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, catalogue 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.

This week’s disc and streaming debuts include the latest from an Oscar-winning international filmmaker, the latest from a Film Twitter favorite, a pair of great 2020 documentaries, and two classics getting the 4K Criterion treatment.

Continue reading The Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Last Night in Soho,’ ‘A Hero,’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ & More at The Playlist.

Garrett Bradley, the Oscar-nominated director of the astounding, intensely vivid and personal activism documentary “Time” will direct an adaptation of acclaimed science fiction author Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable of the Sower.” The first in a two-book series, the story is set in a near-future Los Angeles devastated by societal collapse; a teenager with a unique gift must lead humanity in a battle against extinction.

Continue reading ‘Time’ Director Garrett Bradley To Helm ‘Parable Of The Sower’ For A24 at The Playlist.

The Peabody Awards kicked off five days, yes, five days of winners announcements on Monday, and today’s big winners were “Ted Lasso,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Time.” These honors were presented virtually by Will Ferrell, Steve Carell and D.L. Hugley, respectively.

READ MORE: Nine big questions as 2021 Emmy Voting begins

Other winners announced today included the documentary “Asian Americans,” the podcast “Floodlines” (proceed by The Atlantic) and the Disney Channel series “The Owl House.” News category winners included KNXV-TV in Arizona for it’s “Full Disclosure” reports which chronicled issues with “Brady” lists used to track officers with documented histories of corruption, false arrests and crimes, among other issues.

Continue reading ‘Ted Lasso,’ ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ & ‘Time’ Win Peabody Awards at The Playlist.

Well, that was weird. 

Oscar night felt a bit like an off-brand version of an Oscar night – and not in a bad way (at least until the end). But there were times when the rehearsal-dinner vibe was impossible to ignore, especially at the end when it felt like ringmaster Steven Soderbergh handed the reins to Luis Buñuel, everyone was getting a little tetchy and impatient, the cake course was served before the entree and when it was time for Gramps’ speech he’d already gone to bed – possibly embarrassed by Mamaw’s twerking.

Continue reading The Snubs And Surprises Of The 2021 Oscars at The Playlist.

Two months later than usual, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 93rd Oscars. The honorees were revealed by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas in a virtual broadcast which had actually become the norm for The Academy even before the pandemic began a little over a year ago. As always, AMPAS members provided a number of surprises for Oscar followers around the globe.

READ MORE: Best and Worst of the 2021 Grammy Awards

“Mank” led all films with 10 nominations.

Continue reading ‘Mank,’ ‘Nomadland,’ ‘Minari’ & ‘Judas And The Black Messiah’ Lead 2021 Oscars Nominations at The Playlist.

Just in time for Oscar season, Amazon Studios is bringing three of its award contenders to the Criterion Collection, the first time the studio’s had a movie make it to the collection since 2018.

READ MORE: ‘Fast Times,’ ‘Nightmare Alley’ & More Join The Criterion Collection In May

IndieWire reports that Darius Marder‘s “Sound of Metal,” Regina King‘s “One Night in Miami,” and Garrett Bradley‘s “Time” will join the prestigious Criterion Collection.

Continue reading Amazon Originals ‘Sound Of Metal,’ ‘Time,’ And ‘One Night In Miami’ Will Join The Criterion Collection at The Playlist.

283 films were submitted for the Academy Award’s Documentary Feature Oscar and now just 15 remain. AMPAS revealed the shortlist for both the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short with the former category featuring few upsets. Acclaimed titles such as “Boys State,” “Time,” “Dick Johnson is Dead,” “Collective” and “Time” are still in the running for the eventual five Oscar nominations.

READ MORE: “Minari” and “The Crown” rule 2021 SAG Awards nominations

Snubbed contenders in a very competitive field include “The Dissident,” “A Thousand Cuts,” “The Way I See It,” “Totally Under Control” and “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” among others.

Continue reading ‘Time,’ ‘Collective’ Make 2021 Best Documentary Oscars Shortlist at The Playlist.

February is now the month for guild award nominations announcements. And while the SAG Awards will be the first big ball to drop on Thursday, the Producers Guild of America began the rollout of their yearly honors with the documentary category. There were a number of familiar nominees including Oscar contenders “Time,” “Dick Johnson is Dead” and “The Truffle Hunters.”

READ MORE: “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” “Minari” & “I May Destroy You” lead 2021 Independent Spirit Awards Nominations

In what has become a very competitive Oscar race there were a number of surprising omissions, however, including “Collective,” “Boy State,” “All In The Fight For Democracy,” “Welcome to Chechnya,” “City Hall,” “Crip Camp,” “MLK/FBI,” “Totally Under Control,” “On the Record” and “The Dissident.”

This year’s nominees are:

“David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet”
“Dick Johnson Is Dead”
“My Octopus Teacher”
“Softie”
“A Thousand Cuts”
“Time”
“The Truffle Hunters”

Nominees in the Sports, Children’s and Short Form Television Programs will be announced on Friday, February 26.

Continue reading ‘Time,’ ‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’ Among 2021 PGA Awards Documentary Nominees at The Playlist.

The newly rebranded Gotham Film and Media Institute announced the winners of the 30th Annual Gotham Awards on Monday night and it was a bit of a bumpy zoom ride. While some presenters were on hand at the award show’s traditional locale, Cipriani’s New York, the nominees were entirely live on zoom. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was, for lack of a better word, unique. Despite the technical confusion, “Nomadland” was the big winner taking Best Feature and the Audience Award.

Continue reading ‘Nomadland’ Wins Best Feature & Audience Award At 30th Gotham Awards at The Playlist.

It came close with both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, but the National Society of Film Critics came through for “Nomadland.” The acclaimed Searchlight Pictures release won Best Picture, Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (Frances McDormand) and Cinematography (Joshua James Richards). In an incredibly close Best Picture race, NYFCC winner “First Cow” was just two points behind.

Continue reading ‘Nomadland’ & Delroy Lindo Win Key 2020 National Society Of Film Critics Honors at The Playlist.

Call this feature “overlooked films” if you liked, and if you saw them, and yes, there’s some crossover with some of our other Best of 2020 features, like the 25 Best Films Of 2020, the 20 Best Performances Of 2020, etc. but that’s ok!

READ MORE: The Best Cinematography Of 2020

2020 was a year where movie-lovers learned how to watch movies in an entirely different way. Since theaters were shut down across much of America for most of the year and many of the year’s more anticipated offerings were either shuffled off the annual slate until 2021, or relegated to streaming services a la “Wonder Woman 1984,” our regular routine of watching, analyzing, and obsessing over films was more or less completely upended.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2020 You Didn’t See at The Playlist.

As we end a truly extraordinary year of movie-going (or movie-staying, maybe), and to add to our comprehensive array of Best of 2020 coverage, Be Reel assesses which directors broke through their indie roots to become household names, distinct voices, and burgeoning auteurs in 2020. 

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2020

In order, we look back on these breakout directors, some of whom have arguably already broken out before (Sean Durkin being the most obvious), but are also re-emerging after a long time in the wilderness.

Continue reading The Breakthrough Directors Of 2020 [Be Reel Podcast] at The Playlist.

If it’s a Sunday in December it means it’s time for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association to hand out their year-end honors. The big winner was Steve McQueen’s film anthology commissioned for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video, “Small Axe.” It took Best Film, Best Cinematography and McQueen was runner up for Best Director.

READ MORE: “First Cow” chosen as Best Film of 2020 by NYFCC

Chloe Zhao won Best Director for “Nomadland” which also was runner up for Cinematography.

Continue reading LA Film Critics Select Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ As Best Film at The Playlist.

The New York Film Critics Circle revealed their year-end honors and, surprise, Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” won Best Film. It was a year of female filmmakers being honored by the organization as Chloé Zhao won Best Director for “Nomadland,” Eliza Hittman earned a Best Screenplay honor for “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” and Radha Blank took Best First Film for “The 40-Year-Old Version.”

The organization also honored Spike Lee with a special award for his short film “New York, New York” and “advocating for a better society through cinema.” Two of the stars of his Netflix film “Da 5 Bloods,” Delroy Lindo and Chadwick Boseman, won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

Continue reading ‘First Cow’ Wins Best Film From New York Film Critics Circle at The Playlist.

“If only I had time,” I remember sighing at some point in late 2019, probably in a pub or a restaurant among a cluster of friends separated by <1 ft of space, lipstick doubtless boozily smeared across my maskless face. “If only I somehow had the time to do nothing but stay in and catch up on all the non-fiction releases I’ve missed through the year!” Little did I know that at that exact moment, the Ministry of Be Careful What You Wish For was listening in.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2020 at The Playlist.

It’s the time of Top 10s. Every December, critics, publications, celebrities, and basically anyone with social media reveal their favorite films and TV series of the year. Some people tend to go more mainstream with their picks, while others love to showcase how deep their love of cinema goes. But every year, it seems that one of the most reasonable people who share their Best of 2020 list is none other than Former POTUS, Barack Obama.

Continue reading Barack Obama’s Best Films Of 2020 List Includes ‘Mank,’ ‘Soul,’ ‘Selah & The Spades’ & More 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. 

Since we last met, a flurry of prestige new releases have hit the streaming services – awards season in full swing, it seems, even this peculiar, couch-bound version of it.

Continue reading The 11 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘The Trial Of The Chicago 7,’ ‘American Utopia’ & More at The Playlist.

As we’ve mentioned ad nauseum this fall, cinema is different this year and so are film festivals. While the pandemic knocked Cannes, Telluride, and SXSW out of action, festivals with the benefit of more time have worked extremely hard to find a way to pull off a virtual film festival with drive-in screenings. Chief among them and so far, the only major American film festival to pull it off, the New York Film Festival, has done a remarkable job of pulling their festival together, using both virtual screenings, that expand all over North America and not just New York, and drive-in screenings around the five boroughs.

Continue reading NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See at The Playlist.

When it comes to the discussion of systemic racism and racial injustices in the US, the topic of prisons and sentencing will always come into play. And while the trailer for “Time” doesn’t really wear its messages on its sleeve, it’s clear that the upcoming Amazon documentary aims to shed light on an issue that faces so many Black people in the US.

As seen in the trailer, “Time” tells the story of Fox Rich, a woman that has spent the last few decades fighting daily to try to get her husband released from prison.

Continue reading ‘Time’ Trailer: Sundance Standout Doc Takes A Look At One Woman’s Fight For Her Husbands Freedom at The Playlist.

From the outside, Fox and Rob Richardson looked like the young couple who had it all. The high school sweethearts got married, were ready to move into their first home, and with twins on the way, they would soon start a family. However, their fledgling hip-hop clothing business in Shreveport, Louisiana was facing financial difficulties. It’s never quite clear how or why they decided to rob a bank to try and solve their problems, but that foolish mistake cost them immensely.

Continue reading ‘Time’ Clocks An Uneven & Incomplete Portrait Of Injustice [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.