Look, making a Best of Decade list is an impossibility. As the 2010s come to a close, we’ve been agonizing over this (long-delayed) list for half a year now and even had to take a break and put it away this summer when things got too contentious and overwhelming. And then there’s the notion of resonance and what really lasts and is released too late (Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is phenomenal, for example, but it’s not even released yet, and it’s just going to have to sit this one out).

Continue reading The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

What’s getting nominated for Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay this year? Well, three off the top of my head that seem like locks for Best Original Screenplay are Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” and our own awards guru Gregory Ellwood’s Oscar predictions concur (he also gives strong love for “Roma,” and more).

Continue reading Download Over 40 2018 Awards Season Screenplays For Free at The Playlist.

Karma, they say, is a bitch. Yet it must be down to some cosmic law of balance that as terrible as things have been on a daily basis in other spheres of life, 2018 has been among the most remarkable years for cinema in recent memory. Maybe it’s that the instability and uncertainty of the zeitgeist has ignited channels of creative expression that might have remained dormant in more complacent times; maybe it’s that 2-hour breaks from the constant blithering nonsense that is being alive in 2018 are precious even if you’re watching the “Overboard” remake.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The first shot in the awards season wars has arrived: the 28th annual Gotham Awards nominations were announced this AM (full list below) and leading the pack with the most amount of nominations were A24‘s “First Reformed” directed by Paul Schrader and Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite” helmed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Both films were nominated for Best Picture, and “First Reformed” earned a Best Actor and Screenplay nod for Ethan Hawke and Schrader.

Continue reading 2018 Gotham Award Nominations: ‘First Reformed’ & ‘The Favourite’ Lead The Pack at The Playlist.

Does it matter that Tamara Jenkins’ newest movie, “Private Life,” is only getting one of those mini boutique theatrical releases at the same time being released somewhere into the unknown algorithm wilds of Netflix for the whole nation to see? Would it have been better if this smart and sharp, if occasionally baggy, comedy had gotten just the miniature release in the fall Oscar run-up, then limped along through the end of the year as only small-budgeted character dramas can, before finally ending up on one or the other streaming services anyway?

Continue reading Flinty, Funny ‘Private Life’ Is The Type Of Smart Comedy That Shouldn’t Get Lost On Netflix [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Ever since garnering an Oscar nomination for 2007’s “The Savages,” we hadn’t heard much about writer-director Tamara Jenkins, a singular talent who deserves to be seen and heard much more frequently. In fact, she’s been missing in action for ten years. The veteran indie filmmaker’s returns this weekend with “Private Life,” a rich, hilarious, biting and sad fertility dramedy.

Carefully chosen as part of the impeccably curated main slate of this year’s 56th annual New York Film Festival, “Private Life” zeroes in on a married couple (as played by Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti) coping with a never-ending infertility struggle and the collapse of their marriage, as they navigate through the world of adoption and assisted reproduction.

Continue reading ‘Private Life’: Tamara Jenkins, Kathryn Hahn & Kayli Carter Discuss Netflix’s Rich, Funny, Painful Infertility Dramedy at The Playlist.

The 56th Annual New York Film Festival is upon us once again, gifting the cinematic landscape with thrilling and compelling films carefully curated from all over the world.  Last year’s favorites included “Call Me By Your Name” and “Lady Bird,” the latter of which went onto become A24’s highest grossing film and earn not one but five Academy Award nominations.  This year is no different, the festival will unleash future classics like “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” directed by the Coen Brothers, the sweeping Mexican epic “ROMA,” the latest effort by Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuaron.

Continue reading New York Film Festival: 15 Must-See Films To Watch at The Playlist.

In her decades-spanning but only sporadically fruitful career, Tamara Jenkins has aptly demonstrated that she’s not only willing to address the most heartbreaking of mundanities with humor and compassion, but she’ll stick it out to do so as well. “Dementia and infertility aren’t sexy at pitch meetings,” the writer-director admitted to IndieWire back in January, which explains in part why 2007’s “The Savages” spent years in development hell, and why her long-awaited follow-up, “Private Life,” was spinning its wheels indefinitely at Amazon Studios before Netflix threw the project a rope.

Continue reading ‘Private Life’ Trailer: Filmmaker Tamara Jenkins Returns After A Decade Away With A Deeply Personal Film at The Playlist.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the main selections for the 2018 New York Film Festival, and it won’t disappoint the city’s cinephile community.  It also confirms that barring a last minute addition or secret screening there are no world premieres at this year’s NYFF.  Then again, the fest is programming a significant number of Foreign Language Film contenders even if the homegrown selections are slight.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Roma“ and Julian Schabel‘s “At Eternity’s Gate“ were previously announced as the opening, centerpiece and closing night films for this year’s fest.

Continue reading ‘If Beale Street,’ ‘Cold War’ & ‘Ballad Of Buster Scruggs’ Among Main NYFF 2018 Selections at The Playlist.

PARK CITY – There is a moment about halfway through Tamara Jenkins’ new drama “Private Life,” which debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, where 25-year-old Sadie (Kayli Carter) makes an impromptu revelation during a Thanksgiving dinner with her family.  The college dropout reveals that she’s decided to donate one of her eggs to her step uncle Richard (Paul Giamatti) and his infertile wife Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) who have spent years trying to get pregnant. 

Continue reading Kathryn Hahn And Kayli Carter Aren’t Enough To Make ‘Private Life’ Resonate [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

It’s the new year which means, there’s no rest for the wicked and the Sundance Film Festival is upon us. It’s funny how January is known as a dead time for movies — and it is for mainstream films — but in the realm of independent cinema, the first month of the year is that time when filmmakers are cramming to finish their Sundance-bound pictures.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2018

And the diverse, eclectic Sundance lineup runs the gamut.

Continue reading Sundance 2018: The Most Anticipated Films Of The Festival at The Playlist.

As much as we want to spend the rest of December not thinking about movies, at least for once second, the Sundance Film Festival is already the corner, and organizers are keeping us on our toes.

This afternoon, a few more titles have added to this year’s lineup, and a couple have caught our eye. Tamara Jenkins, director of “The Savages,” finally returns with her first feature in a decade with “Private Life” starring Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, and Kayli Carter, and that’s hugely exciting.

Continue reading Sundance 2018 Adds Films By Lynne Ramsay, Tamara Jenkins, And More at The Playlist.

We’re just getting started with our look at the best in film and TV of 2017, but before we really got sucked into the retrospective, we wanted to take a minute to look forward to what’s to come in the next twelve months or so. Lord knows we need things to keep us going in the shitshow that has been the second half of the 2010s, and fortunately, cinema has provided.

After a slow start, 2017 turned out to be a pretty great year for movies, and 2018 looks to keep that up in a big way.

Continue reading The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

After nearly a decade-long absence, director Tamara Jenkins is finally returning with a long-overdue new feature called “Private Life.” The acclaimed director will write and direct the Netflix drama. “The Circle” producers Anthony Bregman (“Synecdoche, New York“) and Stefanie Azpiazu (Nicole Holofcener‘s “Enough Said“) are on board to produce.

Continue reading ‘The Savages’ Director Tamara Jenkins Returns With New Netflix Drama ‘Private Life’ at The Playlist.

Amazon Backs New Films From Jill Soloway, Barry Levinson, Tamara Jenkins, And More, Plus Launch First Live Show

Continue reading Amazon Backs New Films From Jill Soloway, Barry Levinson, Tamara Jenkins, And More, Plus Launch First Live Show at The Playlist.