Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Meet the First Order

With more information trickling onto StarWars.com’s massive, universe-spanning database, we’re starting to get a clearer picture of the pecking order of the First Order, the latest iteration of the Galactic Empire. In The Force Awakens, it's the First Order that will be giving the Jedis and other assorted good guys (we're looking at you, Han, Chewy, R2D2, C3P0 and BB-8) major trouble. Also, those fighting The First Order are no longer the Rebel Alliance,

Game of Thrones Director Jeremy Podeswa on Last Season’s Toughest Episode

Jeremy Podeswa has directed some of the most ambitious television episodes of the last ten years. Rome, Six Feet Under, The Walking Dead, True Detective, Homeland, True Blood, American Horror Story, and Boardwalk Empire are on his resume. He’s been nominated for three Emmys—one for the HBO miniseries The Pacific, one for a 2011 episode of Boardwalk Empire, and now one for his work on the episode of “Unbent,

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett Smolder in Carol Trailer

Today the Weinstein Company released their first full-length trailer for director Todd Haynes’ Carol, the studio’s Palme D’Or competition entry at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival (earning co-star Rooney Mara a tie for Best Actress with Emmanuel Bercot for Mon Roi.) An Official Selection for competition at the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival, Carol looks to be a major player come awards season.

A Sizzling Teaser for Season 2 of The Flash

The Flash returns to the CW Network on October 6, bringing back our favorite lightning-struck superhero Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) for season two. Here comes Jay Garrick, the first Flash (?), who has come to warn the current Flash and everybody else that their world is in danger! This prompts the reasonable question from Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) of exactly how many worlds there are? Many, apparently, but the important take-away here is ours is in danger.

Room Will Likely Break Your Heart

For readers of Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name, the idea of watching a film adaptation of a book that was at turns devastating and impossible to put down begs the question; can I put myself through this again, but also, how could I not?

Director Lenny Abarhamson’s Room premiered to some pretty spectacular reviews at the Telluride Film Festival, and as it heads to the Toronto International Film Festival it does so with major buzz.

Jake Gyllenhaal Loses it All in Demolition Trailer

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an investment banker on the brink after losing his wife in director Jean-Marc Vallé’s (Wild, Dallas Buyers Club) latest film, Demolition. Only it’s not quite as simple as that sounds. With a script from Bryan Sipe, Demolition looks at a man who finds that he wasn’t paying close enough attention to life, and is trying to mourn someone he didn’t try hard enough to truly know.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Era Gets Off to Great Start

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert started with a bit of The Colbert Report patriotic absurdity—there was our host, joining Americans from all over the country in a duet of “The Star Spangled Banner,” from bowling alleys to mechanic shops to baseball fields—ending with an umpire yelling “play ball!” The umpire? Watch and see who it is:

Thus begun Stephen Colbert’s reign as the host of the The Late Show,

Boardwalk Empire’s Production Designer on Building Havana & Atlantic City

Bill Groom is a three-time Emmy winner as production designer on HBO’s series Boardwalk Empire. He’s now been nominated a fourth time for his work for the last season of one of the most ambitious mob-centric TV show in history. Centered on the rise of gangster and would-be credible businessman Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Steve Buscemi) in prohibition-era Atlantic City, Boardwalk Empire offered a panoramic vision of the power players vying for control of the liquor trade and more, from Chicago's Al Capone to New York's Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

Watch This Avengers: Age of Ultron Blooper Reel

If you're curious how they were able to actually make Avengers: Age of Ultron, look no further than our interview with the film's production designer, Charles Wood, right here. If you're wondering what prominent authors and scientists think about the possibility of an sentient artificial intelligence becoming Ultron-like (evil, that is), you can read this piece to find out. Or, if you want to watch Chris Evans forget possibly the easiest line in the film,

Great Quotes From J.J. Abrams About Making Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Internet is abuzz with speculation this morning that a new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be coming next week, while The Force Awakens global toy unboxing live stream event is happening now. If you’re looking for more concrete Star Wars info, however, the Associated Press’s Jake Coyle nabbed an interview with Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J.

Everest Opens Venice Film Festival With Thrills & Chills

The 72nd Venice Film Festival got off to a thrilling, chilling start with Baltasar Kormakur’s Everest. The 3D drama premiered out of competition at the festival, the first of several high-profile U.S. films playing alongside films by a slew of international superstar directors.

Described by The Hollywood Reporter’s chief critic Todd McCarthy as a “gripping and immersive dramatization of a tragic trek,” Everest follows the real life account of a deadly 1996 expedition by two different climbing teams during one of the mountain’s legendarily brutal storms.

Three Seriously Talented Actresses on Star Wars: Episode VIII Shortlist

The folks over at The Wrap reported that Oprhan Black’s Tatiana Maslany, Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’s Olivia Cooke are all on the shortlist for Star Wars: Episode VIII. The film, to be directed by Rian Johnson (Looper,

Killer Cars: Check out This Mad Max: Fury Road Infographic

Back in May, we introduced you to Jacinta Leong, art director on Mad Max: Fury Road and one of the people responsible for bringing you those beastly machines. Leong's task was huge, both literally and narratively, as without the machines, Mad Max: Fury Road can't exist. Fusing two Cadillacs bodies together, installing a massive engine and having the thing actually drive was just part of her task.

Today,

Downton Abbey Season Six Fashions: The Times They Are A Changin’

The Crawleys and their downstairs gang will be roaring into the ‘20s bedecked and bejeweled in the latest in 1925 fashions thanks to Downton Abbey costume designer Anna Mary Scott Robins. Robins’ fashions are a vital character in this period drama, and serve the crucial function of moving us along in time.

Gone are the conservative and quite restrictive gear, and slipping are the attitudes of Edwardian England in 1912,

Michael Fassbender & Marion Cotillard are Electric in Macbeth Trailer

Some roles are cast so well you cannot imagine another person playing them—in Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, the two leads fit this phenomenon perfectly. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in this decidedly dark (even for Macbeth) take on Shakespeare’s tale of a man destroyed by ambition and desire.

Kurzel places these iconic characters in a viscerally evoked Scotland torn apart by war.

The Danish Girl Looks Utterly Moving

The word “Oscar” has been unavoidable ever since people learned Eddie Redmayne would be starring in Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl, playing transgender artist and pioneer Lili Elbe. Fresh off his Oscar win for his astonishing transformation into Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, all anybody needed to hear was "Redmayne" and "transgender artist" to grant him his second nomination for Best Actor in a row.

Why Taylor Swift Gave the Best Speech Last Night at the VMAs

At the VMAs last night, Taylor Swift did something pretty classy after accepting the award for Best Female Video for "Blank Space"—she thanked her director, the prolific Joseph Kahn, and had him come up on the stage to accept the award alongside her. Then Kahn, as any proper director must, went on to name members of his crew, from his cinematographer Christopher Probst to his stylist, Edda Gudman, and then offered a shout out to his mom,

Director David Ayer Shares Suicide Squad Wrap Photo

Can you pick out the various bad guys that star in David Ayer’s upcoming Suicide Squad in this sprawling wrap photo? Can you find the Enchantress (Cara Delevigne), Deadshot (Will Smith), and the Killer Croc (Adele Akinnuoye-Agbaje)? Ayer (Fury, End of Watch, Training Day) is perhaps the perfect director to tackle the story of a bunch of supervillains taking on a suicidal black ops mission, and if the Comic-Con trailer and this wrap photo of what appears to be a pretty happy group of stars and filmmakers are any indiction,

Will Smith’s Concussion Trailer Drops Right in Time for NFL Season

As millions of fans get psyched up for the start of the 2015 NFL season, the sport’s brutality, and its subsequent, lasting effect on the players, is a fact that is becoming increasingly harder to ignore. And now comes writer/director Peter Landesman’s film Concussion, starring Will Smith’s as the real life forensic neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, and his battle against the NFL, which just released its new trailer.

Watch the Daredevil VFX Reel

One of the nice surprises about Daredevil is how the show has relied less on showy CGI effects and more on fine storytelling. Eschewing the big budget bomb of Daredevil the film, which put Ben Affleck in tights and had him leaping off buildings, Netflix’s version, created by Drew Goddard, builds on the story of Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock), the blind lawyer who uses his other, hugely enhanced senses,