Shaken & Stirred: “The Testament of Ann Lee” DP William Rexer on Capturing Amanda Seyfried’s Fearless Performance
Intimate and uninhibited, director Mona Fastvold’s (co-writer, executive producer, and 2nd unit director of The Brutalist) The Testament of Ann Lee is a devoted biopic about the unusual founder of the Shaker movement, Mother Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried). Considered a representative of God, Lee guided her offshoot of the Quakers into existence during a period of English Evangelical revival, but the group’s unrestrained dancing, curtailed sexual relations, and encouragement of gender equality were unique even within the broader religious resurgence.
“Marty Supreme” Composer Daniel Lopatin on Blending Synths & Orchestra for Timothée Chalamet’s Ultra Ambitious Striver
Oscar-shortlisted composer Daniel Lopatin earned a reputation amongst electronic music fans for his steady stream of experimental solo albums recorded under the name OneOhTrix Point Never. But it’s Lopatin’s pulsating score for Marty Supreme that will surely expose his synth-driven compositions to a broader audience.
Filmed in New York City and set in 1952, writer-director Josh Safdie’s fact-based movie stars Timothée Chalamet as ping-pong hustler Marty Mauser,
Inside “Stranger Things” Season 5: DP Caleb Heymann on Will’s Visions, Vecna’s Mind-Maze, & Demogorgon Drones
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things may take place over the course of a few November days, but the Duffer Brothers’ ever-ambitious epic took almost a year to shoot. Volume 1, the season’s first four episodes, saw Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) putting her powers to work in the Upside Down, Will (Noah Schnapp) telepathically connecting with demogorgons, and the youngest Wheeler sibling, Holly (Tinsley Price), taken prisoner by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower),
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Scene-Stealer Oona Chaplin on Creating the Captivating, Vengeful Varang
If ever there was an actor more perfectly aligned with the ethos of James Cameron and the world of Pandora, it’s Oona Chaplin. Chaplin’s first conversation with Cameron revolved around biodynamic and organic farming. She is an activist and environmentalist whose humanitarian efforts span from Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, and beyond. She’s volunteered in refugee camps and supported film education for Saharawi refugees through the FiSahara Festival.
“Wake Up Dead Man” Costume Designer Jenny Eagan on Priestly Fashion and Daniel Craig’s ’70s-Inspired Suits
For her third collaboration with writer-director Rian Johnson on his Knives Out Mystery franchise, costume designer Jenny Eagan recalibrated her color palette to suit Wake Up Dead Man‘s darker tone. Daniel Craig, of course, returns as detective Benoit Blanc, but the new installment co-stars Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolin as small-town priests. Rounding out the cast of killers, victims, and innocent bystanders are Glenn Close,
Inside & Upside Down on “Wicked: For Good”: Production Designer Nathan Crowley on His Anti-Gravity Architecture
In order for production designer Nathan Crowley to be able to realize his vision for director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films, he needed to assemble a crack team of artisans he has relied on for decades. Combining age-old skills and techniques with organic materials foraged from forests, seeing locations as sculptures that needed to evolve with the filmmaking and storytelling process.
Wicked: For Good focuses on the maelstrom surrounding Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba,
Best of 2025: “Part Debate Club and Part Therapy”: Inside “The Pitt” Writers’ Room With Cynthia Adarkwa & Valerie Chu
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
HBO’s The Pitt emerged as one of television’s most gripping medical dramas in years by doing something deceptively simple yet extraordinarily difficult: following a single, brutal 15-hour shift in a Pittsburgh emergency room in real time. What made the series so compelling wasn’t just its relentless intensity or unflinching medical realism (the “floating face”
Best of 2025: “Alien: Earth” Cinematographer and Director Dana Gonzalez on Bringing Cinema’s Most Iconic Monster to TV
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
On Earth, everyone can hear you scream. No apologies for the dreadful play on the classic logline for Alien, which continues to reach new, strange heights in FX’s Alien: Earth, created by Fargo‘s Noah Hawley.
Best of 2025: How “Superman” Production Designer Beth Mickle Built the Fortress of Solitude
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
Director James Gunn started small with his 2010 micro-budgeted indie film Super, followed by his acclaimed Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel. Now, he’s made a crowd-pleasing new version of Superman that’s raked in more than half a billion in global box office since its release earlier this summer.
Best of 2025: Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson on ‘Die My Love’: Motherhood, Madness, and That Wild Ending
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
All sorts of spoilers below!
When you look at Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence’s careers, in many ways, they have had similar paths in Hollywood. They both rose to worldwide fame early in their careers as the leading stars of major franchises (Twilight and The Hunger Games,
Best of 2025: “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” Screenwriter Dana Fox on Her Magical Musical Theater Homecoming
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
Screenwriter Dana Fox made a pact with director Jon M. Chu. After working with Chu on her Apple TV+ series, Home Before Dark, she told him she would sign up for a project with him, no matter what,
Best of 2025: MPA Creator Award Recipient Jon M. Chu on Authentic Storytelling and the Power of Cultural Specificity
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
With Wicked: For Good set to complete the story that began with 2024’s blockbuster, director Jon M. Chu, the Motion Picture Association’s Creator Award recipient for 2025, continues our conversation about his evolution as a filmmaker and the power of culturally specific storytelling to reach universal audiences.
Best of 2025: How DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw Captured Black Music’s Timeless Continuum in “Sinners”
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
In part one of our interview with Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the groundbreaking DP discussed how she leveled up to frame Coogler’s soulful supernatural epic by learning to use the largest film format available. Coogler’s ambitions for his vampire thriller,
Best of 2025: “Sinners” Writer/Director Ryan Coogler on Channeling Louisiana’s Creative Rhythm Into His Period Monsterpiece
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
Sinners, written, produced, and directed by Ryan Coogler, is hands down one of the year’s biggest cinematic successes. Coogler’s passion project found the filmmaker at the peak of his powers, and fans already primed to see anything from the still young visionary were ready to go once Sinners bowed.
Best of 2025: “One Battle After Another” Production Designer Florencia Martin on Building PTA’s Three-Hour Action Thriller from the Ground Up
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller One Battle After Another is loosely inspired by a section of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” but this three-hour epic is rooted in the present, a contemporary vision of a heightened clash between far-left and far-right,
Best of 2025: Inside the Breakneck Cut of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” With Editor Andy Jurgensen
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
The best-reviewed movie of the season is also the most relentless. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Oscar front-runner One Battle After Another races through its two-hour fifty-minute run time propelled by adrenalized performances from Leonardo DiCaprio,
Oscar Winner Jenny Beavan on “The Choral,” Ralph Fiennes, and Her Mother’s Wartime Love Story
Screenwriter Alan Bennett has given us The Madness of King George and The History Boys, and his latest film, The Choral, stays true to the writer’s oeuvre of zeitgeist-shifting English epic. Set in 1916 in Ramsden, a fictional Yorkshire mill town, the film follows the travails of the local Choral Society, which is determined to boost wartime morale by inviting young men to join their ranks and engaging a new choir master,
“Wake Up Dead Man” Composer Nathan Johnson: From Beauty to Darkness in Benoit Blanc’s Latest Mystery
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery composer Nathan Johnson has scored all three of Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out films. Working alongside Johnson (his cousin), Nathan has created a unique sound for each film, culminating in a fantastical, orchestral finale for Benoit Blanc’s closing monologue. So how’d Johnson do? His work on Wake Up Dead Man has recently been shortlisted for an Oscar.
How James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” Uses Practical Filmmaking You’ve Never Seen Before
It has been three years since Avatar: The Way of Water became the third-highest-grossing movie, with $2.3 billion worldwide. The much-anticipated third installment in James Cameron’s cinematic spectacle, Avatar: Fire and Ash, launched this past Friday, once again immersing audiences in the lush forests and pristine oceans of the exomoon Pandora. The epic sci-fi from 20th Century Studios picks up after Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña),
Production Designer Kevin Thompson on Capturing NYC’s Iconic Comedy Scene in Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?”
Production designer Kevin Thompson knows New York and its environs like the back of his hand (one of those old, paper MTA maps), and few things give him more joy than showcasing his knowledge of and love for the city on the big screen. His work on director Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? is a perfect example.
Having already immortalized the Big Apple in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),
