Cinema isn’t just about the latest Disney/Pixar project or Star Wars spin-off. Memorable storytelling is happening all over the film industry, from Hollywood’s box-office-busting superhero smashes to small, innovative indie experiments. The Verge’s film section is here to help you sort through the latest Hollywood news and reviews, from favorite genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror to the independent movies that matter.
The new trailer for Amazon MGM’s live-action Masters of the Universe film starring Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Jared Leto as Skeletor raises a few questions, like, why does this exist? Who is it for? Will anyone actually see the movie when it hits theaters on June 5th?
With 16 Oscars nominations including Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has become the most nominated film in the awards show’s history — a record that was previously shared by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land, which were each up for 14 golden statues.
All You Need Is Kill is a feast for the eyes, but the animated feature’s soundtrack is also an absolute knockout, and you can listen to it now on all the major streaming platforms.
Ahead of debuting a trailer for its new Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord animated series tomorrow, Disney Plus has shared a short (and inky) teaser that makes it seem like the Sith Lord’s lightsaber is going to be seeing plenty of action.
Originally, the live-action movies were going to come to Netflix starting in 2027, but What’s on Netflix reports that they’re appearing starting this year, beginning with Megan 2.0 on January 26th. The films still stream on Peacock first before jumping to Netflix.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck went on the Joe Rogan Experience to promote their new film The Rip, and ended up sharing some very depressing details about Netflix’s love of repeated exposition dumps and its approach to filmmaking in this age of constant distraction. As Variety reports:
“The standard way to make an action movie that we learned was, you usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third,” Damon explained. “You spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your finale. And now they’re like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.’”
The new adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s sci-fi light novel feels like a tribute to the roguelike genre.
Kathleen Kennedy tells Deadline she’s excited and “interested in exploring using those tools in responsible ways”:
I’m not saying that it impacts every single story you’re going to tell in cinema, but certainly for big tentpole stories where you’re trying to world-build and create images people haven’t seen before, I really believe this technology is going to do that.
The whole interview’s a good read, but she’s wrong that ILM created the first CG shot in a movie with Young Sherlock Holmes. It was groundbreaking, but Tron, The Last Starfighter, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek II, Westworld, and even 1958’s Vertigo all had CG earlier.
Ahead of Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe’s Japanese theatrical debut on January 30th, Bandai Namco Filmworks has announced that SZA’s “Snooze” has been selected as the movie’s opening theme.
Following Guillermo del Toro’s opus last year, a very different take on Frankenstein is on the way. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, this version sees Jessie Buckley play the reanimated corpse of a murdered woman in 1930s Chicago. It looks fun, and the trailer makes very appropriate use of Florence + the Machine. The Bride hits theaters on March 4th.
As reported by Bloomberg, the revised deal would replace Netflix’s existing agreement to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming business in a cash and stock transaction. The rumored change comes as Paramount continues to press WBD to accept its “superior” $108 billion all-cash deal for the entire company.
Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later sequel turns the franchise on its head with a story about spirituality in the end times.
A mysterious kaiju is stirring up trouble in this new teaser for season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The new creature seems bigger than King Kong and more menacing than Godzilla, but we’ll have to wait for the season’s premiere on February 27th to learn the monster’s name.
The US release of the Godzilla Minus One sequel is only three days after the premiere in Japan, a rare near-simultaneous release. It will open in Japan on November 3rd, an auspicious date as it’s when the original Gojira premiered in 1954. If you need a reminder of why you should be excited, go watch Minus One on Netflix.
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Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Rango, and the Budweiser frogs) is apparently not a fan of AI. The second trailer for his upcoming techno-apocalypse comedy focuses on the dehumanizing nature of technology, letting you know this isn’t just a mindless romp and that your smartphone is the beginning of the end for humanity. The movie is hitting theaters February 13th.
Podcasts enter the realm of horror with A24’s upcoming flick Undertone, in which “a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings.” Maybe don’t watch the trailer with headphones on. It’s due in theaters on March 13th.
Teasers for Avengers: Doomsday continue to trickle out, and surprising no one — at least, no one who watched that hours-long cast reveal — the latest confirms that the new film will prominently feature the X-Men. Watch for a blink-and-you’ll miss it shot of a very emotional Cyclops.
Hugh Jackman is taking another stab at playing an aging anti hero, this time in the historical thriller The Death of Robin Hood. The film is helmed by Michael Sarnoski — director of Pig and the live-action Death Stranding feature — and is slated to hit theaters sometime this year.
Did the new Knives Out’s impressively ornate seminary gym seem a little familiar? It’s not just you, it was one of the world’s subtlest Rickrolls.
The short MCU clip that premiered exclusively before Avatar: Fire and Ash is finally accessible. See Chris Evans’ former Captain America drive a motorcycle, wear a jacket, and hold a baby. Didn’t Steve Rogers retire?
The film will be out on December 18th, 2026, so we have a year to wonder.
It took director Park Chan-wook 16 years to make this film. He explains how it became more timely than ever.
Superman: Man of Tomorrow is scheduled to hit theaters in 2027, and James Gunn has found his big bad. Lars Eidinger is relatively unknown in the US, but he has been nominated for a European Film Award and appeared in Noah Baumbach’s White Noise.
Not nearly enough people are talking about Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s masterpiece of a film, Bugonia. But that should change once the movie makes its Peacock streaming debut on December 26th.
The Screen Culture and KH Studio YouTube pages have suddenly disappeared, taking their fake clips with them, reports Deadline. An earlier Deadline investigation showed how they operated, mixing official movie footage with AI-generated images, which some movie studios were profiting from by claiming the ad revenue they brought in.
YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon provided this statement to The Verge:
After their initial suspension, these channels made the necessary corrections in order to be readmitted into the YouTube Partner Program. However, once monetizing again, they reverted to clear violations of our spam and misleading metadata policies, and as a result, they have been terminated from the platform.
Boy, the creative choices here for the Melania doc... They feel familiar somehow. Even, and maybe especially, the music.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director James Cameron opens up about all of the non-Avatar he has and how he’s “a bit of a crossroads” about whether he wants the franchise to keep going or if he wants ” it to fail just enough that I can justify doing something else?”
[The Hollywood Reporter]
