“Star Wars” animation is always pointed to by diehard fans as some of the best storytelling the franchise has ever seen. And while “The Bad Batch” isn’t discussed as top-tier (at least from what has been told to me by big fans), it’s still probably better than a lot of what is happening in live-action. (Looking at you, everything not called ‘Andor.’) But sadly, it appears we’re at the end of the road for “The Bad Batch.”

READ MORE: The 70 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2024

As seen in the trailer for “The Bad Batch” final season, the show is officially coming to an end starting in February.

Continue reading ‘The Bad Batch’ Final Season Trailer: Dave Filoni’s ‘Star Wars’ Animated Series Comes To An End at The Playlist.

Lucasfilm Animation is still churning out animated series set in the “Star Wars.” Even though landmark shows like “Stars Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars: Rebels” have ended, they’ve expanded the mythology and introducing fans to brand new characters that have made the jump to live-action. Their current efforts include anthology projects “Star Wars: Visions” and “Tales of The Jedi” covering various eras of the franchise alongside the episodic show “The Bad Batch.” The latter is in it’s second season that debuted earlier this year taking place after the events of “The Clone Wars” and there is a bit of an update of the streaming show’s future.

Continue reading ‘The Bad Batch’: Lucasfilm’s Animated Series Lands A Third & Final Season at The Playlist.

If you’re a “Star Wars” fan, you likely fall into one of two categories. There are the folks that just watch the films and probably “The Mandalorian.” Then you have the others that watch all of that but also will tell you how great Dave Filoni is and how you really should try to watch “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels.” That latter group is going to eat up the first trailer for “Star Wars: The Bad Batch.”

READ MORE: ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’: Kumail Nanjiani, Joel Edgerton, Benny Safdie & More Join The ‘Star Wars’ Series

As seen in the trailer for ‘The Bad Batch,’ the animated series comes from Dave Filoni and is a spinoff of ‘The Clone Wars.’ The series follows the title group of elite and experimental clones that are basically enhanced stormtroopers.

Continue reading ‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ Trailer: Rogue Clone Force 99 Gets The Spotlight In New Animated Lucasfilm Series at The Playlist.

Another year comes to a close, another overlong, ahem, thorough most anticipated list from your friends at The Playlist. This time, we’re talking television and yes, there’s a lot of TV to deal with. Frankly, however, with the explosion of streaming, the second age of PeakTV, now known as the Streaming Age, we’re somewhat surprised this list isn’t over 100 picks long. Disney+ and Apple TV+ may have launched in late 2019, but 2020 really brought us the full breadth of both those streaming services wares.

Continue reading The 65 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2021 at The Playlist.

Today at the Walt Disney Company’s Investor Day event, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced an impressive number of exciting Disney+ series and new feature films destined to expand the “Star Wars,” galaxy like never before. Some of it you’ve heard about by now, Hayden Christiensen returning to the “Obi-Wan” series, a whole bunch of new Disney+ series by directors like Dave Filoni, Jon Favreau, Leslye Headland, Justin Simien, and feature films by Taiki Waititi and Patty Jenkins.

Continue reading Lucasfilm’s Cassian ‘Andor’ Series Coming In 2022; Animated ‘Bad Batch’ Trailer & ‘Mando’ S2 Sizzle Revealed at The Playlist.

Director Ana Lily Amirpour has quickly run up the ranks and established herself as a unique genre filmmaker with indie sensibilities. Her black and white critically acclaimed debut, “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” was self-described as the first “Iranian Vampire Spaghetti Western” and the “Bad Batch” explored cannibals in a post-apocalyptic American desert. Each one of her films proves almost weirder than the next.

Continue reading Ana Lily Amirpour’s Next Film Is A Mindbender Called ‘Blood Moon’ at The Playlist.

If you took a shot every time you read “Hollywood has a misogyny problem” in 2017, you would be long dead. That doesn’t mean it’s not a point worth belaboring — on the contrary, if the past year of entertainment news has taught us anything, it’s that silence around systemic misogyny only breeds more of the same. You may have heard them before, but the facts are these: men disproportionately dominate the filmmaking industry. Women rarely direct films, and are hardly ever recognized or lauded when they do.

Continue reading 52 Movies Directed By Women In 2017 That You Should Know at The Playlist.

Welcome to another edition of Over/Under Movies, the podcast in which we choose one overrated film and one underrated film — similar in tone, genre, style, or however we may see fit — and we discuss them.

READ MORE: The Worst Films Of 2017

On our second part of our year-end wrap-up, we dive into the films that we believe were under-seen, under-appreciated, or were just plain slept on or dismissed by critics and audiences.

Continue reading Exploring The Little-Seen, Underrated Films of 2017 [Podcast] at The Playlist.

As much as we evidently love you, our glorious readers (why else would we toil so hard over such a breathtaking array of year-end features, for one thing), there is perhaps a group of people we love even more. And that is our contributors, who throughout the year give The Playlist its inimitable, sometimes cacophonous but always lively voice, and who help us to deliver the goods to you every day in the manner of a vigilant cat laying the eviscerated mouse of the day’s hot movie topics at your feet.

Continue reading The Most Underrated & Overrated Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

Even before filmmakers were even able to record and sync sound, movies and music have been tied together. Back then, music was played on a piano or an organ. Now, some of the world’s greatest composers write scores that can stand as works of art separate to the films they accompany, while often doing so much to make those works memorable. Or filmmakers curate killer compilations of songs familiar and new that can lead to some of movies’ most memorable moments (and an overlooked song being revived).

Continue reading The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2017 at The Playlist.

December is here, and that only means one thing at Playlist HQ: just a month to go until the release of that horse soldier movie. But if it meant two things, it would be that it begins our annual binge-look at the year in film and TV gone by. Over the coming weeks between now and New Year’s Eve, we’ll be examining 2017 in cinematic entertainment from every angle, from our least favorite movies to the best in the small-screen, and even looking forward to what’s to come.

Continue reading The Best Movie Posters Of 2017 at The Playlist.

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I discuss the coming-of-age indie thriller “Super Dark Times” for our main review. The film, though set in the mid-nineties, may very well have the most apt title for our insane/bewildering real-life present. Our original review from Rotterdam found it to be something of a solid calling card for debut feature filmmaker Kevin Phillips, if not a wholly successful effort.

Continue reading ‘Super Dark Times’ At The Cinema, Plenty To Recommend On Streaming [Adjust Your Tracking Podcast] at The Playlist.

Despite the somewhat lackluster response to Ana Lily Amirpour’s latest film “The Bad Batch,” it’s hard still to shake the excitement that her first feature, the 2014 feminist, vampire, western film “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” inspired in us. The film demonstrated her ability to build a vast and detailed world while also creating characters that we could root for and engage with, all the while creating some iconic imagery.

Continue reading 40-Minute Podcast Talk With ‘The Last Jedi’ Director Rian Johnson & ‘The Bad Batch’ Helmer Ana Lily Amirpour at The Playlist.

The rest of Hollywood steered clear of “Transformers: The Last Knight” this weekend, with no other major studio planning a big release as Paramount trotted out the latest entry in their blockbuster toy franchise, but they needn’t worried. In a summer where franchise fatigue is riding high, ‘Transformers’ suffered a considerable blow, at least domestically.

$45.3 million was more than enough for “Transformers: The Last Knight” to win the weekend, but the numbers are quite troubling. 

Continue reading ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Disappoints At Home, But Soars Internationally [Box Office] at The Playlist.

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I discuss two new films from exciting auteurs and find plenty of overlapping elements between them, beyond the fact that, yes, Sofia Coppola and Ana Lily Amirpour are women working behind the camera. The latter’s sophomore feature, “The Bad Batch,” is a film that’s gotten mixed responses since premiering at Venice last year (read our review here), but we find much to love about it.

Continue reading Adjust Your Tracking Split On ‘The Beguiled,’ Gush Over ‘The Bad Batch’ [Podcast] at The Playlist.

In a season of sequels, franchises, and bloated blockbusters, Ana Lily Amirpour‘s “The Bad Batch” feels like a cinematic oasis. The director behind “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” returns with a bold, post-apocalyptic vision, but one that isn’t afraid to have some groove to it as well.

Starring Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, and Giovanni Ribisi, the film is set in a dystopian future United States, in which a young girl condemned to wander a desert wasteland is captured by a community of cannibals.

Continue reading Exclusive: ‘The Bad Batch’ Soundtrack Preview Featuring Culture Club, Pantha du Prince, Ace Of Base & More at The Playlist.

We’re in the season of template movies, studio product churned out by a predictable blueprint, guaranteeing lots of cinematic stormy and fury, but little imagination. So thank goodness for Ana Lily Amirpour‘s “The Bad Batch,” a post-apocalyptic vision that’s completely her own, utterly unique, and truly unlike anything you’ll see in theatres this summer. It’s a big step forward for the director who broke out with “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” and the buzz of that film, allowed her to get meetings with folks like Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves for “The Bad Batch.” Both actors took roles in the film, but to convince them, Amirpour had to get creative.

Continue reading Ana Lily Amirpour Explains How She Landed Keanu Reeves & Jim Carrey For ‘The Bad Batch’ at The Playlist.

Barely a week after the end of Tribeca, the New York summer festival season is gearing up. Yesterday brought news of a very promising BAMcinemafest line-up, and today brings the Rooftop Films’ 2017 Summer Series slate. As it has for 21 years now, the festival will host a number of outdoor screens at nearly a dozen venues around New York, and they’ve got some ace films lined up.

Among the headliners: Judd Apatow-produced comedy “The Big Sick” with Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan and Holly Hunter, opening film “Band Aid” from Zoe Lister-Jones, Ana Lily Amirpour’s “The Bad Batch” with Jason Momoa, Eliza Hittman’s “Beach Rats,” Kyle Mooney-starring comedy “Brigsby Bear,” “The Incredible Jessica James” with Jessica Williams and Chris O’Dowd, A24’s “Menashe,” Noel Wells’ “Mr.

Continue reading ‘The Bad Batch,’ ‘Rough Night,’ ‘The Big Sick’ Head Up 2017 Rooftop Films Summer Series Line-Up at The Playlist.

In a summer that will be filled with Big Branded Entertainment, you may want a reprieve. Well, few things will be arriving in the months ahead — or this year — as strikingly original as Ana Lily Amirpour‘s “The Bad Batch.” And a beautifully badass new trailer is here for the one-of-a-kind movie.

READ MORE: Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘The Bad Batch’ Sits Between ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ & ‘Southland Tales’ [Venice Review]

Starring Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi, and Keanu Reeves, the film takes you to a dusty, post-apocalyptic future where a young woman falls in with a group of totally ripped, bod-obsessed cannibals.

Continue reading Buff, Beautiful & Bizarre New Trailer For ‘The Bad Batch’ at The Playlist.

We’re less than a month away from the summer movie season, although you would likely think otherwise if you’ve been to a theater near you lately. With hot titles like “Logan,” “Ghost In The Shell,” “Beauty And The Beast,” “Power Rangers,” “Life,” “Kong: Skull Island,” “The Lego Batman Movie” and, err, “CHIPS” all playing in cinemas near you, it can be hard to differentiate between the sizzling summer selections and the ones that now play at seemingly any point in time of the year, no matter the season.

Continue reading 2017 Summer Movie Preview: Blockbusters And Beyond at The Playlist.

After breaking out with “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour likely had a few open doors, and could’ve pivoted toward mainstream. Instead, she decided to double down on her unique storytelling voice and make “The Bad Batch,” and make no mistake, it couldn’t have come from any other filmmaker.

READ MORE: Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘The Bad Batch’ Sits Between ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ & ‘Southland Tales’ [Review]

Featuring an eclectic ensemble including Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi, and Keanu Reeves, the film is set in an arid, dystopian future, and follows a young woman who is captured by a tribe of cannibals.

Continue reading Meet ‘The Bad Batch’ In First Trailer For Ana Lily Amirpour’s New Movie at The Playlist.

After a week and a half of Mediterranean sun, fun and countless Aperol Spritzs, the Venice Film Festival came to a close this evening, with the annual awards ceremony ahead of closing film “The Magnificent Seven.” And as usual, the jury (headed this year by “Skyfall” and “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes) delivered some surprises.

The Golden Lion, the top prize, went to Lav Diaz’s “The Woman Who Left,” something of a surprise choice, given its three-and-a-half hour length, and Diaz not being the most accessible of filmmakers.

Continue reading Emma Stone & Tom Ford’s ‘Nocturnal Animals’ Win Big Prizes At Venice, Lav Diaz Takes Golden Lion at The Playlist.

All eyes have been on Ana Lily Amirpour ever since she turned heads with her breakout picture “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.” And for her followup, “The Bad Batch,” produced by Megan Ellison and Vice Films, the director has raised the stakes, rounding up an unlikely cast which includes Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, and Jim Carrey, and headed into a dusty, apocalyptic future.

Continue reading 2 Clips From Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘The Bad Batch’ Bring Intrigue & Attitude at The Playlist.

Next week, the first of the big fall film festivals kicks off, in which hordes of international journalists will surely threaten to sink the 11km-long sandbar island that is the Lido di Venezia. The Venice Film Festival is always bracketed with the boutique-y Telluride Film Festival and the behemoth Toronto International Film Festival, and there is famously significant competition between the three for premieres and high-profile titles. But Venice has certain advantages: it comes first on the calendar; it has a long, venerable and glamorous history; and… it’s in Venice.

Continue reading The 20 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Venice Film Festival at The Playlist.

Two years ago, you couldn’t turn around without someone telling you to see Ana Lily Amirpour‘s “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night.” The director’s breakout Iranian vampire western put her on the map in a huge way. How huge? Megan Ellison‘s Annapurna Pictures are one of the backers behind Amirpour’s upcoming “The Bad Batch,” which has also lined up a very interesting ensemble group of players.

Continue reading TIFF First Look: Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘The Bad Batch’ at The Playlist.