dashiell Hammett‘s legendary detective Sam Spade.

Continue reading ‘Monsieur Spade’ Teaser Trailer: AMC’s Neo-Noir Drama With Clive Owen Premieres In Early 2024 at The Playlist.

FX has quite the slate of new releases on its Fall TV calendar, with “American Horror Story: Delicate” and the latest season of “Fargo” among then. But don’t sleep on “A Murder At The End Of The World,” a seven-episode limited series starring Emma Corrin and Clive Owen.

The set-up may sounds like something out of a nordic noir that Lisbeth Salander would be at home in: a young female hacker/amateur sleuth gets invited with other guests to a billionaire’s retreat where a killer’s on the prowl.

Continue reading ‘A Murder At The End Of The World’ Trailer: Emma Corrin & Clive Owen Star In FX Limited Series On November 14 at The Playlist.

Are you among the cult following of fans that loved Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij’s short-lived Netflix series, “The OA”? While that series was not revived—sorry to get your hopes up—the writer/directing pair, who have collaborated throughout their entire career, are back with the next best thing: a new FX series titled “A Murder at the End of the World” (see more first-look images here).

Continue reading ‘A Murder At the End Of The World’ Teaser Trailer: Clive Owen, Emma Corrin & More Star In Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij’s New FX Series at The Playlist.

Super high on our list of the Most Anticipated TV Series Of 2023 is creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s upcoming murder mystery series. Formerly titled “The Retreat,” FX revealed a first look today and a new title: “A Murder At The End Of The World.” The series stars Emma Corrin, Clive Owen, Harris Dickinson, and Brit Marling, a multi-hyphenate who is often starring in the various film and TV vehicles she creates, often and almost exclusively with creative partner Batmanglij.

Continue reading ‘A Murder At The End Of The World’ First Look: Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij’s New FX Murder Mystery Series at The Playlist.

Writer/directors Brit Marling and Zal Batmangli are a terrific creative pair, consistently delivering a mix of high-concept and adult drama into a super compelling assemblage. While their ambitious Netflix show “The OA” didn’t fare so well on the streamer—critically acclaimed with a hardcore fandom, but not really great ratings—other televisions competitors have recognized their talent. So, their next gig is the murder mystery series, “The Retreat,” and it’s just expanded its cast in a major way.

Continue reading The ‘Retreat’: Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij’s New Series Adds Clive Owen, Alice Braga, Harris Dickinson & More at The Playlist.

In the wake of documentaries on Britney Spears, Lorena Bobbitt, and other victims of a crueler, “more misogynistic” press machine, the hook to these projects is a prodding at both individual and collective memory. They claim to be recontextualizations, revisions, and rehabilitations, while they are still fundamentally pieced together as amalgamations of fame and identity, with the involvement of the subject or not. There’s a thrill, I assume, in knowing where one was during or remembering the date of a particularly heinous invasion of privacy, an illusion of proximity to a person who has, regardless of their volition, become available to everyone on the planet.

Continue reading ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’: Ryan Murphy’s Latest Sensationalized Scandal Doesn’t Leave A Lasting Impact [Review] at The Playlist.

FX has dropped a new trailer for their latest installment of “American Crime Story” with “Impeachment” pulling from real-life events just like they did with “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” This time focusing on the widespread media circus of the President Bill Clinton sex scandal that dominated headlines and news coverage for what seemed like the latter half of the 1990s.

Continue reading ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ Trailer: White House Scandal Retold With An Unrecognizable Clive Owen As Bill Clinton at The Playlist.

The Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky scandal gripped the nation like no other story in the 1990s, save for O.J Simpson’s murder trial (the subject of the first season of “American Crime Story.”). “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” based on President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial, details the seemingly never-ending saga and its memorable cast of characters like Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, and Matt Drudge.  

READ MORE: The 65 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2021

Sarah Paulson leads a stacked cast as Linda Tripp.

Continue reading ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ Trailer: The FX Show Takes On Bill Clinton’s Sex Scandal On September 7 at The Playlist.

“Lisey’s Story” is unmistakably a writer’s miniseries, so much that it romances a rough draft. It has immense range, touching upon every shade of darkness within the human spirit. But it has little tact in how it expresses its themes, other than including them all into the same story and letting them fight for space. Rampant metaphors, reflecting pools, extensive flashbacks, non-chronological storylines, scavenger hunts, and self-references are all thrown in; everything has a grandiose significance, whether it’s effective or not.

Continue reading ‘Lisey’s Story’: Pablo Larrain, Julianne Moore & Clive Owen Try To Sift Through The Fog Of Stephen King’s Surreal Nightmare [Review] at The Playlist.

Apple TV+ today unveiled the trailer for the highly anticipated limited series “Lisey’s Story,” based on the best-selling novel, and adapted and written by author Stephen King. Starring Academy Award-winner Julianne Moore and Academy Award-nominee Clive Owen, the eight-episode Apple Original series will premiere globally on Friday, June 4, 2021, with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday.

Continue reading ‘Lisey’s Story’ Trailer: Julianne Moore & Clive Owen Star In A Haunting Stephen King Series From Director Pablo Larrain at The Playlist.

A new Stephen King TV series or film is hardly news to get excited about, as just about every story the man has lent his name to has been adapted or will be adapted (or even remade) at some point. That said, when you have the talent pooled together as we see in “Lisey’s Story,” it’s hard not to be incredibly excited.

READ MORE: The 65 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2021

With the premiere of “Lisey’s Story” arriving in June, Apple TV+ has provided a series of first-look photos to tease the upcoming Stephen King adaptation.

Continue reading ‘Lisey’s Story’ First Look: Julianne Moore Stars In Pablo Larraín’s Stephen King Adaptation Hitting Apple In June at The Playlist.

Thanks to “The Queen’s Gambit,” filmmaker Scott Frank is getting the buzz and acclaim that he has deserved for years. (This is our usual spot where we highly recommend that you go back and watch the Netflix series, “Godless.”) So, the world wants to know what’s next?

Speaking to The Watch podcast, Frank answered that very question, and he teased a number of projects that are going to have film and TV fans excited for years to come.

Continue reading Scott Frank Will Direct A ‘Sam Spade’ Series Starring Clive Owen & Has New Anya Taylor-Joy Project In The Works at The Playlist.

It’s been almost two years since we had the first trailer for the upcoming thriller, “The Informer.” And while delays almost never mean a good thing for a film, perhaps the long delay for “The Informer” is actually a benefit for the profile of the feature. You see, over the past two years, one of the leads, Ana de Armas, went from a relative unknown to one of the biggest names in Hollywood after her role in “Knives Out” and her upcoming role in “No Time to Die,” making “The Informer” a star-studded affair.

Continue reading ‘The Informer’ Trailer: Joel Kinnaman & Ana De Armas Star In This Long-Delayed Crime Thriller at The Playlist.

Darius Khondji is going back to TV. Fresh off the success of “Uncut Gems,” the superstar cinematographer is following up his director of photography gig on the “Too Old to Die Young” mini-series, with a TV show for Apple TV+ directed by Pablo Larraín and based on Stephen King’s “Lisey’s Story,” apparently now titled “Faces.”

READ MORE: MGM Has Reportedly Talked With Netflix & Apple About A Possible Acquisition

We’ve been hearing about this project since early last year, when Apple held its first presentation for Apple TV+ and announced, among other projects, that J.J.

Continue reading Darius Khondji Joins Pablo Larraín’s Apple TV Series ‘Faces’ Starring Julianne Moore & Clive Owen at The Playlist.

So far, the men who have been chosen to portray President Bill Clinton in films have been fairly different from each other. Even though it’s not technically Clinton, John Travolta really went for it in “Primary Colors.” And in “The Special Relationship,” Dennis Quaid did his best, though a bit more subdued than Travolta. But neither of them had to tackle the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.

Continue reading Clive Owen Will Portray President Bill Clinton In FX’s Upcoming ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ Series at The Playlist.

There’s nothing more exhilarating than the early days of a streaming platform when executives go all-out in the hope of attracting new subscribers. We’ve spent the better part of 2019 watching Disney+ promise big-budget adaptations of each of its tentpole franchises, and Apple TV+ has followed suit by snatching up every recognizable creator left on the market. That means new shows from executive producers like M. Night Shyamalan (“Servant“), Stephen Spielberg (“Amazing Stories“), and even Stephen King (“Lisey’s Story“).

Continue reading Clive Owen Joins Julianne Moore In Stephen King’s ‘Lisey’s Story’ Adaptation On Apple; Pablo Larrain Directing at The Playlist.

The upcoming film “The Song of Names” tells the story of two brothers, but not in the way you might imagine. Unlike other family dramas that breakdown the relationship between siblings over the course of an adventure, a conversation, and/or some major event, the story of the boys in ‘Song of Names’ spans decades, as one searches for the other who has been missing since early adulthood.

READ MORE: ‘Luce’ Trailer: Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer & Tim Roth Star In A Brilliant Psychodrama

As seen in the trailer, “The Song of Names” follows two young boys that are brought together when a Polish family enlists a well-off British family to help raise their boy during World War II.

Continue reading ‘The Song Of Names’ Trailer: Clive Owen & Tim Roth Star In The Family Drama Spanning Decades at The Playlist.

Given how he can expertly craft beautifully detailed and intimate dramas when he wants, it does a disservice to describe filmmaker Ang Lee as an Asian analog to James Cameron. That said, there’s a similar proselytizing and futurist side to Lee that has drunk a similar kind of kool-aid about the virtues of envelope-pushing technology. Sometimes the two sides of Lee’s preoccupations—humanist drama and technology-driven spectacle— merge (“Life Of Pi,”), though not always successfully (“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk“).

Continue reading ‘Gemini Man’: Ang Lee Makes A Motion-Smoothing, Fresh Prince Deep Fakes, Dad Jokes Sci-Fi Actioner With Will Smith at The Playlist.

A creative re-imagining of Denmark’s most famous royalty yarn, “Ophelia” does more than just provide new insight into “Hamlet,” it also contextualizes the 400+ year-old play via characters that seem more alive now than ever before. An origin story of sorts, “Ophelia” delves into the eponymous character’s childhood and adolescence at court, using elements from Shakespeare’s play along with a creative reevaluation of the young woman as an active agent of change within the narrative.

Continue reading ‘Ophelia’ Breathes New Life Into The Classic Tale Of ‘Hamlet’ With A Beautiful Performance From Daisy Ridley [Review] at The Playlist.

It’s been well over 400 years since the world was introduced to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” And in those years, we’ve probably been exposed to just as many film and TV versions of the classic story. But yet, it’s 2019 and we are destined for at least one more, as IFC Films is preparing to release “Ophelia.”

As seen in the trailer for the film, “Ophelia” is a different take on “Hamlet.” Instead of focusing on the typical hero of the story, the young Prince Hamlet, the new film focuses on his love interest, Ophelia.

Continue reading ‘Ophelia’ Trailer: Daisy Ridley & Filmmaker Claire McCarthy Offer A Different Take On ‘Hamlet’ at The Playlist.

When you think of visionary cinema, you think of director Ang Lee. The Oscar winner has spent the last decade or so of his career pushing the limits of camera technique, high-speed frame rates, and optical possibility, and he’s going to continue to push those boundaries once his latest film, “Gemini Man,” hits theaters this fall.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019 

We now have our first look at the project, which promises to be a return to form for Lee and perhaps a boost for star Will Smith, who has struggled this decade to command the audiences he’s been accustomed to for his blockbuster work.

Continue reading ‘Gemini Man’ Trailer: Ang Lee & Will Smith Team Up for Visionary Sci-Fi Thriller at The Playlist.