There are few better ways to spend a half hour than with an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Funny, scary, mysterious, cynical, sinister, and sometimes even sexy, the anthology series created and presented (and sometimes directed) by the Master of Suspense is the complete package. The show was indelible when it first aired in the 1950s, and it remains so today, with storylines that feel surprisingly modern, twists designed to leave you gasping, and an unrelenting fixation on the darkest corners of the human heart.

To choose the best episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" is a bit of a fool's errand, the kind of task Hitch himself would probably scoff at in one of his campy, sarcastic episode introductions. This is, after all, a show that multiple generations watched solely via linear TV, catching stray episodes in syndication rather than binge-watching it in its entirety. It's also a series with...

Mikey Madison is the current Best Actress Oscar frontrunner for her heartbreaking performance in the title role of Sean Baker‘s “Anora.” Her likeliest competitors are two past Oscar winners — Nicole Kidman, 57, for “Babygirl” and Angelina Jolie, 49, for “Maria” — plus six-time nominee Amy Adams, 50, for “Nightbitch” and Karla Sofia Gascon, 52, for “Emilia Pérez.”

At age 25, Madison has one advantage over her main rivals for the award: her youth. Of the 97 winners of this race, almost one-third (32) were in their 20s.

Among those ingenues to take to the stage to collect this coveted prize was Emma Stone, who was 28 when she won for “La La Land” in 2017. Stone was 35 when she picked up a bookend Oscar earlier this year for “Poor Things,” which made her the 35th Best Actress winner in her thirties.

Bracketing Stone’s two wins were five women who defied this bias toward youth: 60-year-old Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once...

Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection will collect six of the Master of Suspense’s classics on 4K Ultra HD + Digital: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

Releasing on November 26 via Universal, the six-disc set is limited to 5,150. It’s housed in premium book-style packaging featuring artwork by Tristan Eaton along with photos, bios, and trivia.

In 1954’s Rear Window, “A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.”

It’s written by John Michael Hayes (To Catch a Thief), based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder.” James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr star.

Rear Window special features:

Audio commentary by Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made Film author John Fawell Rear Window Ethics – 2000 documentary Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a lousy track record when it comes to getting its awards to the most deserving nominees. There are myriad examples of injustices, and, when it comes to Best Picture, a history of settling on a movie that most people at least really like, even if few outright love it. In recent years, we've had the perfectly fine "Spotlight," "Argo," Nomadland," and "Coda" take home the top prize. They weren't the best movies of their respective years, not even close, but they were proficiently directed movies buoyed by excellent performances and accomplished (if somewhat formulaic) screenplays.

The Academy has had a decent five year Best Picture run, but in 2018 there was a galling regression to the bad ol' days when white Hollywood phonies made bogus can't-we-all-just-can't-get-along bromides congratulating themselves for viewing people of different colors and ethnicities as actual human beings. That...

Kathy Bates has announced she's retiring after Matlock, so here's a look at the highlights of an incredible career!

CBS had announced Matlock in 2023, a reboot of the 1980s NBC series starring Andy Griffith as a lawyer whose charming manner hides his legal brilliance defending people accused of murder. The new version has Kathy Bates as Madeline "Matty" Matlock, a veteran attorney returning to work for a major firm. She uses her supposed scatterbrained persona and age to make sure she's underestimated before pulling off a win.

The 2023 Hollywood strikes delayed the show, but it is ready to premiere this September. Before that happens, Bates announced that she would be retiring after this series, no matter how long it runs.

This is my last dance. It becomes my life. Sometimes I get jealous of having this talent. Because I can't hold it back, and I just want my life. Everything I've prayed for,...

The recently released film adaption of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel “It End with Us” was a lot of things and has certainly gotten a lot of people talking. It’s unfortunate, however, that the most important subjects at its center — that of domestic violence and emotional abuse — have not been top-of-mind for most conversations regarding the film, but rather alleged personal riffs between star Blake Lively and director/co-star Justin Baldoni. When domestic violence and abuse have been discussed in reference to the film, it has typically been with criticism over how the film and its rollout have avoided more thoughtfully grappling with these themes, rarely reaching for a narrative that goes any deeper than a casual beach read.

In speaking on adapting Hoover’s novel for the screen in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Baldoni acknowledged his interest in focusing on how Lively’s character, Lily Bloom, overcomes her circumstances,...

Recently, I wrote an article about how Ron Howard’s Cocoon was hard to find in any format. It came out on DVD many years ago but went out of print and has never been issued on Blu-ray. You also can’t find it digitally on any platform. This is a perfect example of why you should always hang on to your physical media, as I’m lucky enough to own the now out-of-print DVD of that movie, and while it’s far from an ideal copy, it’s something.

But that got me thinking. What other movies are hard to find? I opened up the forum on Twitter, and I was shocked by how many prominent films aren’t available digitally and have gone out of print on disc, making them all the more precious for collectors. At the same time, there are some happy endings, such as Martin Campbell’s No Escape,...

To date, there are 24 distinguished individuals (living and deceased) who have won competitive Oscar, Emmy and Tony Awards. The Triple Crown of Acting, as it’s known — see the list below. And there’s no horsing around.

Glenda Jackson became the most recent person to join the club when she received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in for “Three Tall Women” in 2018.

While the recent 77th Tony Awards didn’t produce another Triple Crown Acting champion (there was no Tony-less Oscar and Emmy winner in contention), it is possible that some unsuspecting thespian was put on course to becoming the 25th name on the list above. And so the awards plot thickens.

See Watch our lively chats with hundreds of 2024 Emmy contenders

I’ll appropriately start with Sarah Paulson, who accepted the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for “Appropriate.” (It marked her first Tony nomination.

The musical “Hell’s Kitchen” and the drama “Stereophonic” are leading the nominations with 13 followed closely by the musical “The Outsiders” with 12 for the 77th annual Tony Awards which will be telecast live from Lincoln Center June 16 on Pluto and CBS. The ceremony hosted for the third consecutive year by Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose will also hand out several special Tony Awards.

Two powerhouse directors (and previous Tony winners), George C. Wolfe and Jack O’Brien, are set to receive special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Other special honors will go to sound designer Abe Jacobs, Alex Edelman for his one-man show “Just for Us,” and Nikiya Mathis for her hair and wig design for the Tony nominated “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.” Among those receiving Tonys for excellence in the theater are the Dramatist Guild Foundation, the Samuel J. Friedman Heath Center for the Performing Arts and the Wilma Theater.

“I love to play characters who are ironically interesting and challenging in terms of the way they navigate through life,” shares Linda Lavin about how she chooses roles, including the one she recently portrayed on “Elsbeth.” Her guest appearance on the new CBS drama series was indeed challenging as she stepped into the shoes of the sharp-tongued Gloria, the president of a luxury New York City co-op who is murdered by a real estate agent with a vendetta (Jane Krakowski) and her fed-up tenants. The legendary actress appears in the second episode, “A Classic New York Character,” and calls Gloria “provocative” because of the “evil and dangerous and malicious” things she says. Watch our exclusive video interview above.

Lavin has made many guest appearances in her over 60 years on television, including on “The Good Wife,” which is the series on which Carrie Preston’s character Elsbeth was first introduced. The...

Morgan Freeman revealed the most frustrating moment of his career and it also happened to be his career’s biggest regret. Freeman’s career took off with his Oscar-winning film Driving Miss Daisy. Before the role happened, Freeman wanted to play one particular character in a book-based movie and approached Miloš Forman, the director, to convince him to cast him.

Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy in a still from Driving Miss Daisy | The Zanuck Company

The Dark Knight actor didn’t get the job in Forman’s Ragtime. While the film wasn’t Forman’s best, Freeman was touched by the source material and wanted to play the African-American pianist in the film.

Morgan Freeman’s Biggest Regret Is Losing A Role In A Veteran Director’s Film

Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption | Castle Rock Entertainment

Morgan Freeman has been a remarkable presence in supporting roles in Hollywood.

There’s a story Alfred Hitchcock always liked to tell about how, when he was five years old, his father dropped him off at the local police station near his home in East London. William Hitchcock left a note for the coppers explaining that his son had been misbehaving. A policeman locked young Alfred in a cell for a few minutes and explained, “This is what we do to naughty boys.”

When Hitchcock recounted that story to Dick Cavett he was in his 70s, but the incident continued to leave a profound mark on the director. He said he was still “terrified of the police” because of that and drew a connection from that to the feelings of guilt and wrong-men-on-the-run paranoia that seeps into so many of his films.

The funny thing is, though, father characters are almost entirely absent from Hitchcock’s work. There are a few: Cedric Hardwicke...

At the fifth annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 1953, Helen Hayes won the Best Actress award, thereby becoming the first performer to ever achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. This past Oscar and Tony recipient had now won all three of the American entertainment industry’s most prestigious acting prizes, demonstrating remarkable talent across film, stage, and television. Over the years, 14 women and nine men have followed in her footsteps. Scroll through our photo gallery to learn which two dozen entertainers belong to this exclusive group.

To be included on this list, an individual must have won each award in a competitive acting category. This excludes, for example, James Earl Jones, who was lauded with an honorary Oscar in addition to competitive Emmys and Tonys. Also left out are artists like Mel Brooks, John Legend, and Elton John, all or some of whose wins from the three organizations were for non-acting achievements.

It turns out that Morgan Freeman’s first big break in show business was just kid’s stuff. After working in a few unmemorable productions, Freeman caught on with PBS’s The Electric Company, a show from the Children’s Television Workshop designed to teach basic reading skills to kids from 7 to 10 years old. The gig ran for six seasons and 780 episodes.

He next grabbed attention in 1980 with performances in Brubaker with Robert Redford and TV movie Attica, he broke out in Street Smart, which earned him the first of five Academy Award nominations. Freeman received Best Actor nominations for Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994) before winning for his Best Supporting Actor role in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004). He also received a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in Invictius (2009).

While Freeman’s career may have been slow to start, once he...

Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.

The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...

Long before he won the 2024 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Oppenheimer,” Robert Downey Jr. made his screen debut at age five in the experimental 1970 film “Pound,” which was directed by his father and co-starred his mother and sister. Upon clinching said prize, he emulated only three other men who were first honored by the academy at least half a century into their acting careers. Considering both male categories (and only counting credited roles in feature films), his waiting period of 54 years far exceeds the all-time average, which now stands at 19.5 years.

Although nearly two full decades separate their time-of-win ages (58 and 77), Downey came within five years of breaking John Gielgud’s general record for longest acting career preceding an Oscar victory. The English performer has held that distinction since 1982, when he was lauded for his supporting turn in “Arthur” 58 years after debuting in “Who Is the Man?” (1924). While no male...

The Academy Awards have been handing out a Best Actress trophy since the very first ceremony in 1928. Janet Gaynor for a combo of “7th Heaven,” “Street Angel” and “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” was the first recipient for his leading roles. The most recent champ was Renee Zellweger for “Judy.”

Since then, only one woman has won the category four times: Katharine Hepburn for “Morning Glory,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “The Lion in Winter” and “On Golden Pond.” Next with three is Frances McDormand. The ladies with two lead wins have included Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Glenda Jackson, Vivien Leigh, Luise Rainer, Meryl Streep and Hilary Swank. Streep holds the record of most lead nominations at 17.

The oldest winner was Jessica Tandy (“Driving Miss Daisy”) at age 80. The oldest nominee was Emmanuelle Riva (“Amour”) at age 85. The youngest winner...

[et_pb_section fb_built="1" admin_label="section" _builder_version="3.22" global_colors_info="{}"][et_pb_row admin_label="row" _builder_version="3.25" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat" global_colors_info="{}"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="3.25" custom_padding="|||" global_colors_info="{}" custom_padding__hover="|||"][et_pb_image src="https://www.hollywoodinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Hollywood-Insider-Oscars-Best-Picture-Snubs.png" alt="Hollywood Insider Oscars Best Picture Snubs" title_text="Hollywood Insider Oscars Best Picture Snubs" _builder_version="4.9.0" _module_preset="default" global_colors_info="{}"]/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.14.6" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" global_colors_info="{}" sticky_enabled="0"]

Photo: Best Picture Snubs

Oscars 2024 is in a few days. With Cillian Murphy, Bradley Cooper, Margot Robbie, 'Barbie', Christopher Nolan, 'Oppenheimer', 'Maestro', all vying for the gold Academy Award, let us take a look at the past winners who were snubbed.

The Oscar for Best Picture may be the highest honor that a film could earn, but the Academy members who vote on the matter are anything but infallible--in fact, some of them don’t even watch the nominated movies at all. Audiences are often disappointed by the pick for Best Picture, but subjectivity mandates that there will always be some reasonable dissent--that said, this article will look back at some of the most widely agreed upon upsets that warrant a closer inspection.

Related...

And so the “life-changing cab ride” sub-genre expands with Driving Madeleine, directed by Christian Carion and starring Line Renaud and Dany Boon. One likes to imagine this new film exists in the same universe as all of the rest. Somewhere in Atlanta, Morgan Freeman drives Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy) and gets a handle on prejudice. Meanwhile, Winona Ryder and Gene Rowlands (Night on Earth) have reunited in Los Angeles. Elsewhere in the City of Angels, Tom Cruise has just stepped into Jamie Foxx’s car (Collateral). Finally, in North Carolina, Souléymane Sy Savané and Red West (Goodbye Solo) carry on a gentle conversation.

Carion often trades in sentimentality (see his Joyeux Noël), and Driving Madeleine is as sentimental as it gets. Cab driver Charles (Boon) is in a bad situation. His marriage is strained, he has debts he cannot pay, and he’s one traffic stop away from losing his license.

You might hear the title, Driving Madeleine (French title: Une Belle Course), and then read the logline about a driver taxiing a 92-year old woman around Paris and instantly think “Aha! It is a French Driving Miss Daisy!” Well, having absolutely nothing to do with that 1989 Best Picture Oscar winner that so memorably starred Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, the two films do have something in common. They are both irresistibly cast with exceptional veteran stars who each grab the heart and never let go.

A selection of the 2022 Toronto Film Festival, this quintessential French film may surprise you with its sheer grit. Yes, it is a road trip where the gorgeously shot City of Lights is undeniably the third major star in it, but the story, from a screenplay by Cyril Gely and adaptation by director Christian Carion, goes places I never expected.

The set-up is simple. Charles (Dany Boon...

While the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is often awarded to an ingenue, like the 2022 winner Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”), it can also be a way to reward a more seasoned performer. In 2023, Jamie Lee Curtis reaped her first Oscar bid at age 64 and won for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” In 2021 Youn Yuh-jung, who is renowned in her native South Korea, won at age 73 for her first English film, “Minari.” And in 2020, the academy honored past nominee Laura Dern who finally took home an Oscar for her scene-stealing performance in “Marriage Story.” (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscar predictions for Best Supporting Actress.)

While Dern was clearly a featured player in her picture, two of her rival nominees, Florence Pugh and Margot Robbie, could easily have submitted themselves in lead for their roles in “Little Women” and “Bombshell” respectively. But the studios decided to campaign only their co-stars,...

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing.

While a whopping 32 of the 96 Best Actress champs were in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last five women to win were: 60-year-old Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”); 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”); double champ Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) and 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”). Yeoh’s closest rival last year was Cate Blanchett, 53, for “Tar.” (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscar predictions for Best Actress.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice...

Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic "The Birds" is a staple of Hollywood cinema, and it had to age a bit to earn its spot in the canon. The film only earned one Oscar nomination for special effects, but it is easily one of the most well-remembered works in the accomplished director's oeuvre. Almost half a century has passed since the film's release and many of its main actors are no longer with us. Most of them went on to have storied careers, some of them were already established figures of the entertainment industry, but unfortunately only two of them are still alive today.

Her character Melanie barely survives "The Birds," but Tippi Hedren is one of two stars in the film that has lived to see the 2020s. Hedren worked with Hitchcock again on his thriller "Marnie," but did not have much of a career afterwards. She did go on to...

Vivien Leigh was the two-time Oscar winner who made only a handful of films before her untimely death in 1967 at the age of 53. Yet several of those titles remain classics. Let’s take a look back at 10 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in British India, Leigh appeared in a number of roles on both the stage and screen in England, including a production of “Hamlet” opposite her husband, Laurence Olivier.

She came to international attention after landing the coveted role of Scarlet O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s massive adaptation of Margaret Mitchell‘s bestseller “Gone with the Wind” (1939). Leigh was far from the first choice to embody the headstrong Southern belle who pines after a married man (Leslie Howard) while wedding another (Clark Gable) against the backdrop of the Civil War. Yet the relatively unknown thespian beat out the likes of Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert,...

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds has become such an acknowledged classic and even cultural touchstone that it is easy to forget how revolutionary it was upon its 1963 release. For the Master of Suspense himself, it was a departure in many ways from his previous work while still a testament to his craft and devotion to “pure cinema.” It all but single-handedly created, or at least redefined, an enduring horror subgenre—the animal attack film. Finally, in creating this subgenre, The Birds explores themes of humankind’s place in the world and the unpredictable power of nature. It is also a particularly meaningful film for me as it was my first Hitchcock film and was introduced to me by my grandmother, who was a great fan of classic cinema in general and Alfred Hitchcock in particular. I saw the film during a memorable stay at her home when I was around...

The married filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi made their names with docs about extreme athletic accomplishments — see 2015’s Meru, 2018’s Free Solo (for which they won the best documentary feature Oscar) and 2021’s The Rescue — and have now made their narrative directorial debut, Nyad, about one woman’s decades-long pursuit of one of the greatest of all: becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the benefit of a moving cage to keep away sharks, jellyfish and other dangerous sea creatures.

As with, say, Argo, Sully or, well, The Rescue, I suspect that most people will know, going in to Nyad, how it ends. Spoiler alert: Nyad realized her dream, some 35 years after she first tried to, at the age of 64. But I suspect that most will not know, going in, just how many personal and professional obstacles Nyad had to overcome in order to do so.

Fathom Events unearths a creepy lineup of tricks and treats this Halloween season, as Fathom Fright Fest rises again—terrorizing theaters nationwide beginning on Sunday, September 3.

Featured in this year’s event are two upcoming Screambox Original horror movies, the horror-comedy Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls and creature feature Shaky Shivers, which are joined by a pair of classics from horror mastermind John Carpenter plus The Exorcist, House of 1000 Corpses, and Hitchcock’s The Birds!

Tickets for the Fathom Fright Fest films will be available for purchase via the Fathom Events website. Make sure to sign up with your email so you’re alerted when they go up for grabs!

The complete 2023 Fright Fest Lineup is as follows (all times local)…

“They Live” 35th Anniversary

Fathom celebrates 35 years of this poignant classic from renowned director John Carpenter. “They Live” stars wrestling icon Roddy Piper as a...

The 76th annual Tony Awards have already made history. For the first time, two of the acting nominees identify as non-binary: Harrison Ghee who is contending for lead actor in musical for “Some Like It Hot” and Alex Newell, vying for featured actor in a musical for “Shucked.” Their nominations have been warmly embraced. But 40 years ago, a history-making acceptance led to death threats.

At the 37th annual Tony Awards on June 5, 1983, producer John Glines thanked his lover when he accepted the best play honor for Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” a three-act drama set in New York in the 1970s and early 80s starring Fierstein as a gay, drag queen and torch singer. “He expressed gratitude to an assortment of people , ‘lastly but most importantly, to the one person who believed and followed the dream from the beginning, who never said ‘You’re crazy; it can’t be...

Veteran stage and screen actor Gerald Castillo, who appeared in major TV series including “Saved By the Bell,” “General Hospital,” “Hill Street Blues,” “M*A*S*H” and “Dallas,” died May 4 at his home in Houston. He was 90.

Known for his work as Major Slater on “Saved by the Bell” and Judge Davis Wagner on “General Hospital,” Castillo developed a following for his roles in the two series.

Born in Chicago on Dec. 23, 1932, Gerald studied acting and stage direction at the Goodman Theater. Following his education, he acted on stages all across the nation, performing opposite Sherman Hemsley, Rita Moreno, Jessica Tandy, James Broderick and Jeanne Crain. After performing with Hemsley, “The Jeffersons” star convinced Castillo to pursue a film and TV career in Los Angeles.

Castillo then appeared in several feature films, including “Delta Force II,” “Kinjite,” “Death Wish IV,” “State of Emergency,” “Through Naked Eyes,” and “Above Suspicion.”

Castillo also guest starred in several TV series,...

Gerald Castillo, the veteran character actor who portrayed the father of Mario Lopez’s A.C. Slater on the NBC sitcom Saved by the Bell, has died. He was 90.

Castillo died May 4 in his home in Houston, his wife of 36 years, Dayna Quinn-Castillo, announced.

Castillo also played Det. Michael Benedict on NBC’s Hill Street Blues in 1987, Dr. Herrara on CBS’ Knots Landing in 1990 and Judge Davis Wagner on the ABC daytime soap General Hospital in 1992-94.

He showed up on many other shows throughout his career, from All in the Family, Barnaby Jones, M*A*S*H and Dynasty to Night Court, Dallas, Hunter and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

On the big screen, Castillo worked in Through Naked Eyes (1983), Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989), Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990), State of Emergency (1994) and Above Suspicion (1995). He often portrayed a tough guy.

Fans of Saved by the Bell know...

One thing Douglas Adams taught us in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is this: Dolphins usually know what's up when it comes to visitors from outer space. They're ahead of the curve at the beginning of "Cocoon," too, which opens with the friendly marine mammals frolicking in a sunken city before witnessing strange lights beaming through the clouds.

Ron Howard's fourth feature shares similarities with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," although the beats are different. Its focus is on a group of seniors hitching a ride with friendly aliens to avoid illness and mortality, rather than a guy who is quite happy leaving his kids behind for a fantastic UFO journey. It's one of that '80s micro-genre of sci-fi movies centering around elderly actors, which Steven Spielberg had a big hand in. "Kick the Can," his segment in "Twilight Zone: The Movie," followed a group of...

Comedy has been a popular genre for generations of film audiences seeking an escape from everyday troubles. Although these films often do well at the box office, the Academy is not always quick to reward lighter fare. However, there have been a few competitive acting wins over the past nine decades, and here we rank the 30 funniest of all time in the photo gallery above to wish you a Happy April Fools’ Day.

Out of these 30, there are five for Best Actor, including Jack Nicholson, who holds the record for male acting nominations, and 10 for Best Actress, including Barbra Streisand‘s win for her film debut in “Funny Girl,” which also resulted in a rare tie. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are included for their wins for “It Happened One Night,” which also holds the distinction of being the first of only three films to win the “Big Five”.

SEEOscar...

In a rare occurrence, three of the four acting categories are still up in the air as we inch closer to Oscar Sunday. And depending on the permutation of the victorious quartet, we could have one of the oldest groups of winners ever.

Most of the top contenders in each category are over the age of 50. Ke Huy Quan, the closest thing to a lock in Best Supporting Actor, is 51. His “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-stars and fellow Screen Actors Guild Awards winners Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis are 60 and 64, respectively. Yeoh’s been neck and neck this whole time in Best Actress with Cate Blanchett (“TÁR”), who is 53. Curtis pulled off her supporting actress SAG upset over fellow 64-year-old veteran Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”). And in lead actor, SAG-AFTRA crowned 54-year-old Brendan Fraser for “The Whale.”

If any combination of these people prevail, it...

Shelley Duvall never meant to disappear from Hollywood for so long.

The actress was a bona fide star and Hollywood’s It Girl in the ’70s and ’80s, starring in iconic films like Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall”. However, after a slew of hits she disappeared from the limelight in 2002.

20 years later, Duvall reveals the reason behind her sudden withdrawal.

Read More: ‘The Shining’ Star Shelley Duvall Returning To The Screen After 20-Year Hiatus From Acting

Despite her earlier success, movie offers began to dry up in the ’90s and a spinal cancer diagnosis for her brother hardened her resolve to take a step back to focus on family in Texas.

“It’s the longest sabbatical I ever took,” she told People. “But it was for really important reasons—to get in touch with my family again.”

Now, the star is ready to pursue her passion again,...

While the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is often awarded to an ingenue, like the 2022 winner Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”), it can also be a way to reward a more seasoned performer. In 2021 Youn Yuh-jung, who is renowned in her native South Korea, won at age 73 for her first English film, “Minari.” And in 2020, the academy honored past nominee Laura Dern who finally took home an Oscar for her scene-stealing performance in “Marriage Story.” (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Supporting Actress predictions.)

While Dern was clearly a featured player in her picture, two of her rival nominees, Florence Pugh and Margot Robbie, could easily have submitted themselves in lead for their roles in “Little Women” and “Bombshell” respectively. But the studios decided to campaign only their co-stars, Saoirse Ronan and Charlize Theron, in the top race and this proved to be a winning strategy as all four reaped bids.

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 95 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last four women to win were Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) and 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”). Chastain’s closest rival last year were Colman, now 48, for “The Lost Daughter” and 47-year-old Penelope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers”. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Actress predictions.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...

The Oscar front-runner for Best Picture, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” got a massive boost on nominations morning when it reaped a leading 11 bids. Among those many citations was one for lead actress contender Michelle Yeoh, her first ever after working in the business for decades. Should “Everything Everywhere” go on to win Best Picture and Best Actress, it would become the 13th film in Oscar history to achieve such a feat.

Yeoh takes on the role of laundromat owner Evelyn Quan Wang in the multi-dimensional adventure flick directed by The Daniels (aka Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). Her competitors in the Best Actress category are Cate Blanchett (“Tár”), Ana de Armas (“Blonde”), Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”) and Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”). So far this awards season, Yeoh has claimed the Comedy Golden Globe while Blanchett has taken home the Drama Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award. Next up...

It’s happened five times in the last 11 years (including three years in a row) that an acting winner has has also carried along the hair/makeup team for triumphs at the Academy Awards, a trend that Brendan Fraser and the makeup/prosthetics team from “The Whale” (headed by Judy Chin) hope to continue this year. To be sure, the transformation of Fraser into a 600-pound man proved a visually stunning on-camera masterwork, and it would surprise few if the actor and the team in charge of his radically altered appearance were both to be honored with Oscar hardware.

Most recently, Jessica Chastain won the lead actress prize for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” at last year’s Oscars, while the makeup/hairstyling trophy went to that film’s Stephanie Ingram, Linda Dowds and Justin Raleigh for helping transform Chastain into Tammy Faye Bakker.

SEEOscar spotlight: Brendan Fraser should still...

Michael Levin, who portrayed the fiery reporter Jack Fenelli on all 13-plus years of the ABC daytime soap opera Ryan’s Hope, has died. He was 90.

Levin died Jan. 6 of natural causes at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York, his son Jason Levin told The Hollywood Reporter.

Levin also appeared on Broadway in 1965 in The Royal Hunt of the Sun opposite David Carradine as well as in three 1970 plays: Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real (with Al Pacino), Sam Shepard’s Operation Sidewinder (with Garrett Morris) and Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan (with Colleen Dewhurst).

Ryan’s Hope, which ran from July 1975 to January 1989, starred Helen Gallagher and Bernard Barrow as wife and husband Johnny and Maeve Ryan, who run a New York City tavern called Ryan’s across the street from a hospital.

According to IMDb, Levin appeared on 1,074 episodes of the soap, including the first one and the last one.

Forty-two years after receiving his only film acting Golden Globe nomination for “Ordinary People,” Judd Hirsch is back in the Best Supporting Actor conversation thanks to his brief yet powerful performance as Uncle Boris Schildkraut in “The Fabelmans.” If the 87-year-old does earn his overall ninth Golden Globe notice for his work in the Steven Spielberg film, he will be the third oldest performer ever recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which would put him one step away from making history as the oldest acting Golden Globe winner of all time.

The current record for oldest acting Golden Globe champion has been held since 1989 by John Gielgud. The two-time HFPA honoree was 84 years old when he won Best TV Supporting Actor for the limited series “War and Remembrance.” The only actors older than Hirsch who have ever contended in any Golden Globe category are Ernest Borgnine and Christopher Plummer.

Viola Davis received her first ever Grammy nomination on Tuesday morning for narration of her audio book “Finding Me.” Since she has already won at the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys, the actress could become the 18th person to become an Egot champion if she wins at the Grammys in a few weeks. And it might be a bonanza of awards success coming soon as Davis has a strong film contender for Oscars and other events with “The Woman King.”

The previous champions of Egot are (in chronological order of achievement): composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer Alan Menken and actress/singer Jennifer Hudson.

SEEWho...

Loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's classic horror story, "The Birds" remains one of Alfred Hitchcock's most popular films. The manic action scenes are still a visual feast for modern audiences that have mostly been raised on Michael Bay explosions and the CGI-heavy fight choreography of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When hundreds of bloodthirsty birds attack the small Northern California town of Bodega Bay, it looks and feels truly terrorizing. Hitchcock famously used real birds that actually attacked the actors in an effort to make a fairly ridiculous natural phenomenon appear a little more believable to the movie-going audiences of 1963. 

The abuse that lead actress Tippi Hedren endured has become the stuff of Hollywood legend. In the past, the starlet has had no qualms about calling out Hitchcock for his mistreatment. Nor should she. As the main performer on the call sheet, Hedren was expected to interact with actors Rod Taylor,...

Click here to read the full article.

Carl Samrock, the veteran Hollywood publicist who over the course of a 50-year career worked for Warner Bros. and headed his own firm, has died. He was 81.

Samrock died Saturday night of pancreatic cancer at his home in Encino, his wife of 44 years, Carol Andelman Samrock, announced.

Samrock was vice president of national publicity at Warner Bros. Pictures in Burbank under co-chairmen Bob Daly and Terry Semel. He joined the company in 1982 as West Coast publicity director and built and managed a 16-member staff responsible for publicity duties on some 30 films in production or release annually.

Samrock moved to Warner Home Video in 1997 as a consultant to help then-president Warren Lieberfarb introduce the new format.

A year later, he launched Carl Samrock Public Relations, a boutique firm that focused on publicity and promotion campaigns for DVD and Blu-ray releases. For the next nearly two decades,...

Carl Samrock, a former VP National Publicity for Warner Bros Pictures and home video executive who also was a photojournalist for The New York Times, died October 1 of pancreatic cancer. He was 81.

His wife of 44 years, Carol Andelman Samrock, confirmed the news.

Samrock joined Warners in 1982 as West Coast Publicity Director and eventually built and managed a 16-member staff responsible for publicity duties on some 30 films in production or release annually. He rose to VP National Publicity at Warner Bros. Pictures in Burbank for most of the studio’s years under Chairmen Bob Daly and Terry Semel.

Related: Hollywood & Media Deaths 2022: A Photo Gallery

After leaving Warner theatrical publicity in 1997, Samrock moved to Warner Home Video as a consultant to help then president Warren Lieberfarb, the acknowledged “Godfather of DVD,” introduce the new format that would revolutionize the home entertainment business model. Shortly after, in 1998, Samrock founded Carl Samrock Public Relations,...

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 95 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last three women to win were Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) and 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”). Chastain’s closest rival last year were Colman, now 48, for “The Lost Daughter” and 47-year-old Penelope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers”. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Actress predictions.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...

Director Robert Benton and Paul Newman come through with an extremely pleasing small town story. Snowy North Bath New York would seem a pit of failures big and small, until we begin to appreciate its social web of ‘support relationships’ that fill in for broken family connections. Newman’s injured laborer can’t get a fair shake, but he begins to realize the importance of his neighbors and his grandson. The comic conflicts are wholly believable, with Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Philip Seymour Hoffman on board: this one is Mellow and Mature (and a little racy) without succumbing to Hallmark TV drama sentimentality.

Nobody’s Fool

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 145

1994 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date July 27, 2022 / Available from / aud 34.95

Starring: Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Gene Saks, Josef Sommer, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Catherine Dent, Margo Martindale,...

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, in our first bonus episode, we cover the 62nd Academy Awards in 1990, honoring the films of 1989.

This ceremony, which marks Billy Crystal‘s hosting debut — his first of nine — was topped by “Driving Miss Daisy,” whose four wins from nine nominations included Best Picture and Best Actress for Jessica Tandy, who at 80 became the oldest acting winner at the time. It won despite a directing snub for Bruce Beresford, becoming the first film since “Grand Hotel” in 1932 to win Best Picture without a directing bid. It is, of course, now more common as “Argo” (2012), “Green Book” (2018) and “Coda” (2021) have achieved it. Would Beresford have won had he made it in or would Oliver Stone (“Born on the Fourth of July”) still have prevailed?

See...

I loved "Driving Miss Daisy" before I even saw the movie, actually. I remember running around as a kid teasing slow drivers — and slow-moving people in general for that matter — by calling them Driving Miss Daisy because I thought the movie was about an old lady who drove slowly and held up traffic. When I finally watched the 1989 comedy-drama, it only reinforced my adoration. Jessica Tandy shined in her role as Daisy Werthan, an elderly but prideful white Jewish widow who, from the late 1940s and into the early '70s, develops a bond with her kindly Black chauffeur, Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) in Georgia. In my eyes, "Lean on Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "Driving Miss Daisy" are Freeman's best movie roles.

Miss Daisy and Hoke's relationship helped shape my knowledge of race relations during the civil rights era beyond the documentaries I watched in school. For example,...

“Thank you for this work that’s just so magic and so worth it,” expressed Mary-Louise Parker when she accepted the Tony Award from presenter Gwyneth Paltrow in 2001 for her unforgettable performance in “Proof.” This year, Parker competes for the same prize for starring in the first Broadway production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “How I Learned to Drive” and could take home the third trophy of her career for it. Below, see a list of all five of Mary-Louise Parker’s Tony nominations and two wins.

See Mary-Louise Parker (‘How I Learned to Drive’) poised to make Tony Awards history

Parker originated the role of Li’l Bit in the original Off-Broadway production of “How I Learned to Drive” 25 years ago. This Broadway revival reunited her with costars David Morse and Johanna Day as well as director Mark Brokaw. The drama is a haunting memory play that...

Fresh off of her second Tony Award victory last year for “The Sound Inside,” Mary-Louise Parker has earned a follow-up nomination in the same category for her work in the revival of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “How I Learned to Drive.” Parker returned to the haunting piece 25 years after she originated the role Off-Broadway, reuniting with costars David Morse – who also reaped a bid – and Johanna Day, plus director Mark Brokaw.

This nomination not only celebrates her exemplary performance, but also moves Parker into an extremely exclusive list of performers who have earned at least five nominations in the Best Play Actress category. Her first bid dates back to 1990, when she contended for “Prelude to a Kiss.” Over a decade later, Parker earned her second nomination for “Proof” and went on to win the prize. In the following two decades, she earned another nom for “Reckless” in 2005 and last year for “The Sound Inside,...