The director of one of the best films of 2025 that’s up for several Oscars is working on a highly anticipated revival of an iconic series
Michael B Jordan as Smoke and Stack in the hit film Sinners(Image: WARNER BROS)
Ryan Coogler’s The X-Files reboot has just been given a thrilling update.
The revamped sci-fi mystery drama was first announced back in 2023, with the acclaimed director releasing his hit period horror blockbuster Sinners in the meantime.
Nearly three years later, the project has finally been given a pilot greenlight by streaming service Hulu, with Jennifer Yale (The Copenhagen Test) coming on board as showrunner.
Black Panther filmmaker Coogler will write and direct the first episode, which will star Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) as an FBI agent investigating the paranormal.
A synopsis via Deadline confirms the series will follow “two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents — one played by Deadwyler — [who] form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Deadwyler has a big year ahead as she’ll next be seen in the HBO comedy series Rooster with Steve Carell as well as the third season of Euphoria. Her X-Files co-star has yet to be confirmed.
The original series starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, a believer and a skeptic who investigate unsolved cases known as X-Files.
Originally airing from 1993-2002 over nine seasons, the series is widely considered one of the greatest shows of all time, with Radio Times calling the first episode ‘the greatest pilot in TV history’. It returned for two new seasons in 2016 and 2018.
One Redditor claimed it’s “never to be dethroned”, and someone else agreed: “This show is my #1 of all time. It has its flaws but this is the show I go to every night.
“If TV died as a whole entirely and I was stranded on a desert island, this would be my one and only choice.”
And an X user called it “literally the best show ever made, so beautifully shot and a killer soundtrack!”
The reboot certainly has a daunting legacy to live up to, though thankfully director Coogler has more than enough credentials to meet fans’ high expectations.
His latest film, Sinners, starring Michael B Jordan as twin gangsters who encounter a chilling cult of vampires in 1930s Mississippi, was named the best film of 2025 by the African American Film Critics Association.
The critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads: “A rip-roaring fusion of masterful visual storytelling and toe-tapping music, writer-director Ryan Coogler’s first original blockbuster reveals the full scope of his singular imagination.”
Teasing his next project on the Last Podcast on the Left, Coogler said: “I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f***ing scary.
“We’re gonna try to make something really great and really be something for the real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
He also revealed that he had spoken to Anderson about the revamped series, though her and Duchovny’s involvement is currently unconfirmed.
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The CDC said Ralph Abraham was stepping away from his role as principal deputy director so he can address family obligations. File Photo by Erik S. Lesser/EPA-EFE
Feb. 23 (UPI) — Ralph Abraham, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principal deputy director and noted vaccine skeptic, announced Monday he’s stepping down from the role.
The CDC said he’s leaving the position as one of the top public health officials in the United States so he can “address unforeseen family obligations.” The agency provided no further details.
“It has been an honor to serve alongside the dedicated public health professionals at the CDC and to support the agency’s critical mission,” Abraham said in a statement.
The announcement comes less than three months after he was hired for the No. 2 position at the CDC.
Prior to his appointment at the CDC, Abraham served as Louisiana surgeon general. He caused controversy when he ordered the Louisiana Department of Health to stop recommending mass vaccinations in 2025.
At the time, he said the move was intended to rebuild trust with public health officials after it had been eroded by what he described as missteps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Abraham previously ordered state public health workers to stop promoting COVID-19, influenza or mpox vaccinations.
“Conversations about specific vaccines, and whether or not a vaccine is right for a specific person, are best had with the individual’s healthcare provider, who best understands their individual situation and relevant medical history,” Abraham wrote in a post on X in February 2025.
Inside its sci-fi trappings — space travel, crazy technology, oodles of extraterrestrials — Pixar’s “Elio” is the story of an outsider kid who finds a new family. That’s true of the protagonist, a lonely boy who longs to leave Earth, and of the film itself.
“Elio’s” original mission was launched by Adrian Molina, co-writer of “Coco,” who worked on writing and directing the project for a couple of years before departing, officially to devote himself to “Coco 2.” Molina was replaced in “Elio’s” director’s chair(s) by Domee Shi, who helmed “Turning Red” and won an Oscar for her short “Bao,” and Madeline Sharafian, a story artist on “Coco” and story lead on “Turning Red.”
“The basic premise from Adrian’s beginning, five years ago, has stayed the same,” says Sharafian: “A lonely, weird little boy gets abducted by aliens and is mistaken for the leader of Earth. The biggest change we made, and everything rippled from there, was that Elio always wanted to be abducted by aliens, to find a place where he belongs.”
Shi says, “Both of us were weirdo kids in our respective hometowns who dreamed of not being the only one. I was one of the only kids in my school that liked anime. When I finally got into animation school, I was like, ‘I found my people, and I didn’t realize how much I wanted this.’ ”
One tectonic shift under Shi and Sharafian came from screenwriter Julia Cho, who co-wrote “Turning Red” with Shi: Instead of Olga (voiced by Zoe Saldaña) being Elio’s mom, she would be his aunt. Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) would lose both parents before the film. That reconfigured his alienation, so to speak. A harsh confrontation between mother and child usually rests on the foundation that they already know and love each other. For an orphaned boy and his guardian aunt, that closeness must be earned.
“That love isn’t a given,” says Sharafian. “There was no assumption it would be there. So when it is, it’s all the more moving.”
“Elio” directors Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian’s shared “visual language” reshaped the film after they took on the project from its initial director, Adrian Molina.
(Pixar Animation Studios)
Amid the changes, Shi and Sharafian say the working relationship they established on “Turning Red” was invaluable.
Shi says, “Though we have different backgrounds, we grew up watching a lot of the same movies. Both of us love Miyazaki films, we love ‘Sailor Moon,’ we love Disney, Pixar.”
Sharafian adds, “We speak the same visual language. There would be many moments when it was time to come up with a new shot and we both drew the same thing.”
In its 28 previous features, Pixar had dabbled in sci-fi, but “Elio” is immersed in it, with just a soupçon of … horror?
“We’re huge fans of sci-fi horror,” says Shi, “and we wanted to use those moments with Elio’s clone and Olga to have fun, to playfully scare some kids — and some adults too.”
That “clone” is a dead ringer for the protagonist, but it emerged from space goo and formed into an eerily cheerful version of the boy, like something from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” or “The Stepford Wives,” but nice.
“The movies that impacted me the most as a kid, a lot of them did scare me, but they rewarded me as well,” says Shi. “Our film has this Spielberg-y, comfortable, nostalgic, family sci-fi vibe. So when the audience is at their most comfortable, that’s the perfect opportunity to give ’em a little spook.” Both directors cackle.
Sharafian adds, “ ‘Close Encounters’ is so scary, but in an amazing, tense way, and the musical [phrase] the aliens sent, I was so haunted by that. When we had the universe reach out to Elio, we were like, ‘How do we capture that same feeling — we want to know more, but we’re unsure of their intentions?’ ”
Beyond Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.,” the shared influences of the sci-fi horror of “The Thing” and “Alien” influenced their choice of a virtual anamorphic lens for their cinematography and aping the visual noise and atmospheric mist in those films.
Among the changes Shi and Sharafian made to “Elio” is its “epic” widescreen aspect ratio.
(Pixar Animation Studios)
Shi adds that they also changed the aspect ratio from 1.85 (standard widescreen) to 2.39:1 (anamorphic widescreen, an ultrawide look): “It helped shots of Elio on Earth feel more lonely, but also made space feel more epic.”
“To lay that on top of” Molina’s existing work, says Sharafian, “completely changed what the movie looked like.”
The directors agree that most of the film seamlessly blends their input, though Shi specialized in the horror and action sequences, while Sharafian leaned into the emotional scenes.
“A lot of Act 1 was you, Maddie,” says Shi, “where he’s feeling soulful and lonely. I love that. Yearning, watching the stars. I feel like that’s probably from your own childhood.”
Sharafian chuckles and says, “Yes, I was very lonely! My sister and I say we had ‘rich inner lives’ because we didn’t have a lot going on outside.”
It’s not “Up”-level gut-wrenching, but the scenes establishing the heartbroken boy’s lingering trauma hit pretty hard.
“I feel like it’s good to be sad,” says Sharafian. “At Pixar, we’re lucky; we get to stay in a childlike headspace for a really long time. I think we forget how deep children’s emotions are and how, when you’re young, you’re already thinking about very sad things and dark things. So I don’t think it’s too much.”
Now, two months after the tragedy, the comedian has broken his silence about the death of his good friends.
“To have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone … I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward,” O’Brien said in an interview for “The New Yorker Radio Hour” podcast. “I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very — it’s so awful. It’s just so awful.”
As host of the Dec. 13 party, O’Brien was among the last people to see the Reiners alive. Their 32-year-old son, Nick, was arrested the following night and charged with murdering his parents. Two sources who attended the party described witnessing a loud verbal exchange between Nick Reiner and his parents.
In an interview published Friday, O’Brien said he and his wife were very close with the couple, describing them as “just such lovely people.”
O’Brien praised Rob Reiner’s talent as a director and his tireless advocacy efforts. The “When Harry Met Sally …” director was a prominent Democratic donor, noted critic of President Trump and a champion for causes such as early childhood education and gay marriage.
“I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there — and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend,” O’Brien told The New Yorker.
O’Brien said he considers Reiner “one of the greats” given his impressive track record of directing a series of blockbuster movies.
“To make seven — in, like, a nine-year, 10-year, 11-year period — is insanity,” O’Brien said. “With ‘Spinal Tap’ alone, if that’d been the only thing he ever did, he influenced my generation enormously.”
O’Brien fondly recalled first watching the rock mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” in college, calling it a “splitting-the-atom moment.”
The pair were not only friends, but also collaborators. Reiner was a guest on a 1999 episode of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and also appeared on episodes of O’Brien’s podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” in 2023 and 2025.
Authorities allege Nick Reiner fatally stabbed his 78-year-old father and 70-year-old mother at their Brentwood home sometime in the early morning hours of Dec. 14. The couple’s bodies were discovered in the master bedroom by their daughter around 12 hours later, and Nick Reiner was arrested that night in South L.A. by Los Angeles police.
Nick Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder on Dec. 16 and has yet to enter a plea. In January, his arraignment was postponed to Monday after his lawyer, famed defense attorney Alan Jackson, stepped down and was replaced by a public defender.
Nick Reiner has a history of struggles with mental health and substance use. It is unclear how prominently those struggles will feature in criminal proceedings.
Times staff writers James Queally and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Pressure continues to mount for Casey Wasserman to resign as head of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee following the release of a salacious email exchange he had with Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Wasserman is hardly the highest-profile name mentioned in more than 3.5 million pages of documents released Jan. 30 by the Department of Justice in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Nor is he the most frequently mentioned. President Trump outranks him in both categories. And there’s far more egregious behavior by other men alleged in the files (Bill Gates comes to mind).
But Wasserman is the rare case of a wealthy, renown American elite whose empire is crumbling under calls for accountability from the public, local lawmakers and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Bass this week urged Wasserman to resign as head of the committee overseeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games because of his ties to Maxwell. “I cannot fire him,” Bass told CNN’s Dana Bash. “My opinion is that he should step down. That’s not the opinion of the board.”
The LA28 Olympics board of directors has stood by Wasserman, stating they reviewed the documents and support him remaining as chair.
There is no suggestion in the files of criminal wrongdoing by Wasserman, but he did show criminally bad judgment in flirting with Maxwell, who was renowned (along with Epstein) for connecting older men with young women and teens. She was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein, and in 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years. Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 but was found dead in his cell before his trial.
In a 2003 email exchange between Wasserman and Maxwell, he asked, “What do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Then in a separate message, he asked, “Where are you, I miss you. I will be in nyc for 4 days starting april 22…can we book that massage now?”
Maxwell wrote back, “All that rubbing — are you sure you can take it?”
Stop reading here if you’re on the verge of vomiting.
Otherwise, continue: “There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you.” Maxwell also mentioned being in Brazil, and when she asked Wasserman if he had ever been, he responded, “Never … take me!”
Revolting? Yes, but not quite as damning as other exchanges in the files between Epstein and men more powerful than Wasserman.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk repeatedly sought invitations to Epstein’s private island in 2012 and 2013, four to five years after the disgraced financier was convicted by a Florida state court of soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution. Epstein served 13 months. His criminal past, however, didn’t seem to bother Musk, who wrote to Epstein in 2012, “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for.”
Epstein responded, “Understood, I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might make Talilah [Musk’s then-wife] uncomfortable.”
“Ratio is not a problem for Talulah,” Musk replied.
If only he’d caught half the heat as Wasserman, he might have retreated long enough to spare us from his juvenile X posts or his next monstrosity of a car design. (Let’s face it. The Tesla Cybertruck looks like a giant toenail clipper.)
Yet the American billionaires and influential cabal of men revealed to have had unsavory, immoral or potentially illegal dealings with Epstein and Maxwell have faced little to no consequences for their actions, unlike prominent figures in the U.K. and Europe who have suffered serious blowback.
Former Prince Andrew was stripped of his title and is now simply Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Booted out of his royal Windsor lodgings, was slumming it on the king’s private estate in Norfolk. He was arrested by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links with Epstein.
Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the U.S., was fired over his relationship with Epstein. And Norway’s former prime minister, Thorbjørn Jagland, now faces charges over his connections with Epstein.
Here in the United States? By the power of redaction or redemption, Trump still holds office, as does U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the highest-ranking official other than the president to be prominently named in the Epstein files. Lutnick was grilled last week in a Senate hearing about his ties to the late financier and the fact that he visited Epstein’s island in 2012 with his family, despite previously claiming that he’d cut off contact with Epstein in 2005. Trump has stood by Lutnick.
Their varying levels of bad judgment and stupid behavior (at best) have gone largely unpunished. And as we learned during Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s hearing, the Justice Department has held “exactly zero powerful men” accountable.
Wasserman is the exception. The grandson of Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, he has been a formidable Los Angeles sports and entertainment executive and founder of the Wasserman agency. Following the latest release of Epstein files, multiple artists and athletes including Chappell Roan, Abby Wambach and the Dropkick Murphys left the agency, citing ethical concerns. Wasserman announced last week that he is selling his agency, stating that he had “become a distraction” due to the public reveal of the Maxwell emails.
External pressure for him to step down from his lead role on the LA28 Olympic committee continues. Attorney Michael Carrillo, who has represented survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking, called for the removal of Wasserman at a news conference in West Hollywood on Tuesday. Local elected officials, survivors and other activists also called on Bass, the LA28 board of directors and executive committee, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to remove Wasserman.
Wasserman, who was integral in the L.A. Olympics bid from its launch in 2015, maintains he had no contact with Maxwell or Epstein in the past 20 years. He said he deeply regrets his correspondence with Maxwell, “which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
It’s an apology with a “yeah, but …”
Perhaps Wasserman will resign and take the fall for cavorting over email with Maxwell. Meanwhile, the rest of America’s wealthy Epstein cabal continue to float above reproach, and reckoning.
POP superstar Lady Gaga is set to release a concert film about her record breaking Mayhem Ball.
The Sun can reveal the Abracadabra hitmaker, 39, has secretly enlisted British director Sam Wrench to help bring her vision to life.
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Lady Gaga is filming a concert special in Los Angles this weekCredit: Getty
The special is set to be filmed over Lady Gaga’s four nights at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles this week.
While no release date is set, the film is expected to be released later this year after being snapped up by streaming bosses following a fierce bidding war.
Sam is no stranger to concert documentaries, having previously worked with Taylor Swift on her 2023 Eras Tour film.
Not only was the film released on Disney+ but it also was rolled out across cinemas – breaking box office records in the process.
It’s not the first time Gaga and Sam have worked together.
They previously teamed up on Gaga’s 2024 Chromaica Ball HBO special which documented her 2022 stadium tour of the same name.
A source said: “Gaga has poured her heart and soul into The Mayhem Ball.
“She is so proud of everyone who has helped make the tour what it is and is keen to give it the full concert film treatment.
“Not only is it arguably her most elaborate show of all time, it’s also reminded the world that almost two decades into her career she is still at the top of her game.”
The insider added: “Gaga and Sam have a close working relationship so bringing him on board was a no brainer.
“The show will be filmed across her four dates in Los Angeles and is pencilled in for release late 2026.”
The Sun understands Sam is joining the creative team headed up by the superstar.
He will sit alongside Gaga’s fiance Michael Polansky, 42, and her choreographer Parris Goebel, 34, who are also helping creatively manage the project.
Michael is now an integral part of the Poker Face singer’s inner circle.
He was listed as an Executive Producer alongside Gaga on Mayhem – as well as landing a number of writing credits including on the record’s lead single Disease.
Gaga previously said: “Michael was in the studio every day with me. “He oversaw the whole process of making the record, completing it, helping me shape the sound of the record creatively.
“It was an amazing thing to do with your partner, because when I start to doubt myself, there is nobody that’s going to call me on it better than he is”.
Kicking off in July last year, The Mayhem Ball is one of Gaga’s biggest ever tours, seeing her play 87 dates across four continents.
Last September and October Gaga played four sold out shows at London’s O2 before a further two dates at Manchester’s Co-op Live.
By the time she takes her final bow at Madison Square Garden in April, she will have played to over 1.3million fans.
The concert film comes off the back of an already packed 2026 for Gaga.
Despite only being weeks into the year the singer has already filmed a concert special for Apple Music, performed at the Grammys and the Super Bowl and wrapped up the Asian leg of The Mayhem Ball.
Next week she will go head to head with some of the biggest artists in the world at the 2026 Brit Awards.
While she is unable to attend the ceremony due to playing a show in Texas on the same date, she is up for two of the biggest gongs of the night.
Gaga is nominated for International Artist of the Year and International Song of the Year thanks to her Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile
It marks the first time in over a decade she has been nominated.
Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Tour is one of the biggest of her careerCredit: GettyLady Gaga is set to release the concert special later this yearCredit: Getty
Frederick Wiseman, a preeminent documentary filmmaker, has died. He was 96.
The filmmaker’s death was announced by his family Monday in a statement released by Zipporah Films, Wiseman’s distribution company.
In a career that lasted nearly 60 years, Wiseman produced and directed 45 films beginning in 1967 with “Titicut Follies,” a documentary on the the patient-inmates of Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts, through 2023’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” a documentary on the Troisgros family’s Michelin three-starred restaurant in Ouches, France. His final film earned universal critical acclaim, and was recognized as the best nonfiction film of 2023 by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. Awards and the National Society of Film Critics.
“Wiseman, whose observational approach has often been mischaracterized as objective or omniscient, here drops any pretense to neutrality, so potent and overpowering is his sense of kinship with a fellow artist,” wrote Justin Chang in his 2023 review. “The marriage of sensibilities in front of and behind the camera is the stealthiest meeting in ‘Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,’ and the most unexpectedly satisfying.”
A scene from Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros.”
(PBS)
The filmmaker considered both Cambridge, Mass., and Paris his homes. His films, to an extent, reflected that transatlantic residency in their freshness of perspective. They display an innate curiosity and astonishing degrees of empathy, intelligence and perceptiveness, with subjects ranging from public and social institutions to cultural and specialized spaces and the minutiae of human interactions.
Wiseman’s other films included “High School” (1968), “Welfare” (1975), “Juvenile Court” (1973), “Public Housing” (1997), “La Danse” (2009), “National Gallery” (2014), “Ex Libris — The New York Public Library” (2017) and “City Hall” (2020). The varied body of work earned three Emmy Awards and an honorary Academy Award. Wiseman was also awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur Prize fellowships.
Beyond documentaries, the director also made three fiction films, “Seraphita’s Diary” (1982), “The Last Letter” (2002) and “A Couple” (2022). In reviewing the last, Chang wrote, “I suspect [Wiseman] is no more likely to impose himself on one of his fictions than he would on one of his documentaries, which ‘A Couple’ may resemble more than it appears. Wiseman has spent a career probing the complex inner workings and painfully human errors of America’s establishments, but in marriage itself, he may have found the most fraught, mysterious and unreformable institution of all.”
Nathalie Boutefeu in the movie “A Couple.”
(Film Forum)
Frederick Wiseman was born Jan. 1, 1930, in Boston. He graduated from Willams College and Yale Law School before embarking on a filmmaking career in the mid-1960s. He remained staunchly independent, establishing Zipporah Films, named for his wife, in 1971, in order to maintain control over distribution of his work.
In addition to his filmmaking career, Wiseman worked as a theater director and actor, including a recent appearance in Rebecca Zlotowski’s 2025 film “A Private Life,” starring Jodie Foster.
Wiseman’s wife of 65 years, Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, died 2021. He is survived by his two sons, David (Jennifer) and Eric (Kristen Stowell), and three grandchildren, Benjamin, Charlie and Tess, as well as his friend and collaborator Karen Konicek, with whom he worked for 45 years.
In a smoothly run show peppered with sharp humor but, for the most part, a dearth of pointed political commentary — save for one unscripted expression of anti-ICE sentiment from “The White Lotus” star Natasha Rothwell — the 2026 Film Independent Spirit Awards celebrated its 41st edition on Sunday in Hollywood.
The ceremony has long served as a counterpoint to the Oscars: looser, more unpredictable, typically mounted in a beach tent by the Santa Monica Pier. For over three decades, it was held the Saturday afternoon right before the Academy Awards.
But this year, due to coastal planning for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the Spirit Awards relocated to the Hollywood Palladium (where they were last held in 1994), a venue decked out in the show’s signature blue and pink signage and decor — a pivot that proved effective.
“We don’t have a permit,” cracked host Ego Nwodim, riffing on scrappy independent tactics in her monologue. Her athletic hosting duties had her doing everything from cornering attending celebs such as Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons via a “sexual tension cam” to picking up her falafel order at the main entrance on Sunset Boulevard.
Last year’s event played more like a coronation for a widely favored front-runner, Sean Baker‘s “Anora.” That film would go on to sweep at the Oscars a little over a week later. The mood today was more tenuous, the industry crowd mulling in the lobby with cocktails, discussing the tail end of awards season and the controversy coming out of the Berlin Film Festival concerning politically cautious juror statements.
The movies that would be honored here, by contrast, were bolder than the Spirits usually go, resulting in a truly independent raft of winners. Rose Byrne won the lead actor prize (the Spirits have gone gender-neutral since 2022) for her commanding, ruinous turn in “If I Legs I’d Kick You.” Accepting the award, Byrne half-joked, “This character of Linda really could only exist in an independent film — she’s fierce and she’s gracious and she’s a middle-aged woman.”
Other awardees included the subtly wrought academia drama “Sorry, Baby,” honored for director Eva Victor‘s screenplay and its supporting actor Naomi Ackie; the star-stalking thriller “Lurker,” which took both the first feature and first screenplay awards; and Brazil’s “The Secret Agent,” claiming the prize for international film.
The afternoon’s big winner was “Train Dreams,” the little movie that could, one that emerged 13 months ago at Sundance 2025 and is now proving itself to be one of Netflix’s sturdiest Oscar contenders. It took prizes for best feature, director and cinematography, the kind of haul that suggests real momentum.
A complete list of today’s Spirit winners
FILM CATEGORIES
Best Feature “Train Dreams” (Netflix) Producers: Michael Heimler, Will Janowitz, Marissa McMahon, Ashley Schlaifer, Teddy Schwarzman
Director Clint Bentley, “Train Dreams” (Netflix)
Screenplay Eva Victor, “Sorry, Baby” (A24)
First Feature “Lurker” (Mubi) Director: Alex Russell Producers: Galen Core, Archie Madekwe, Marc Marrie, Charlie McDowell, Francesco Melzi D’Eril, Duncan Montgomery, Alex Orlovsky, Olmo Schnabel, Jack Selby
First Screenplay Alex Russell, “Lurker” (Mubi)
John Cassavetes Award For the best feature made under $1,000,000 “Esta Isla (This Island)” Writers/Directors/Producers: Cristian Carretero, Lorraine Jones Molina Writer: Kisha Tikina Burgos
Breakthrough Performance Kayo Martin, “The Plague” (Independent Film Company)
Lead Performance Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (A24)
Robert Altman Award For a film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast “The Long Walk” (Lionsgate) Director: Francis Lawrence Casting Director: Rich Delia Ensemble Cast: Judy Greer, Mark Hamill, Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot, Joshua Odjick, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Garrett Wareing
Editing Sofía Subercaseaux, “The Testament of Ann Lee” (Searchlight Pictures)
International Film “The Secret Agent” (Neon) Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Documentary “The Perfect Neighbor” (Netflix) Director/Producer: Geeta Gandbhir Producers: Sam Bisbee, Nikon Kwantu, Alisa Payne
Someone to Watch Given to a talented filmmaker not yet widely recognized Tatti Ribeiro, “Valentina”
Truer Than Fiction Given to an emerging director of nonfiction features Rajee Samarasinghe, “Your Touch Makes Others Invisible”
Producers Award For an emerging producer of quality independent films with limited resources Tony Yang
TELEVISION CATEGORIES
New Scripted Series “Adolescence” (Netflix) Creators/Executive Producers: Jack Thorne, Stephen Graham Executive Producers: Philip Barantini, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Nina Wolarsky, Hannah Walters, Mark Herbert, Emily Feller Co-Executive Producers: Carina Sposato, Niall Shamma, Peter Balm
New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series “Pee-wee as Himself” (HBO Max) Executive Producers: Matt Wolf, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie, Paul Reubens, Candace Tomarken, Kyle Martin, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Sara Rodriguez
Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series Owen Cooper, “Adolescence” (Netflix)
Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series Erin Doherty, “Adolescence” (Netflix)
Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series Stephen Graham, “Adolescence” (Netflix)
Ensemble Cast in a New Scripted Series “Chief of War” (Apple TV) Ensemble Cast: Charlie Brumbly, Luciane Buchanan, Cliff Curtis, Brandon Finn, Moses Goods, Te Ao o Hinepehinga, Benjamin Hoetjes, Siua Ikale’o, Keala Kahuanui-Paleka, Mainei Kinimaka, Kaina Makua, Jason Momoa, Temuera Morrison, Te Kohe Tuhaka, James Udom
In its opening credits, Oscar-winning director Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” self-identifies as “based on the novel by Emily Brontë.”
Yet as Fennell has proved in a slew of interviews about the already polemical film, released Friday, the relationship between Brontë’s Gothic epic and its latest adaptation is more complicated than that.
Penned by a young female author perpetually adrift in the dark world of fantasy, “Wuthering Heights” is a transgressive novel today and was exponentially more so at the time of its publication in 1847. Its protagonists are vengeful, and its romances — including Catherine Earnshaw (Cathy) and Heathcliff’s — are ridden with violence, both psychological and physical. While Fennell’s film anchors itself in Brontë’s narrative landscape, it also takes creative liberties in service of approximating the director’s personal experience reading it as a teen.
Whereas Brontë’s novel contains “mere glimmers of physical intimacy,” Fennell’s picture is erotic, laden with steamy scenes inserted from the director’s imagination.
“They’re part of the book of my head,” Fennell recently told The Times. “I think they’re part of the book of all of our heads.”
Some book purists beg to differ with Fennell’s interpretation. Well in advance of the film’s release, the director was criticized for casting her former “Saltburn” collaborator Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, who is repeatedly described throughout Brontë’s novel as non-white. Brontë fans have also accused the director of reducing a complex work rife with social critique into a popcorn romance.
Perhaps anticipating such backlash, Fennell in a recent interview with Fandango explained her decision to enclose the film’s title in quotation marks, saying, “You can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book.”
“I can’t say I’m making ‘Wuthering Heights.’ It’s not possible,” the director said. “What I can say is I’m making a version of it.”
Here are seven ways Fennell’s interpretation of “Wuthering Heights” differs from its source material.
Fennell’s Heathcliff is white
Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” leaves Heathcliff’s racial identity ambiguous, with characters referring to him as a “gipsy brat,” “lascar” and “Spanish castaway” at different points throughout the novel. But one thing is clear: He is not white.
Fennell’s film instead relies on class differences — and a meddling Nelly (to be discussed later) — to form the rift between its love interests.
Cathy’s brother dies young
When Mr. Earnshaw presents a young Cathy with her companion-to-be early in the film, she declares that she will name him Heathcliff, “after my dead brother.”
For the remainder of the film, Brontë’s character Hindley Earnshaw is subsumed into Mr. Earnshaw. Rather than Hindley, it is Mr. Earnshaw who devolves into the drunk gambling addict whose vices force him to cede Wuthering Heights to Heathcliff. Mr. Earnshaw’s abuse of young Heathcliff in the film makes the latter’s revenge plot more personal than his book counterpart’s against Hindley.
Cathy meets Edgar Linton as an adult
In Brontë’s novel, Cathy and Heathcliff first encounter their neighbors, the Lintons, after an outdoor escapade gone awry. Cathy gets bitten in the ankle by an aggressive dog and stays at the Lintons’ for a few weeks to heal.
Cathy sustains a similar injury in the film, but this time, she’s an adult woman, who falls from the Thrushcross Grange garden wall after attempting to spy on its grown residents Edgar and Isabella. (In the book, the two are siblings. Here, Isabella is referred to as Edgar’s “ward.”)
Aside from providing some comic relief, Fennell’s revision also fast-tracks the marriage plot that severs Cathy and Heathcliff.
Nelly is a meddler, and a spiteful one
Whereas Brontë writes Nelly as a largely passive narrator, Fennell abandons the frame narrative structure altogether and instead fashions the housekeeper into a complex character with significant control over Cathy’s life.
It is she who ensures Heathcliff overhears Cathy as she laments how marrying him would degrade her, causing him to flee Wuthering Heights and leave Cathy to marry Edgar. Nelly’s ploy comes shortly after Cathy demeans the housekeeper, claiming that she wouldn’t understand Cathy’s predicament given she’s never loved anyone, and no one has ever loved her. Thus, Nelly is characterized as vengeful toward Cathy — although, as the latter lies in her death bed, the two share a brief moment that complicates their relationship to each other.
Regardless, Fennell gives Nelly and Cathy’s relationship psychological depth that Brontë’s novel doesn’t seem to afford them.
Cathy and Heathcliff have sex (and a lot of it)
Brontë’s Cathy and Heathcliff never explicitly (in the text) consummate their professed undying love, save for a few kisses just before Cathy breathes her last.
Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” on the other hand, grants them an entire Bridgerton-style sex montage — they even get hot and heavy in a carriage. It’s nearly impossible to keep count of the “I love you”s exchanged during the pair’s rendezvous.
These smutty sequences certainly validate the Valentine’s Eve release.
Isabella is a willing submissive
One particular still of Alison Oliver’s Isabella is already making the rounds online, and for good reason. The shot, which depicts the young woman engaging in BDSM-style puppy play, is a stark contrast to Brontë’s characterization of Isabella as a victim of domestic violence.
In Brontë’s book, Isabella marries Heathcliff naively believing he might shape up into a gentleman and flees with their son when she realizes that is out of the question. In the film, Heathcliff is clear from their first romantic encounter that he does not love Isabella, will never love her and pursues her only to torture Cathy — and the young woman still chooses to be with him.
There is no second generation
Perhaps Fennell’s most glaring diversion from her source material is her complete omission of the second half of Brontë’s novel, which centers on a second generation comprised of Cathy and Edgar’s daughter Catherine Linton, Heathcliff and Isabella’s son Linton Heathcliff and Hindley and his wife Frances’ son Hareton Earnshaw.
In her introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of “Wuthering Heights,” Brontë scholar Pauline Nestor writes that many literary critics interpret the novel’s latter half as “signifying the restoration of order and balance in the second generation after the excesses and disruption of the first generation,” while others contend the violence that stains Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship is bound to be replicated by their children. Either way, the structure of Brontë’s novel encourages readers to interpret each half through the lens of the other.
Fennell’s film instead ends where Brontë’s first act closes, hyper-focused on Cathy and Heathcliff. In the same way the doomed lovers see each other, Fennell figures them as the center of the world.
When we decided to rank the best Los Angeles movies, we thought 101 titles would be plenty: room enough for undeniable classics, personal obsessions, even a guilty pleasure or two. Of course it wasn’t. You let us know, endorsing many of our selections but insisting we’d missed a few.
Sifting through your responses, 14 films had the most passionate advocacy. You’ll find them listed below in alphabetical order. Together they make up a perfectly valid alternate list, one that captures the glamour and romance of L.A. — as well as its lovable plasticity — just as well.
‘American Gigolo’ (1980)
Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton in the movie “American Gigolo.”
(Paramount Pictures)
Reader Cindy Simon from Pacific Palisades shares an anecdote: “I had just moved to L.A. from New Jersey. My friend and I — young mothers — ducked out of our baby-centered life to see ‘American Gigolo.’ The first scene was the incredible Richard Gere smoothly walking outside a Malibu beach house. My friend and I literally gasped!”
There is so much to recommend to this movie — an excellent choice and a regrettable omission on our part. Not only is it responsible for introducing Blondie’s “Call Me” to the world, it does so via an opening credits scene of Pacific Coast Highway cruising that all but defined L.A. hedonism as the ’70s became the ’80s.
‘The Anniversary Party’ (2001)
Jennifer Beals, Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the movie “The Anniversary Party.”
(Peter Sorel / Fine Line Features)
“A dysfunctional showbiz marriage in the Hollywood Hills, a party with a lost dog, what’s not to love?” asks reader Jim Ehlers of Pasadena. “It’s so iconically L.A. — the sexy mid-century modern house. When do you get Parker Posey, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. Reilly in the same cast?”
That spectacular glass-walled home in the Hollywood Hills is the Schaarman House, designed by architect Richard Neutra. But fans know the movie for other reasons: Phoebe Cates came out of retirement to act with her “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh. Today’s audiences ogle a young Alan Cumming.
‘City of Gold’ (2015)
Jonathan Gold in the documentary “City of Gold.”
(Sundance Selects)
Junko Garrett of Eagle Rock says this documentary “captures the essence of L.A.: diversity and vibrancy, amazing food and people. I was a big fan of Jonathan Gold’s articles and looked forward them every week.”
So did we. Gold’s omnivorous enthusiasm remains a guiding light for so many Angelenos and his Pulitzer-winning food writing is easy to find. We’re still going to several of the film’s featured restaurants: Jitlada, Chengdu Taste, Guelaguetza.
‘Crash’ (2004)
Thandiwe Newton and Matt Dillon in the movie “Crash.”
(Lorey Sebastian / Lions Gate Films)
More than a few of our readers bemoaned the omission of an Oscar-winning best picture like “Crash.” Says Jim Rodriguez of Torrance, it “captures the quintessential reality that, in L.A., all the levels of social strata, at one time or another, exist side by side on our roads and freeways, separated by a few feet, metal and glass. And yet, still so isolated from each other.”
And Ian Barnard of DTLA calls the movie “a wonderful antidote to Hollywood’s whitewashed and unrealistically glamorous depictions of L.A.” It shows the city “in all its diversity, prejudices, contradictions, inequities and generosities.”
To us, “Crash” will always be the movie that stole “Brokeback Mountain’s” glory. But let’s be generous and note that Carney’s Restaurant on Ventura gets a nice moment.
‘The Day of the Locust’ (1975)
William Atherton, left, and Donald Sutherland in the movie “The Day of the Locust.”
(Paramount Pictures / Getty Images)
The Nathanael West novel is, of course, essential, so where’s the movie? Reader Andrea Hales, a San Diegan who lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, calls the film version “eerie and fascinating, capturing the essence of Los Angeles: the city of hopes and dreams, fires and riots. The setting is 1930s Hollywood but it could be today.”
One thing is certain: As a one-stop shop for classic L.A. locations, you can’t do much better than “The Day of the Locust,” which takes us to the Ennis House, Paramount’s iconic Bronson Gate and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
‘Earthquake’ (1974)
A scene from the movie “Earthquake.”
(United Archives / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Reader Dina Schweim, writing from Winston-Salem, N.C. (fine, we’ll allow an outsider’s perspective in this case), expressed her disappointment to not find “Earthquake” on our list: “There are few things I love more than a good disaster movie that obliterates L.A. to balance out fanciful and the corrupt — and yes, I was pleased to see that ‘Volcano’ made the list but ‘Earthquake’ really does capture the raw core of what destruction in L.A. can look like.”
The film was mostly shot on the Universal backlot and we wish it had more of an authentic L.A. feel. Still, if you harbor satisfaction at seeing the city get trashed (and who doesn’t on occasion?), we’re not getting in the way of that rumble.
‘(500) Days of Summer’ (2009)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in the movie “(500) Days of Summer.”
(Chuck Zlotnick / Fox Searchlight Pictures)
You like this one. Really like it. “It celebrates and beautifies the city in a way few other movies ever have,” says Anthony Cavalluzzi of Yorba Linda, adding, “Its absence completely invalidates the list.” And Michael Backauskas of Beverlywood writes, “I went to see it five times and I never do that.”
Any film about an aspiring architect is going to make the most of its locations. If you mourn the lovers’ bench at Angel’s Knoll Park, know that it became immortal because of this film.
‘Get Shorty (1995)’
John Travolta and Rene Russo in the movie “Get Shorty.”
(MGM)
This comedy’s dialogue was quoted in our comments twice. For reader Sean Dickerson of Beverly Grove, the movie gives us “maybe the greatest line about our city: ‘What is the point of living in L.A. if you’re not in the movie business?’” And for David Hughes of Sierra Madre, the moment comes when John Travolta’s gangster-turned-Hollywood-wannabe is asked what he knows about the movie business: “I don’t think the producer has to know much.”
There is an unforced charm to the way Travolta’s character falls in love with Hollywood — he’s already a movie geek but other elements fall into place for him. Eagle-eyed viewers will recognize both the Aero and Vista theaters.
‘Grand Canyon’ (1991)
Kevin Kline and Danny Glover in the movie “Grand Canyon.”
(20th Century Fox)
Paul Krekorian of Encino calls this one “a brilliant and underrated study of life in Los Angeles. In a deeply personal way it lays bare so many of the societal challenges Los Angeles always struggles with — economic segregation, racial division and injustice, violence, the disparity between Hollywood-created facades and the reality of ordinary life, and the struggle to find meaning and substance.”
Its writer and director, Lawrence Kasdan, was also responsible for “The Big Chill,” a similar portrait of generational flux, and there are quiet moments in “Grand Canyon” that are some of his best. It also starts with a Lakers game.
‘Knight of Cups’ (2015)
Christian Bale in the movie “Knight of Cups.”
(Melinda Sue Gordon / Broad Green Pictures)
Reader Peter Turman of Brentwood sees depth in Terrence Malick’s oblique portrait of a distracted screenwriter (Christian Bale) searching for grace but finding a lot of sex, calling it “a fever-dream meditation on Los Angeles and Hollywood, with its promises, chimeras, illusions, seductions, nightmares and disappointments, told by a great filmmaker who knows of what he speaks.”
Malick shot all over Los Angeles but his moments on the Warner Bros. lot, the enormous numbered studio buildings looming, may be his most beautiful.
‘Lost Highway’ (1997)
Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty in the movie “Lost Highway.”
(October Films)
Even with two other David Lynch films placing on our list, that wasn’t enough for Clark Leazier of West Hollywood, who calls the L.A. vistas and landmarks in “Lost Highway” “the most burned in my brain — particularly the Firestone Auto Shop that is now the popular All Season Brewing in Mid City. Also it captures Southern California nighttime driving in a messed up yet accurate way.”
Lynch obsessives know “Lost Highway” to be the one narrative film in which you can see the director’s own house, part of his compound on Senalda Drive in the Hollywood Hills, used as the setting for his main characters’ mansion.
‘Spanglish’ (2004)
Paz Vega, left, Téa Leoni and Adam Sandler in the movie “Spanglish.”
(Bob Marshak / Columbia Pictures )
Says Rochelle Lapides of Ventura County, “It tells one of the essential stories of our Los Angeles-bound Mexican immigrant population and the cultural challenges they face. Also, in my opinion, it’s one of Adam Sandler’s best dramatic roles.”
Agreed, especially on Sandler, whose turn in “Punch-Drunk Love” so impressed director James L. Brooks, he decided to cast him here. The film’s romantic patio scene is filmed at the Beverly Hills restaurant Il Cielo.
‘Star 80’ (1983)
Mariel Hemingway, left, Eric Roberts and Cliff Robertson in the movie “Star 80.”
(Paramount Pictures / Getty Images)
“Talk about dying for the dream,” writes William Mariano of Escondido. “It was filmed in the same spot she died.” He means Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, murdered by her sicko husband Paul Snider in a Rancho Park home that was actually used by the movie’s production while filming their dramatization of the crime.
“Star 80” does crystallize the ominous side of the L.A. myth, as a place where you’ll arrive, find success (and exploitation) and be destroyed in the process. Bob Fosse completists need to see it; it was the “All That Jazz” director’s final movie.
‘Tequila Sunrise’ (1988)
Kurt Russell, Michelle Pfeiffer and Mel Gibson in the movie “Tequila Sunrise.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Jean Clark of Manhattan Beach celebrates this thriller’s cast, cinematography and plot, which she sums up as “classic good guy vs. bad guy and the woman who loves them both, set against the dark underbelly of glamorous L.A. and its golden beaches back in the 1980s.”
And Jean would know — the movie was largely shot around Manhattan Beach. But don’t go looking for Michelle Pfeiffer’s restaurant Vallenari’s. It was entirely constructed on a soundstage.
Support for James Van Der Beek’s family continues to pour in. The GoFundMe created to support them following the “Dawson’s Creek” star’s death approached $2.3 million in donations Friday morning.
Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw are among the celebrity donors who have contributed to the fundraiser organized by the late actor’s friends. The couple’s donation is listed as $25,000. Those familiar with Van Der Beek’s breakout role on the millennial teen drama know that Spielberg is Dawson Leery’s favorite director.
Originally airing from 1998 to 2003, “Dawson’s Creek” was a seminal teen drama that followed four friends growing up in a small coastal town as they navigated their dreams, relationships and various coming-of-age milestones. Van Der Beek’s Dawson was an aspiring filmmaker whose dreams were bigger than his small hometown. Along with friends Joey (Katie Holmes), Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jen (Michelle Williams), Dawson grappled with very relatable teen dilemmas including heartbreak, betrayal and bad decisions.
The fundraiser, which had more than 44,000 donors as of Friday morning, was organized to help support Van Der Beek’s wife and children, who “are facing an uncertain future” due to the financial strain of the late actor’s medical costs. The late actor died following a battle with colorectal cancer. Funds will be used to “help cover essential living expenses, pay bills, and support the children’s education,” the organizers wrote.
Van Der Beek revealed in 2012 that he had been paid “almost nothing” for his work on “Dawson’s Creek” and had not received any residuals from the hit show.
“There was no residual money,” he told “Today.” “I was 20. It was a bad contract. I saw almost nothing from that.”
Before his death, Van Der Beek auctioned off personal memorabilia and sold collectibles to help pay for his cancer treatments. In September, his “Dawson’s Creek” co-stars helped organize and stage a reunion fundraiser to support Van Der Beek and his family — a reunion the actor had to miss because of a virus. “Black Bird” actor Paul Walter Hauser had also been raising funds through Cameo videos and auctions to help the late actor prior to his death.
Besides Spielberg, celebrity donors to Van Der Beek’s GoFundMe also reportedly include Zoe Saldaña, Jon M. Chu, Derek Hough, Busy Philipps, Jenna Dewan and others.
Van Der Beek’s “Dawson’s Creek” colleagues have also been among the many who have shared tributes to the late actor.
“Several times today, from my heart, I’ve tried to form the words to express the beautiful brilliance of James and what his presence has meant to my life,” “Dawson’s” creator Kevin Williamson wrote Thursday in a post shared on Instagram. “But I am truly at a loss for words. I will have to trust that one day those words will come… But today, all I can think about is Kimberly and the entire Van Der Beek family.”
Holmes, meanwhile, shared a handwritten note addressed to Van Der Beek on Instagram Wednesday. She was the first of “Dawson’s Creek’s” surviving core quartet to publicly acknowledge Van Der Beek’s death.
“Thank you,” Holmes wrote in her note, which was addressed to Van Der Beek. “To share a space with your imagination is sacred — breathing the same air in the land of make believe and trusting that each others’ hearts are safe in their expression.”
In her remembrance, Holmes highlighted their shared “laughter, conversations about life, James Taylor songs” and their “adventures of a unique youth.” She also highlighted Van Der Beek’s “Bravery. Compassion. Selflessness [and] Strength.”
“I mourn this loss with a heart holding the reality of his absence and deep gratitude for his imprint on it,” wrote Holmes, who also sent love to Van Der Beek’s wife and children in her message.
Other members of the extended “Dawson’s Creek” family, including actors Chad Michael Murray, Kerr Smith and Sasha Alexander, have also been among those offering condolences and paying tribute to Van Der Beek and his family online.
“James Van Der Beek was one in a billion and he will be forever missed and i don’t know what else to say,” wrote Busy Philipps in her Instagram tribute. “He was my friend and i loved him and i’m so grateful for our friendship all these years.”
Oscar nominations landed Thursday morning and you’d really have to be a curmudgeon to complain, what with the year’s two best films, “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners,” hauling in the most nods. One of these movies is going to win best picture (probably “One Battle”), continuing a nice little streak of top-shelf winners. “Oppenheimer” to “Anora” to “One Battle After Another”? That’s the best run since the early ’90s when “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Unforgiven” and “Schindler’s List” prevailed.
Of course, not everyone is celebrating this morning. “Wicked: For Good”? The complete disrespectation! The latest “Avatar” sequel? More ash than fire.
The Oscars cap their nominees at five per category (with the exception of best picture), leading, invariably, to some surprises and omissions — some egregious, some understandable. For alliteration and search engine optimization, we’ll call these “snubs,” though you’d have to be a true narcissist, say somebody who’d threaten to invade a country because he felt scorned over not winning a prize, to really take it personally.
Fortunately, Hollywood is free of ego, leaving us just to rationally contemplate the academy’s choices and examine the snubs and surprises of the nominations for the 98th Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 15.
Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in “Wicked: For Good.”
SNUB: “Wicked: For Good” (picture) The first “Wicked” earned 10 nominations last year, going on to win two Oscars. Surely, the sequel would be popular too. But the box office was down (more than $200 million globally), the reviews were mostly meh, and academy members took note. Duplicating the first movie’s Oscar haul was going to be a challenge, as some voters would naturally resist rewarding something they had just honored a year ago. And the material posed its own challenges, as the musical’s second act isn’t as fun or focused. But to go from 10 nominations to being completely shut out? What a difference a year makes.
SURPRISE: “F1” (picture) There’s a demographic in the motion picture academy affectionately known as “steak-eaters,” men in the autumn of their years who appreciate a good Dad Movie centered on old(ish) guys who most definitely know best. With membership broadening, this demo has lost a bit of its influence over the years. But the dudes can take a victory lap today, celebrating the nomination of Joseph Kosinski’s swaggering, vroom-vroom sports movie.
SNUB: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (picture) The third “Avatar” movie has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, which is impressive, though still about $1 billion behind 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” That movie, like the first one, was nominated for best picture. But “Fire and Ash” couldn’t even manage a nod from the Producers Guild, a group that operates from a bigger-the-better mentality. There’s a feeling of fatigue about the franchise, with even creator James Cameron giving the distinct impression that he’s ready to move on. Here’s another signal that it’s time.
SNUB: “It Was Just an Accident” (picture) The warning signs were there. Jafar Panahi’s searing (and often funny) social critique of authoritarianism did not fare well on the Oscar or BAFTA early lists. But with the current political climate and the alarming events transpiring in Panahi’s native Iran, it still felt like it’d make the best picture cut. Its absence feels like a big miss or, less charitably, a dereliction of duty.
Stellan Skarsgård, left, and Elle Fanning in a scene from director Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value.”
(Kasper Tuxen/Neon)
SURPRISE: Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value” (director) Trier seemed to be slipping down the ranks of contenders, but voters no doubt appreciated his film’s salty view of Hollywood as well as the way “Sentimental Value” subtly shifted between past and present, hope and hurt. Trier also earned an original screenplay nomination, repeating the success he enjoyed with his last movie, “The Worst Person in the World,” also starring Renate Reinsve.
SNUB: Guillermo del Toro, “Frankenstein” (director) Scorsese stumped for him, as did David Fincher, George Lucas and Jason Reitman. “It’s a remarkable work,” Scorsese said during a Q&A with Del Toro. “It stays with you. I dreamed of it.” The affable, movie-loving Del Toro has won many fans inside and outside the industry over the years, along with Oscars for directing and producing the 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Water” and for “Pinocchio,” the enchanting 2022 movie that snagged animated feature. “Frankenstein” isn’t his best work, but Del Toro did snag a Directors Guild nod. And “Frankenstein” itself earned 9 Oscar nominations. The directors branch, though, went with Trier.
SNUB: Jafar Panahi, “It Was Just an Accident” (director) Panahi has had quite the year: He won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May and was sentenced in December to one year in prison for “propaganda activities” related to his work. Both speak to the effectiveness of “It Was Just an Accident,” a withering critique of the cruelty and corruption of an authoritarian regime. Panahi did receive his first Oscar nomination, an original screenplay nod.
SURPRISE: Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue” (lead actress) Hudson’s winning turn in this sincere heart-warmer about a husband-wife Neil Diamond tribute act gave the actor her first nomination since her spectacular arrival a quarter-century ago in “Almost Famous.” “Song Sung Blue” had its own lane in this race, appealing to voters starved for the kind of sincere adult drama that studios once routinely made. And Hudson had a number of famous friends — Demi Moore, Reba McEntire and, of course, her mom, Goldie Hawn — hosting screenings and singing her praises. Maybe even singing some Neil Diamond songs. Who can resist? Not voters.
Chase Infiniti in “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
SNUB: Chase Infiniti, “One Battle After Another” (lead actress) Infiniti’s placement in the lead category, clearing the decks in supporting for co-star Teyana Taylor, raised a few eyebrows. She’s only in the movie for about half an hour, and though her character drives the action and ends the movie in spectacular fashion, that wasn’t enough in a category flush with weightier work.
SNUB: Amanda Seyfried, “The Testament of Ann Lee” (lead actress) For true believers in Seyfried’s frenzied work in Mona Fastvold’s story of devotion and delusion, it’s hard to shake this one off.
SNUB: Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked: For Good” (lead actress) Here’s the rub: The second half of “Wicked” no longer centers Erivo’s Elphaba. When she’s on the screen — and not wearing that sex cardigan — she’s still great, masterfully conveying Elphaba’s vulnerability and sadness. But in a competitive lead actress category, Erivo simply didn’t have the screen time to convince voters to give her an encore nomination.
SURPRISE: Delroy Lindo, “Sinners” (supporting actor) Lindo finally earned his first Oscar nomination, riding the wave of “Sinners’” record haul. His portrayal of the world-weary Mississippi bluesman Delta Slim was central to the movie’s exploration of life in the Jim Crow South and included a powerful monologue that told the story of the lynching of a fellow musician. The movie wouldn’t have been as special without it.
Paul Mescal in “Hamnet.”
(Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features)
SNUB: Paul Mescal, “Hamnet” (supporting actor) He played Shakespeare, but voters weren’t in love. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless audience.
SNUB: Ariana Grande, “Wicked: For Good” (supporting actress) Grande functioned as a co-lead in the first “Wicked,” winning a supporting actress nomination last year, and took center stage in the sequel. But her Oscar fortunes waned as “Wicked: For Good” couldn’t replicate the spell the original cast on audiences. It’s possible too that, good as she is at light comedy, some voters didn’t buy Glinda’s transformation after spending nearly the entire movie betraying Elphaba at every turn. With friends like her, who needs enemies?
SURPRISE: Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value” (supporting actress) SAG-AFTRA voters ignored the cast of “Sentimental Value” for the Actor Awards, but the ensemble came back in a big way with the academy. Fanning, playing an A-list American actress navigating the strained family dynamics of the auteur who hired her for his comeback, joined Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Stellan Skarsgård among the nominees.
SNUB: Odessa A’zion, “Marty Supreme” (supporting actress) A’zion’s chances at a nomination seemed to rise along with the success of “Marty Supreme.” She picked up an Actor Award nomination earlier this month for playing Rachel, the film’s chaos-creating schemer. Oh well. Maybe we’ll see her at the Emmys later this year for her tumultuous turn as a Gen Z influencer in “I Love LA.”
SNUB: “No Other Choice” (international feature) Oscar voters have been resistant to Park Chan-wook in the past, ignoring the likes of “Decision to Leave” and “The Handmaiden.” But “No Other Choice,” a humane — and darkly comic — look at ugly things people can do when desperate felt like a potential breakthrough. Park will have to wait … again.
Tulsi Gabbard’s political journey has been anything but straightforward.
As a teenager, she worked for her father, a prominent anti-gay activist, and his political organization, which opposed same-sex marriage. In 2002, she was elected to Hawaii’s House of Representatives, becoming — at age 21 — the youngest person to serve in the Legislature.
Gabbard was a Democrat and remained so for two decades, as she cycled from the statehouse to Honolulu’s City Council to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Despite no obvious qualifications — save for her fawning appearances on Fox News — Trump selected her to be the director of national intelligence, the nation’s spymaster-in-chief. Despite no earthly reason, Gabbard was present last week when the FBI conducted a heavy-handed raid at the Fulton County elections office in Georgia, pursuing a harebrained theory the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Instead of, say, poring over the latest intelligence gleanings from Ukraine or Gaza, Gabbard stood watch as a team of flak-jacketed agents carted off hundreds of boxes of ballots and other election materials.
That’ll keep the homeland safe.
But as bizarre and unaccountable as it was, Gabbard’s presence outside Atlanta did make a certain amount of sense. She’s a longtime dabbler in crackpot conspiracies. And she’ll bend, like a swaying palm, whichever way the prevailing winds blow.
Some refer to her as the “Manchurian candidate,” said John Hart, a communication professor at Hawaii Pacific University, referring to the malleable cipher in the famous political thriller. In a different world, he suggested, Gabbard might have been Sanders’ running mate.
“It does take a certain amount of flexibility to think that someone who could have been the Democratic VP is now in Trump’s cabinet,” Hart observed.
The job of the nation’s director of national intelligence — a position created to address some of the failings that led to the 9/11 attacks — is to act as the president’s top intelligence adviser, synthesizing voluminous amounts of foreign, military and domestic information to help defend the country and protect its interests abroad.
She blamed NATO and the Biden administration for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She claimed the U.S. was funding dangerous biological laboratories in the country — “parroting fake Russian propaganda,” in the words of then-Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
She defended Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who were indicted for masterminding two of the biggest leaks of intelligence secrets in U.S. history.
Still, Gabbard was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 52 to 48. The vote, almost entirely along party lines, was an inauspicious start and nothing since had dispelled lawmakers’ well-placed lack of confidence.
Her bizarre presence in Georgia — where Gabbard reportedly arranged for FBI agents to make a post-raid call to the president — looks like nothing more than a way to worm her way back into his good graces.
(Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that a U.S. intelligence official has filed a whistleblower complaint against Gabbard, which is caught up in wrangling over sharing details with Congress.)
California Sen. Adam Schiff said it’s “patently obvious to everyone Gabbard lacks the capability and credibility” to lead the country’s intelligence community.
“She has been sidelined by the White House, ignored by the agencies, and has zero credibility with Congress,” the Democrat wrote in an email. She’s responded by parroting Trump’s Big Lie “complete with cosplaying [a] secret agent in Fulton County and violating all norms and rules by connecting the President of the United States with line law enforcement officers executing a warrant. The only contribution that Tulsi Gabbard can make now would be to resign.”
Back in Hawaii, the former congresswoman has been in bad odor for years.
“It started with the criticism of President Obama” — a revered Hawaii native — over foreign policy “and a sense in Hawaii that she was more interested in appearing on the national media than working for the state,” said Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii political science professor and another longtime Gabbard watcher.
“Hawaii politicians have, with a few exceptions, tended to be kind of low-drama dealmakers, not the sort who attract national attention,” Moore said. “The goal is to rise in seniority and bring benefits back to the state. And that was never the model Tulsi followed.”
In recent years, as she sidled into Trump’s orbit, Hawaiian sightings of Gabbard have been few and far between, according to Honolulu Civil Beat, a statewide nonprofit news organization. Not that she’s been terribly missed in the deeply Democratic state.
“I’ve heard some less-charitable people say, ‘Don’t let the door hit your [rear end] on the way out,” said Hart.
But it’s not as though Gabbard’s ascension to director of intelligence was Hawaii’s loss and America’s gain. It’s been America’s loss, too.
Controversial director Brett Ratner, whose documentary “Melania,” about the first lady, premiered last week, found himself in the headlines once again over his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
A photograph, part of the trove of files released Friday in the Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein, shows Ratner sitting on a couch with his arms wrapped around a woman, whose identity is concealed. She is sitting next to Epstein and a second woman, who is also redacted in the photo and is sitting at the far end of the couch next to the disgraced financier. It is unclear where the photo was taken or when.
The filmmaker is among several prominent individuals from the worlds of entertainment, technology, politics and business — including L.A. Olympics boss Casey Wasserman — who have turned up among the millions of files that the Justice Department has released.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Ratner’s name also surfaces in a number of emails contained in the released files in which Epstein discusses his attempts to connect with the director and descriptions in which their social circles overlap.
It is not the first time Ratner turned up in Epstein’s orbit. In December, his photo appeared in an earlier batch of files the department released.
In the undated photograph, Ratner is seen seated, hugging a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and an Epstein associate.
Brunel died of an apparent suicide in 2022 in a French prison while awaiting trial on charges that he had raped a minor.
Ratner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
A spokesperson for the director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During a Monday appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ratner said that the recently released photograph was taken about 20 years ago. He said that the woman he is hugging was his then-fiancée, whom he declined to name, and that she had invited him to an event where the picture was taken.
“I’ve never been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before that photo and never in contact with him after,” he said on the show.
Among the emails in which Ratner is mentioned, in December 2010, Epstein discusses a dinner he is having at “7:30” in which he says that he has invited Ratner but has not yet heard back.
In December 2010, it was widely reported that Epstein hosted a dinner at his Manhattan townhouse just months after he finished serving a prison sentence and house arrest for soliciting a minor for prostitution. The dinner was attended by a number of boldfaced names including Woody Allen and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew.
A year later, Epstein’s assistant appears to email Ratner saying, “Jeffrey would like to speak with you regarding [redacted] could you please give us a call.” It is unclear whether Ratner followed up.
In another heavily redacted email from 2018, Epstein writes to someone saying: “Hi I’m Jeffrey. brett Ratner thought we should meet.” He follows up with a second email asking whether Ratner had spoken to this person yet.
During the Cannes film festival in 2012, celebrity superpublicist and ubiquitous presence on the awards circuit Peggy Siegal emailed Epstein that she was sitting with Ratner about to watch a Roman Polanski documentary, adding that “Brett says ‘hi’ and he loves you!”
In other gossipy emails Siegal sent to Epstein, she cites Ratner in her listing of which power brokers and celebrities are in attendance at various parties and who is staying on whose yacht in St. Barts (Ratner, she wrote, was staying with his business partner, the Australian billionaire James Packer).
Siegal’s relationship with the convicted pedophile came under renewed scrutiny in 2019 after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges, particularly as she helped facilitate his return to society following his prison sentence.
“Had I known that he had been accused of abusing underage girls, I would not have maintained a friendship with him,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.
Siegal could not be immediately reached for comment.
On Nov. 1, 2017 — the day The Times published its investigation in which six women accused Ratner of sexual misconduct — Epstein emailed lawyer Reid Weingarten: “brett ratner now oy.”
Ratner’s career was derailed nine years ago after The Times published detailed allegations against the director made by multiple women who accused him of harassment, groping and forced oral sex. Actor Olivia Munn claimed that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she delivered a meal to his trailer on the set of the 2004 film “After the Sunset.”
At the time, the director’s attorney Martin Singer rejected the women’s claims, saying that his client “vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations that have been reported about him.”
Ratner’s agents at WME dropped him, as did his publicist, and projects were put on hold. Ratner parted ways with Warner Bros.
“I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved,” he said in a statement.
In 2020, Ratner became embroiled in another Hollywood sex scandal, involving British actor Charlotte Kirk.
In a sworn court declaration, Kirk said she was victimized by then-Warner Bros. Chief Executive Kevin Tsujihara, Ratner, Packer and Millennium Films CEO Avi Lerner, stating that the men “coerced me into engaging in ‘commercial sex’ for them and their business associates.”
Singer, who represented the men, “categorically and vehemently” denied any wrongdoing on the part of his clients.
Reporting from Washington — The FBI office that handles employee discipline has recommended firing the bureau’s former deputy director over allegations that he authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and misled investigators when asked about it — though Justice Department officials are still reviewing the matter and have not come to a final decision, a person familiar with the case said.
The recommendation from the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility is likely to add fuel to the political fire surrounding former deputy director Andrew McCabe, who abruptly stepped down from his post earlier this year but technically remained an FBI employee.
McCabe was hoping to retire in days, when he becomes eligible for his full benefits. If he is fired, he could lose his retirement benefits. President Trump has long made McCabe a particular target of his ire, and the recommendation to fire the former No. 2 FBI official could give him new ammunition.
Through a representative, McCabe declined to comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement: “The Department follows a prescribed process by which an employee may be terminated. That process includes recommendations from career employees, and no termination decision is final until the conclusion of that process. We have no personnel announcements at this time.”
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has for some time been working on a report that blasts McCabe for allowing two high-ranking bureau officials to sit down with the Wall Street Journal as the news outlet prepared a story in 2016 on an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s family foundation, then misleading the inspector general’s team about his actions. A person familiar with the matter said Horowitz’s findings are what sparked the Office of Professional Responsibility’s recommendation, which was first reported by The New York Times. Horowitz’s report has not yet been released.
McCabe, 49, had long been expected to retire March 18, though he abruptly left his post earlier this year after his boss, FBI Director Christopher Wray, was told of what the inspector general had found.
The situation now seems fraught for all involved. If the Justice Department does not move on the recommendation, conservatives might view officials there as unfairly protecting McCabe. Trump — who already has a strained relationship with Justice Department leaders — might be particularly displeased.
But if the FBI fires McCabe with just days to go before his retirement, it could be viewed as bending to the will of a vindictive president. Trump has previously suggested McCabe was biased in favor of Clinton, pointing out that McCabe’s wife, who ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Virginia Legislature, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the political action committee of Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia and a noted Clinton ally. The president remarked in December that McCabe was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”
The inspector general has since last January been investigating the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the politically charged probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, which is separate from the foundation inquiry. McCabe represents but a piece of that work.
Horowitz is also examining broad allegations of misconduct involving former FBI Director James Comey, including the public statement he made recommending that the Clinton email case be closed without charges and his decision 11 days before the election to reveal to Congress that the FBI had resumed its work. McCabe briefly took over as the FBI’s acting director after Trump fired Comey in May.
The story for which McCabe authorized FBI officials to discuss came just as the bureau announced it was resuming its look at Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, though it focused more on a different case involving her family’s foundation.
The story presented McCabe as a complicated figure — one who lower-level officials felt was stymieing their work, even though it detailed McCabe pushing back against Justice Department officials so the case could move forward.
The inspector general was interested in McCabe’s role in authorizing officials to talk about the matter, people familiar with the case said, because the story detailed ongoing criminal investigative work, which law enforcement officials are not normally allowed to discuss.
The Wall Street Journal story was written by Devlin Barrett, who is now a reporter at the Washington Post. Recently released text messages show that Barrett had talked with the FBI’s top spokesman, Michael Kortan, and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for McCabe, two days before it was published.
Background briefings with reporters are common in Washington, particularly when reporters have information that officials feel compelled to respond to or add context. In this instance, though, it might have been viewed as inappropriate because the discussion was focused on an ongoing criminal investigation.
Melissa Gilbert has returned to social media to some extent amid an “extraordinarily difficult time” stemming from the child sex abuse case involving her husband Timothy Busfield.
The “Little House on the Prairie” alumna, 61, spoke out on Monday, issuing a statement of gratitude and reflection to the Instagram page of her lifestyle brand, Modern Prairie. She made her Instagram comeback after seemingly deactivating her personal account earlier this month, when allegations against her husband became public.
“This season has reminded me, very clearly, how important it is to slow down, prioritize what truly matters, and allow ourselves moments of rest,” she captioned a photo of herself sitting pensively on a couch. “Stepping back from the noise, the news, and even our daily responsibilities from time to time gives us space to recharge, reflect and find our center again.”
Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge issued a warrant for Emmy winner Busfield, 68, on two felony counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and a single count of child abuse. An affidavit accuses Busfield of inappropriately touching two child actors, who are brothers, during his time as an actor, director and producer on the Fox drama “The Cleaning Lady.”
According to the complaint, one child actor said Busfield first touched his “private areas” multiple times on set when he was 7 years old. The actor said that, when he was 8 years old, Busfield touched him inappropriately again several times, according to the affidavit. The complaint also detailed a police interview with Busfield in which he suggested that the boys’ mother might have sought “revenge” on the director for “not bringing her kids back for the final season.”
Amid the allegations against Busfield, Gilbert’s Modern Prairie issued a statement on Instagram distancing itself from the disturbing claims. “Modern Prairie unequivocally condemns abuse in all forms and remains committed to values of safety, integrity, and respect.” the statement said.
Busfield turned himself in to law enforcement on Jan. 13, denying the “horrible” allegations and asserting: “I did not do anything to those little boys.” A publicist for Gilbert at the time said the actor would not comment on her husband’s case, denounced “any purported statements” and said that she was focused on caring for her and Busfield’s family. Busfield has three adult children from two previous marriages and is the stepfather to Gilbert’s two adult sons from her two previous marriages.
Busfield, known for his roles on “The West Wing” and “Thirtysomething,” was jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque but was granted release on his own recognizance on Jan. 20. At the hearing, to determine whether Busfield would be released pending trial, Gilbert could be seen crying and saying, “Thank you, God” upon the judge’s decision.
Gilbert thanked her Modern Prairie community for their patience and “for helping me feel safer, more grounded, and deeply held,” amid the scrutiny surrounding her family.
“I’ll be easing back into things thoughtfully and with care — moving forward one step at a time,” she said. “More to come and so much gratitude always.”
In late 2024, shortly after her husband, Donald Trump, was reelected as the 47th president of the United States, Melania Trump saw an opportunity: a documentary centered on her life.
The film, a follow-up to her eponymous memoir, would offer a window into the first lady’s private, sphinx-like world, in contrast to that of her bombastic, spotlight-seeking husband.
To direct the film, a fly-on-the-wall chronicle of the 20 days leading up to the inauguration, Melania turned to an unlikely choice: Brett Ratner, who only a few years earlier had been all but banished from Hollywood.
The controversial filmmaker had been recommended by her agent and “senior advisor” Marc Beckman, who had a long-standing relationship with Ratner.
“He’s one of the most talented directors of our lifetime,” said Beckman, who negotiated the unusually lucrative $40-million deal with Amazon MGM Studios to distribute the film.
“He actually accounts for like $2 billion in box-office receipts,” Beckman told The Times. “He really understands not just how to create something that’s gorgeous, but also how to reach the passions and emotions of his audience.”
The timing was fortuitous. Ratner was looking for a comeback vehicle from his heady days as one of the industry’s most successful filmmakers. And Beckman was among several prominent figures in Trump’s orbit who could help make that happen.
President-elect Donald Trump kisses his wife, Melania, before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
(Saul Loeb / Associated Press)
Brash, rich and successful, Ratner, 56, was the director and producer of a string of blockbuster films, the “Rush Hour” franchise and “X-Men: The Last Stand” among them. He was a consummate Hollywood dealmaker and habitué of red carpets who held court at the legendary basement disco inside of his equally storied Beverly Hills estate.
Then, in the fall of 2017, The Times reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Ratner made by multiple women. At the time, Ratner strenuously denied the claims.
It was the height of the #MeToo movement and a range of sexual misconduct allegations toppled the careers of powerful men, from disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein to “Today Show” host Matt Lauer and CBS Chairman Les Moonves. Weinstein was later convicted of rape in Los Angeles and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Almost immediately, Ratner’s reign as blockbuster king was over.
Beckman, however, viewed Ratner first and foremost as a director. They had a relationship that stretched back to 2007. Beckman’s agency hired Ratner to direct a sultry Jordache jeans campaign, inspired by the iconic photographer Helmut Newton, whose work was edgy, provocative and erotically charged. The campaign, shot at the Chateau Marmont, featured a mostly topless Heidi Klum — in one ad she is brandishing a riding whip.
Beckman declined to say whether he had talked to other potential directors, nor would he address any of the claims made against Ratner. He stressed that it was Ratner’s “massive talent” that put him in the director’s chair. “We focused on Ratner’s capabilities as being a superior director,” he said.
The documentary, “Melania,” is set to premiere at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington — which the president is trying to rename the Trump Kennedy Center — on Thursday, followed the next day by a global theatrical release.
In addition to the “Melania” documentary, a three-part docuseries also filmed during the inauguration run-up about the first lady that Ratner directed and is part of the same Amazon deal, is set to air on the streamer later this year, according to Beckman.
Brett Ratner, center, and the stars of “Rush Hour 3,” Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, at the film’s Los Angeles premiere party in 2007.
(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)
Then there is the much-buzzed-about fourth installment of “Rush Hour.” It has been widely reported that Ratner will direct the $100-million movie to be distributed by Paramount.
The long-stalled project came about after President Trump was said to have urged his friend Larry Ellison, who bankrolled his son David’s acquisition of Paramount, to revive the franchise.
Not everyone is happy about Ratner’s return.
“It speaks to the larger issue that these men who didn’t take responsibility for their actions are coming back into society as if nothing happened,” said Nancy Erika Smith, a partner at Smith Mullin in Montclair, N.J., who has litigated numerous harassment cases, including that of former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson.
Reached by phone, Ratner declined to respond to questions, saying, “I don’t talk to or cooperate with the Los Angeles Times.”
He referred questions to his London-based publicist, who did not respond to a detailed list of questions.
An early love of movies
Growing up in Miami, Ratner once said that “I eat, sleep, breathe the movies.” He was raised by a single mother, Marsha, who had him at 16, and his grandparents Mario and Fanita Presman, Jewish Cubans who immigrated to Florida during the 1960s. (His paternal grandfather, Lee Ratner, founded d-Con, the rat poison company.) At 12, he was an extra, appearing as a boy on a raft, during a pool scene at the Fontainebleau Hotel in the 1983 Brian De Palma film “Scarface.”
Early on, Ratner garnered a reputation for his ambition, relentless drive and a preternatural ability to surround himself with famous friends and mentors.
While a student at New York University in the late 1980s, he befriended Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, who made him his protégé, tapping Ratner to direct music videos.
At 28, he directed his first film, the 1997 buddy comedy “Money Talks,” starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker. The movie grossed $48 million on a $25-million budget, cementing Ratner’s reputation as a highly bankable director.
In 2012, Ratner and Australian billionaire investor James Packer co-founded RatPac Entertainment. A year later, they merged with the film financing company Dune Entertainment, founded by Steven Mnuchin (Trump’s future Treasury secretary), that had bankrolled massive hits like “Avatar.”
The rebranded RatPac-Dune quickly entered into a $450-million slate financing deal with Warner Bros. to fund up to 75 movies, including Oscar winner “Gravity” and box-office hit “Wonder Woman.”
Ratner himself served as an executive producer on such acclaimed films as the epic western drama “The Revenant.”
“I was not the best student, but I was the hardest-working kid that I know, and it paid off,” said Ratner when the Friar’s Club honored him with a comedy achievement award in 2011.
A self-styled jet-setting playboy, Ratner dated actor Rebecca Gayheart and tennis star Serena Williams. He cocooned himself inside a circle of much older, famous cinema legends that he considered his mentors such as Robert Evans, Roman Polanski and Robert Towne.
The late movie producer Robert Evans was part of a clutch of cinema legends that Ratner considered his mentors.
(Getty Images)
Ratner’s Beverly Hills mansion, Hilhaven Lodge, the estate once owned by “Casablanca” actor Ingrid Bergman, was the scene of numerous raucous parties filled with celebrities and models.
After he made a series of vulgar and inappropriate comments while promoting his film “Tower Heist” in 2011, including saying that “rehearsal is for f—,” using an anti-gay slur, he dropped out of producing the Academy Awards broadcast.
Still, Ratner frequently groused that he was misunderstood.
“I don’t drink; I don’t do drugs. Do I like to have fun? Yeah. Do I like to enjoy myself, enjoy my life? Yeah. But I’m not a decadent person. … I’m just a nice Jewish kid from Miami Beach who loves movies and pretty girls,” he said in an interview with the Jewish Journal.
Over the years, Ratner sat on the boards of several charities such as Chrysalis, a group that helps homeless people; and the Ghetto Film School. In 2013, he donated $1 million to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and he actively supported the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where he was a trustee, and the Museum of Tolerance.
When Patty Jenkins presented him with the Tree of Life humanitarian award at a Jewish National Fund dinner in 2017, the director of “Wonder Woman” and “Monster” shared that he financed her thesis film.
In 2017, when Ratner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he was cheered on by actors Edward Norton, Dwayne Johnson and Eddie Murphy, producer Brian Grazer and Warner Bros. chief Kevin Tsujihara.
(Chris Delmas / AFP via Getty Images)
That year, RatPac-Dune’s co-financing deal with Warner Bros. delivered a series of hits, including “It,” “Wonder Woman” and “Dunkirk.” He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Fallout over allegations of misconduct
Then, in November, The Times published detailed allegations against Ratner made by six women who accused him of harassment, groping and forced oral sex. Actor Olivia Munn claimed that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she delivered a meal to his trailer on the set of the 2004 film “After the Sunset.”
At the time, Ratner’s attorney Martin Singer rejected the women’s claims, saying that his client “vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations that have been reported about him.”
The Times published another report weeks later that included additional sexual misconduct allegations from several other women. The report also named Simmons, the Def Jam co-founder, as a witness and alleged perpetrator in several of the episodes.
Both Ratner and Simmons disputed the women’s accounts and denied their allegations. Simmons subsequently faced several rape accusations, which he has denied.
The professional repercussions were swift. Ratner’s agents at WME dropped him, as did his publicist, and projects were put on hold. Ratner parted ways with Warner Bros.
“I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved,” he said in a statement.
Two years later, Ratner’s name surfaced amid the tangled Hollywood sex scandals involving British actor Charlotte Kirk, whose allegations brought down two studio chiefs: Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara and NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer, with whom she claimed to have had sexual affairs.
British actor Charlotte Kirk accused several Hollywood power players including Ratner of “victimizing her.”
(Paul Archuleta / FilmMagic)
In a sworn court declaration, Kirk said she was victimized by Tsujihara, Ratner, Packer and Millennium Films CEO Avi Lerner, stating that the men “coerced me into engaging in ‘commercial sex’ for them and their business associates.”
She further accused Packer, whom she had dated for a period, and Ratner of having “sexually exploited me,” with Ratner sending her “crude sexual text messages, and offering me as an inducement to his business partners,” according to her declaration.
Attorney Singer, who represented the men, “categorically and vehemently” denied any wrongdoing on the part of his clients.
Cast out of Hollywood, Ratner appeared to escape the piercing scrutiny by living large. He was spotted variously at the five-star Faena Hotel in Miami and sunning on a yacht off Saint-Barthélemy in the Caribbean.
Ratner’s initial attempts to get back behind the camera went nowhere. In 2021, he announced plans to direct a long-stalled Milli Vanilli biopic with Millennium Media, but soon after, Millennium Media stated that it was no longer involved with the film.
In Trump’s orbit
Despite the setbacks, the seeds for Ratner’s eventual comeback had been sown. Known as a world-class schmoozer, Ratner cultivated numerous ties to people affiliated with Trump.
For several years, he was partners with Mnuchin, who served as Treasury secretary during Trump’s first term, through their production and financing company RatPac-Dune.
Billionaire Len Blavatnik, owner of Warner Music Group, bought Packer’s stake in RatPac-Dune through his Access Entertainment in 2017, making him Ratner’s partner for a time. Blavatnik, through his company, contributed $1 million to Trump’s first inauguration.
Then there’s Arthur Sarkissian, the producer of the original “Rush Hour” movie. He also produced the 2024 Trump-friendly documentary, “The Man You Don’t Know.”
Steven Mnuchin, who was Treasury secretary during Trump’s first term, was a partner with Ratner through their company RatPac-Dune Entertainment.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Ratner also developed a friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a long-standing relationship with Trump. Ratner was the prime minister’s guest at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023. He posted a picture on his Instagram standing behind a seated Netanyahu and his wife, and next to attorney Alan Dershowitz, himself a longtime advisor and friend of Trump’s.
That year, several Israeli media outlets reported that Ratner had obtained Israeli citizenship after he posted the passbook Israel issues to new immigrants on his Instagram story with his name “Brett Shai Ratner” captioned in Hebrew.
“There’s a strong community in south Florida that is close to Trump,” said someone who worked with the family but was not authorized to speak publicly. “Brett has relationships with a bunch of them; it was just a matter of connecting the dots.”
Ratner no longer appears to live at his Hillhaven estate (which is currently listed for lease at $82,500 a month), while there have been sightings of him at Mar-a-Lago.
Not long after the presidential election, Ratner was given unprecedented entrée to Melania Trump and became a part of her trusted inner circle.
Beckman said Ratner was given “remarkable” access to her life. “There were behind-the-scenes meetings,” he said. “She’s a very private person and for the first time she was allowing the cameras to cover her, her family, her philanthropy and of course her business endeavors.”
Many of the women who came forward in 2017 to level their accusations against Ratner declined to speak about him now or to comment on his return to directing.
In the 2017 Times article, actor Jaime Ray Newman alleged that during a flight Ratner made sexually inappropriate comments and showed her nude photos of his then-girlfriend.
“I said my piece a couple of years ago and have moved on,” Newman, who stars in the Netflix hit “The Hunting Wives,” told The Times. “I feel really good and brave in what I did.”
The “Melania” trailer is in heavy rotation online and was shown during the NFL playoffs. Billboards loom over cities and on buses.
Talking to reporters on Air Force One earlier this month, the president praised the upcoming film.
“I’ve seen pieces of it, it’s incredible,” Trump said. “Everybody wants tickets to the premiere. I think it’s going to be great.”
