Film

Film

Admissions for Korean and international films have fallen 45% since 2019, from about 226 million to 123 million, while box office revenue has dropped from $1.3bn to $812m. With investment slowing sharply, Korean distributors that once released more than 40 locally produced films a year are expected to put out about only 20 in 2025, and warn that 2026 could be even more serious as the pandemic-era backlog runs out and new productions are not coming fast enough.

If you went to the movies this fall, you probably met him: the Sad Art Dad. You'll have known him by his miserableness; despite the flash of the cameras and the cheers of the groundlings, he's most often found moping alone. His vocation may vary-movie star (in ), art-house director ( Sentimental Value), blockbuster Tudor playwright ()-but his problem tends to be the same. He has chosen great art over good parenting, utterly failing as a father, and he knows it. There's something delicious about his cocktail of self-pity and self-loathing, which can arouse both the viewer's repulsion and compassion.

I have always felt that distinctions between people from the same country fade when they come to a new place. What you have in common, as outsiders, is greater than what initially set you apart. What Yogan and Samar recognize in each other early on is a desire to better the conditions of the women they love, their families. They're men in their twenties, just stepping into a new stage of life. They're excited to talk about their wives, their dreams, their clothes!

The output of the Universal monster era, wherein the legendary studio pioneered a new age of big-screen horror, became some of the most recognizable and copied creations in movie history. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, and the Invisible Man were reinterpreted and ripped off countless times, often by Universal itself. And with the Invisible Man, the studio chose to keep the franchise running with an ahead-of-its-time gender twist.

If you follow the sign, head up a steep path to the left and through a heavy door, you'll find yourself between tall bookshelves. Novels, political analyses, out-of-print editions about the culture and history of the region. A few steps further, around the corner you'll enter a second room. And here the atmosphere changes, it's more dense and colourful. It's here where poster heaven begins. Fascinating colors, so many faces, and typographies from over a century of trends in print.

Prime Video has revealed the first trailer for Madden, the David O. Russell-directed biopic starring Nicolas Cage as legendary NFL coach-turned-NFL broadcaster John Madden and Christian Bale as Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis. Russell also wrote the film, working off an earlier screenplay drafted Cambron Clark. Along with Cage and Bale, the cast includes John Mulaney as Trip Hawkins; Kathryn Hahn as Virginia Madden; Sienna Miller as Carol Davis; Joel Murray as Pat Summerall; and Shane Gillis.

A soaking wet George Bailey and Clarence, warming up by the fire in the toll house on the bridge, discuss why Clarence jumped into the freezing water. It was to help George, Clarence tells him. Only one way you can help me, George says sarcastically. You don't happen to have 8,000 bucks on you? The film then cuts to an elated George running through town, gleefully shouting Merry Christmas to the You are Now in Bedford Falls sign, Mr. Potter, the bank examiner.

Watching holiday films at our home is much like an endurance sport. While there is a strict "not before Thanksgiving rule," once the stuffing has been put away, it's no holds barred. We often print out the annual Hallmark checklist calendar and dutifully mark off each film as we watch. Over the years, however, our zeal has lessened as the roulette of the same storyline repeated does in fact become mildly mind-numbing.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

What ultimately brought Oona Chaplin, 39, and James Cameron together was something very different from the glitz of premieres, red carpets, or the machinery surrounding a blockbuster like Avatar. Or perhaps not so different, considering the unmistakable environmental message of the highest-grossing film franchise in history. We talked for about 40 minutes about the earth, says the Spanish actress over a video call. I told him I was living in a treehouse and starting a permaculture project with a friend.

One of the favorite things about Christmas is settling down to watch Christmas movies, free from work and school obligations. It's one of the best ways to just relax during the holiday frenzy. Still, with so many streaming services, figuring out what to watch can be difficult to even figure out what to watch, purely from decision overload. That's why we narrowed down the list for you.

Could the students who snickered their way through those first SpongeBob adventures have foreseen the franchise persisting 25 years on, even after metabolising the most lysergic pharmaceuticals? Such longevity is partly down to extra-commercial considerations, in that the series has a capacity for tickling adults' funny bones possibly even those now fully grown students as well as the very young. Though it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as the David Hasselhoff cameo in 2004's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie not so much a high bar as an unforgettably wonky one feature four thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing royalty cheques to Barbra Streisand and Yello. Anything can still happen in Bikini Bottom.

Hannibal Lecter's first movie appearance was in 1986's Manhunter, starring Brian Cox. It took director and writer Michael Mann just five weeks to adapt Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon for the screen. But when it came to adapting his own work Heat 2, co-authored with Meg Gardiner as both a prequel and sequel to his 1995 film Heat Mann discovered the pain of self-editing.

"We had a stand-in ass and a fake paddle that supposedly would not put the full force," O'Leary said. "All of a sudden, Chalamet came on set and said, 'No, if this ass is going to be immortalized, it's my ass.'"

The romcom originally included a relationship between the headmistress (Anne Reid) of the school that hosts the final Christmas concert, and her partner Geraldine (Frances de la Tour). Deleted scenes show the headmistress return from school to find her partner, who is terminally ill, in bed. They laugh and drink wine, before it cuts to them sleeping in bed together, Geraldine painfully coughing.