Film

It’s the year for horror and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” was no exception. Its opening weekend tipped the genre over $1 billion in earnings for this year’s domestic box office.

The horror sequel raked in $83 million domestically in 3,802 theaters, making it the third-highest domestic opening for a horror movie, behind “It” and “It: Chapter Two.” It’s now the largest horror opening internationally, with $104 million in earnings outside of North American theaters.

The film also broke records for the “Conjuring” universe, securing the biggest opening weekend in the franchise. The movie’s performance is a testament to the franchise’s success in producing classic horror movies since the first film released in 2013, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the data firm Comscore.

“Audiences know when they go in to see ‘The Conjuring,’ the minute this scary, ominous music comes up with the Warner’s logo, you know you’re in for a wild ride,” Dergarabedian said.

The film has received mixed reviews from critics, carrying a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and a “B” CinemaScore.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return to the big screen in the ninth installment of “The Conjuring” as the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who attempt to vanquish a demon from a family’s home.

“Last Rites” also handed Warner Bros. Pictures yet another opening weekend box office win, becoming the distributor’s eighth No. 1 debut win this year and the studio’s seventh film in a row to debut with more than $40 million domestically.

The movie’s opening weekend numbers are nearly double that of other successful horror movies this year, including Zach Cregger’s August sleeper hit “Weapons,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and “Sinners” — all of which are Warner Bros. releases.

“It just shows how arguably more than any other genre, horror has stood the test of time,” Dergarabedian said. “That’s because there’s nothing quite like seeing a horror movie in a darkened room full of strangers.”

The horror genre last crossed the $1-billion mark in 2023. Meeting that threshold this early in the year is unprecedented, Dergarabedian said, “because usually you need a full year of horror movie box office to bank that much cash.”

Upcoming horror films like “Black Phone 2” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” are likely to boost that number, Dergarabedian said.

“Last Rites” blew past other titles at the box office this weekend. Disney’s filmed version of “Hamilton” landed in second place with $10 million domestically. The film was “perfect counterprogramming” to “Last Rights,” Dergarabedian said.

The rest of the top spots were taken by several holdover titles. “Weapons” secured third place during its fifth weekend, bringing in $5.4 million in earnings in North American theaters. The movie’s debut partner, “Freakier Friday,” took fourth place with $3.8 million.

The crime caper “Caught Stealing,” which debuted last weekend, rounded out the top five with $3.2 million in domestic earnings.

Luna writes for the Associated Press.

TORONTO — The smile is beatific, blissed out, even at an ungodly hour on our Zoom call from France. A week later, when I finally meet 43-year old filmmaker Oliver Laxe in person at a private Toronto celebration for his new movie “Sirât,” he radiates serenity. He’s the happiest (and maybe the tallest) person in the room.

“One of the first ideas that I had for this film was a sentence from Nietzsche,” he says. “I won’t believe in a God who doesn’t dance.”

Laxe goes to raves — “free parties,” he clarifies, indicating the ones you need to hear about via word of mouth. He’s thought deeply about what they mean and what they do to him. “We still have a memory in our bodies of these ceremonies that we were doing for thousands of years, when we were making a kind of catharsis with our bodies.”

It’s almost the opposite of what you expect to hear on the fall festival circuit, when directors with big ideas make their cases for the significance of the art form. But the body, the return to something purely sensorial, is Laxe’s big idea.

Steadily, “Sirât” has become, since its debut at Cannes in May, a growing favorite: not merely a critic’s darling but an obsession among those who’ve seen it. (The film will have an awards-qualifying run in Los Angeles beginning Nov. 14.) A dance party in the desert set at some vaguely hinted-at moment of apocalypse, the movie is something you feel, not solve. Its pounding EDM beats rattle pleasurably in your chest (provided the theater’s speakers are up to snuff). And the explosions on the horizon shake your heartbeat.

“I really trust in the capacity of images to penetrate into the metabolism of the spectator,” Laxe says. “I’m like a masseuse. When you watch my films, sometimes you’ll want to kill me or you’ll feel the pain in your body, like: Wow, what a treat. But after, you can feel the result.”

An image from the movie “Sirât,” directed by Oliver Laxe.

(Festival de Cannes)

Laxe can speak about his influences: cosmic epics by the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky or existential road movies like “Zabriskie Point” and “Two-Lane Blacktop.” But he is not a product of a typical grad-school trajectory. Rather, it’s his escape from that path after growing up in northern Spanish Galicia and studying in Barcelona (he tried London for a while) that’s fascinating.

“I was not good,” he recalls. “I didn’t find I had a place in the industry or in Europe. I was not interested. I had bought a camera, a 16-millimeter Bolex, and I knew I was accepting that my role was to be a kind of sniper that was working in the trenches but making really small films.”

At age 24, Laxe moved to Tangier, Morocco, where he would live for 12 years at a monastic remove from the glamour of the movies, collaborating with local children on his films. The experience would grow into his first feature, 2010’s “You Are All Captains,” which eventually took him all the way to the prize-winning podium at Cannes, as did his second and third films, all of which came before “Sirât,” his fourth.

“Slowly, the things we were making were opening doors,” he says. “In a way, life was deciding, telling me: This is your path.”

Path is what “Sirât” means in Arabic, often with a religious connotation, and his new movie takes a unique journey, traversing from the loose-limbed dancing of its early scenes to a train’s tracks stretching fixedly to the end of the line. There’s also a quest that gets us into the film: a father and son searching among the ravers for a missing daughter, potentially a nod to “The Searchers” or Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore,” but not a plot point that Laxe feels especially interested in expounding on.

“Obviously I have a spiritual path and this path is about celebrating crisis,” he says. “My path was through crisis. It’s the only time when you connect with your essence. I just want to grow. So that’s why I jump into the abyss.”

“My path was through crisis,” says director Oliver Laxe of his steady rise. “It’s the only time when you connect with your essence. I just want to grow.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Laxe tells me he didn’t spend years perfecting a script or sharpening dialogue. Rather, he took the images that stuck with him — trucks speeding into the dusty desert, fueled by the rumble of their own speaker systems — and brought them to the free parties, where his cast coalesced on the dance floor.

“We were telling them that we were making ‘Mad Max Zero,’ ” he recalls, but also something “more metaphysical, more spiritual. A few of them, I already knew. There are videos of us explaining the film in the middle of the dance floor with all the people dancing around. I mean it was quite crazy. It’s something I would like to show to film schools.”

Shot on grungy Super 16, the production drove deep into craggy, sandblasted wastelands, both in Morocco and mountainous Spain, where the crew would make hairpin turns along winding cliff roads that would give even fans of William Friedkin’s legendary 1977 misadventure “Sorcerer” anxiety.

“It was my least dangerous film,” Laxe counters, reminding me of his “Fire Will Come,” the 2019 arson thriller for which he cast actual firefighters. “We were making the film in the middle of the flames, so I don’t know. I’m a junkie of images and I need this drug.”

There is a Herzogian streak to the bearded Laxe, a prophet-in-the-wilderness boldness that inspires his collaborators, notably longtime writing partner Santiago Fillol and the techno composer Kangding Ray, to make the leap of faith with him. But there also seems to come a point when talking about “Sirât” feels insufficient, as opposed to simply submitting to its pounding soundscapes, found-family camaraderie and (fair warning) churning moments of sudden loss that have shaken even the most hardy of audiences.

“The film evokes this community of wounded people,” he says. “I’m not a sadistic guy that wants to make a spectator suffer. I have a lot of hope. I trust in human beings, even with their contradictions and weaknesses.”

For those who wish to find a political reading in the movie, it’s there for them, a parable about migration and fascism but also the euphoria of a headlong rush into the unknown. “Sirât” is giving odd comfort in a cultural moment of uncertainty, a rare outcome for a low-budget art film.

Its visionary maker knows exactly where he is going next.

“I got the message in Cannes,” Laxe says. “People want to feel the freedom of the filmmaker or the auteur. What they appreciate is that we were jumping from a fifth floor to make this film. So for the next one —”

Our connection cuts out and it’s almost too perfect: a Laxian cliffhanger moment in which ideas are yanked back by a rush of feeling. After several hours of me hoping this was intentional on his part, the director does indeed get back to me, apologetically. But until then, he is well served by the mystery.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 5, 2025 — Elle Fanning from the film “SENTIMENTAL VALUE,” photographed in the Los Angeles Times Studios at RBC House, during the Toronto International Film Festival, (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)  (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Gran Canaria exceeded my expectations, but it was my stay at a five-star resort that really took my breath away and reminded me of my favourite Disney movie. But one thing shocked me

Gran Canaria is one of the underrated gems of the Canary Islands – often overshadowed by its sister island and party hotspot Tenerife – but now that I’m on the lookout for a trip with a slower pace, mentions of Gran Canaria being a slice of luxury and less than four hours away finally swayed me.

The island is the third-largest of the Canaries and boasts a rural and mountainous terrain. My hotel for the four-day trip was nestled high in the mountains, with a view of the sea and a rooftop pool, meaning I could sunbathe from sunrise to sunset with uninterrupted rays (I was, of course, wearing a high level of SPF and made sure to top this up regularly).

The Salobre Hotel Resort & Serenity, a five-star hotel, served as my residence during my time in the south of Gran Canaria and proved to be a perfect base, roughly 10 minutes from the beach via shuttle and half an hour away from the picturesque Puerto de Mogán.

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The drive up to the hotel delivers breathtaking views of Gran Canaria’s landscape, the lone drive feels like a trip along the Route 66 and prepares you for a stay filled with rest, relaxation and peace. As I got closer to the hotel, scenes of vivacious green lawns and palm trees serve as the ideal golfing environment.

For fans of Disney’s critically acclaimed High School Musical trilogy, you’ll find yourself in a real-life version of Lava Springs, from High School Musical 2. I could’ve sworn Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) was belting Bet On It on the other side of the gold course.

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The Salobre Hotel’s terracotta, limewash walls and modern-Mediterranean aesthetic oozed wellness and luxury. The entire place felt airy and tinged in sunset, providing the perfect backdrop for pictures.

Rooms for two come with more than enough space to help you feel at home and come fitted with a panoramic shower and bath room and 80 per cent cotton bedding and hypoallergenic feather pillows. Salobre understand the importance of sleeping well and with views of natural landscapes and the golf course just outside my balcony, it’s no surprise that I only had sweet dreams.

The food, served at the Sens restaurant and rotating between global cuisines from Italian to Chinese on a daily basis, and the Be Aloe Spa, which boasted an infinity pool, oxygen therapy booth and a Finnish sauna, were commendable to say the least.

The only thing that really caught me by surprise was the five-minute walk from the hotel lobby to my room, but I guess that highlights just how spacious the hotel is.

A highlight of my stay had to be an evening under the stars by the hotel’s Sunset bar. The area is purposefully low-lit, to ensure the best view of the stars above. If you’re over the loud, bold parties of the summer and need a place to settle and recenter, I highly recommend Gran Canaria’s Salobre Hotel Resort.

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When actor Cooper Hoffman pops up on a Zoom window for a joint interview, Andrew Barth Feldman practically bursts with joy.

“Oh my God,” Feldman exclaims. “Look at the buzz!”

The two friends, each in their own apartments in New York City, have not seen each other since Hoffman recently returned from Italy where he was shooting a role in Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming movie about the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, his hair styled in a severe, dark buzz cut.

The pair immediately launch into a spirited, rhythmic back-and-forth, playfully bouncing around ideas, making jokes and finishing each other’s sentences. It is similar to the nonstop banter between their duo in “Poetic License,” which has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival tonight.

The first feature film directed by Maude Apatow, best known for her role on TV’s “Euphoria,” the film stars Apatow’s mother, Leslie Mann, as Liz, a woman who recently moved to a college town after her husband (Cliff “Method Man” Smith) joined the faculty there. Auditing a poetry class, Liz meets Ari (Hoffman) and Sam (Feldman), two awkward yet compellingly charming best friends who soon find themselves competing for her attention and affection.

Written by Raffi Donatich, the film is the first from Jewelbox Pictures, Apatow’s production company founded with her friend Olivia Rosenbloom, and comes into the festival still seeking distribution. (Keeping things in the family, the debuting director’s father, Judd Apatow, is a producer on the film as well.)

Via email, Maude Apatow spoke about the challenge of finding two actors who could not only play their individual roles, but also capture the speedy dynamic between them.

“A lot of the movie relies on the chemistry between Ari and Sam, so finding the perfect combo was massively important to me,” Apatow, 27, said. “After auditioning countless other boys, Andrew and Cooper were at the top of my list. … They were electric.”

Hoffman, 22, the son of late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and director-producer Mimi O’Donnell, first burst to attention with his starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 “Licorice Pizza.” He can also be seen in the new Stephen King adaptation “The Long Walk,” which opens next week, and he has a role in Gregg Araki’s upcoming “I Want Your Sex.”

Feldman, 23, stepped into the title role of “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway at age 16, younger even than the adolescent title character. He also starred opposite Jennifer Lawrence in the 2023 comedy “No Hard Feelings,” in which his torchy showstopping performance of Hall & Oates’ bouncy ’80s “Maneater” has since racked up more than 18 million views on YouTube.

My conversation with the two actors took place on Labor Day. The following day Feldman began his nine-week run in the Tony-winning musical “Maybe Happy Ending.” Though playing the role of a robot, his casting, replacing the half-Filipino actor Darren Criss, sparked controversy and conversation around Asian representation on Broadway.

“It’s been the most vulnerable time of my whole entire life,” said Feldman of the response to his being cast in the show. “And I have much I want to say and for now the only place I really can is the show. I’m saying everything that I want to say, everything that I believe, I’m pouring my whole heart into the show itself. And I’m thankful that the conversation that’s been happening is happening. And I think this is my way of being part of it.”

“And one day we’ll have a much bigger conversation about it,” he adds, carefully. “But right now, I’m more excited to be talking about ‘Poetic License’ and anything would be reductive to the conversation to talk about it in this context. I don’t think it’s up to me to try to change any minds about it, only to do the best job I possibly can at uplifting this gorgeous, perfect story. Everything that I have to say for the time being is in the show. The show holds all of it.”

Feldman will miss three performances of the show over the weekend due to being in Toronto for the premiere of “Poetic License.”

Did the two of you meet making Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night?”

Andrew Barth Feldman: Boy, did we.

Cooper Hoffman: We also got this job [“Poetic License”] on “Saturday Night.”

Feldman: So here’s the story. We’ve been preparing to tell it for so long. And this is what happened: We became really fast, really close friends on “Saturday Night” and that was a huge cast of a lot of people who are still huge parts of both of our lives. But we clicked really instantly.

And I was taping for this movie and Cooper was taping for this movie, and we both loved the script and, especially on that set, everyone was taping for all of the same things all of the time. So I got a call from my agent that they were asking me to chemistry-read with Cooper and since we were in the same place, might as well be convenient if we just do it in the same place on Zoom. Cooper was on his way to hanging out with me at Dylan O’Brien’s Airbnb. I was already there and Cooper’s on his way. So I called him, told him that this was happening. That’s how he found out that we were chemistry-reading together. And I think both of us said, “Oh, we got the job.” Like, that’s it. As soon as they see what we do when we’re alone together and how insane it is, we’ll have this job. And that’s how it happened.

Hoffman: It’s so true. We ended up running the lines with Dylan O’Brien playing — I don’t know why we keep using his full name — but Dylan playing Leslie Mann’s character. Dylan played Liz.

Feldman: He was really good. I was kind of hoping he would do it.

Andrew Barth Feldman, attending the London premiere of “No Hard Feelings” in 2023.

(John Phillips / Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

Why do you think the two of you just clicked like this?

Feldman: Why do you love who you love? I think there are a lot of real similarities to us. We both had losses of parents really early on in our lives. And that I think instantly brought us to a level of vulnerability with each other that we didn’t necessarily have with other people. But in terms of the candor and the rhythm that we have with each other, it’s just kind of feels like one of those universe once-in-a-lifetime things.

Hoffman: I would very much agree. It was one of those weird things where, as we had to play best friends, we were kind of figuring each other out. Andrew was always someone that I felt very comfortable talking to about things. We rarely would talk about the movie. It was much more about life and other things. And I feel very privileged to have shot this movie with Andrew, actually.

There is something really fresh about your dynamic. The best I can describe the movie is that it’s an adult coming of age rom-com of male friendship.

Hoffman: I would say that’s better than anything that we would say. To me, the thing is that I love a male friendship. I love a male friendship that almost feels like they’re dating, they’re one step away from being married. And what does that bring? What happens when you rely on someone so heavily?

Cooper Hoffman arrives at 2022’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

Feldman: I feel like we both had relationships growing up that you’re basically zero degrees away from romance. It is a romantic relationship. And that is — or was, I guess? — formerly maybe more taboo. There are more expectations of masculinity around that. But I think especially in our generation and especially as people who have decided to do art with our lives, there’s really no taboo around it at all. And in fact, something to be really celebrated. It is kind of the healing factor for young men right now: male relationships that you can be really vulnerable in.

And besides being Sam and Ari’s relationship, it was — and is — Cooper’s and my relationship. We couldn’t shut up really. I mean, that’s important to note is that we never, ever stopped talking. We would be talking and talking and then somewhere during our conversation we would hear action be called and we would just keep talking until we found our way into the scene. Kind of the way we did the whole movie was just trying to tell as much truth as possible because we knew that our relationship was all that really needed to be there to make the relationship of the characters work.

Hoffman: I also just had a thought that this interview’s going to be so annoying to read because it’s literally just going to be me and Andrew complimenting each other for however long. You should have never put us on a call together.

Feldman: This is our first interview about this.

Cooper Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 movie “Licorice Pizza.”

(MGM/UA)

How did the two of you find working with Maude? On the one hand, this is her feature directing debut. On the other hand, she’s been on movie sets her whole life.

Feldman: She was really good. In all of those moments of improvisation and exploring, she was a massive collaborator in that. And was pushing both of us to places that I wouldn’t have gone initially, risky places in these scenes. Every time we would shoot something, we’d do it, go away and talk about it for 10 minutes and just be inventing and zip-zap-zopping across the three of us, and then just be like, OK, let’s go get another one. It was this really creative process that for me as a young person coming up in this industry, I haven’t really had permission to participate in up until working with somebody like Maude. She’s not too much older than us. We’re all coming at this as collaborators as opposed to hierarchically.

Hoffman: The thing with Maude is there was a real level playing field in which we were all figuring out this thing together. And Maude just has inherently very good instincts as a director. She was grounded and she knew what she wanted, but she was much more open for us to go, “Hey, we don’t know what this is. Can we figure this thing out?” And it was debatably the most collaborative set I’ve been on. Which was really great that Maude allowed for that space to happen.

Cooper, do you see your character here as an extension of what you were doing in “Licorice Pizza”? It’s this guy who outwardly has a lot of game, but then inwardly is struggling. Did it feel that way to you as you were performing the role?

Hoffman: No. And here’s the reason for that, I’m not opposed to that convo but I think a real fear of an actor is that you’re doing the same thing every time. And so I think I’m inherently going to jump to being like, “No, this is a completely different person.” And the thing is, I don’t think Ari has game. I never wanted to play it like that. I think he’s extremely confident, but, not to bring up Dylan O’Brien again but Dylan O’Brien used a very good metaphor, which is you’re like a duck. It’s calm on the surface, paddling vigorously underneath. And it does feel like that for Ari.

Andrew Barth Feldman with Jennifer Lawrence in a scene from “No Hard Feelings.”

(Macall Polay / Sony Pictures)

Andrew, you have your own background in musical theater, but you also had your rendition of “Maneater” in “No Hard Feelings.” Do people now always want you to do a number in a movie? Was there any discussion of you doing a number in this one?

Feldman: There was very briefly a discussion of me doing a number in this movie. I think I was talking to Raffi early on and she was like, “Oh my God, I had this idea, what if you actually sing this thing?” And I was like, I can’t do another one. Not right now. It’s too soon after “Maneater” and “Maneater” is still a really huge part of my life. I want to give that moment its moment.

What do you mean, that “Maneater” is still a big part of your life?

Feldman: People ask me to sing it all the time.

Hoffman: What do you mean? It’s a masterpiece. I watched it on a plane the other day. I cried. I literally cried. I love that scene so much. I love that movie so much.

Guys, thank you for your time. I can’t even imagine how this would’ve worked if I’d interviewed you separately.

Feldman: We wouldn’t have done it.

Cooper: I would’ve just talked about Andrew the whole time. By the way, if you would’ve gotten us in the room together, this interview would’ve never ended. It would’ve been physical bits. It would’ve been a whole thing.

Feldman: We talked on set so much about these moments — that we would get to eventually do press together and talk about the movie because we really were, from the beginning, giving one performance of these two characters together.

DARTH Vader’s lightsaber has been sold for £2.7million — making it the most expensive Star Wars prop in history.

The fake weapon, made from an old flash camera attachment, beat pre-sale expectations by £100,000.

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It was famously used in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back in the battle where baddie Vader chops off Luke Skywalker’s hand — then reveals that he is, in fact, his opponent’s father.

Brandon Alinger, of auction house Propstore in Los Angeles, said: “The result marks a landmark moment for the entire world of film collecting.”

“To see a Star Wars lightsaber – the symbol of one of cinema’s greatest sagas – become the highest-valued piece of the franchise ever sold at auction is incredibly special.”

He added: “It speaks to the enduring cultural power of Star Wars and the passion of fans and collectors who see these artifacts as touchstones of modern mythology.”

The 1ft (32cm) green lightsaber was used in scenes by Darth Vader actor David Prowse and stunt performer Bob Anderson.

In the pre-auction process it was described as “one of the most significant cinema artefacts ever.”

Other items sold on Thursday night included the Spider-Man suit worn by Tobey Maguire in the 2002 superhero film, which went for $289,800 (£214,000).

Harrison Ford‘s eight-foot bullwhip, belt and whip holster from Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) beat its pre-sale estimate to sell for $485,100 (£360,000).

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After 52 episodes and three movies, the world of “Downton Abbey” is coming to a heartwarming conclusion — for now, at least. The series and the previous two films, 2019’s “Downton Abbey” and 2022’s “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” have followed several characters over an 18-year period, both from the upstairs and downstairs of the grand house. While viewers already said goodbye to the imperious Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith), in the last film when she tragically died onscreen surrounded by her family, there are still many more farewells to come. Here is where we left some of the key characters as “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” arrives in theaters Sept. 12.

Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery)

Michelle Dockery in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

Lady Mary wasn’t always in line to take over Downton Abbey, but her ill-fated marriage to Matthew Crawley and the birth of their son George ensured that she could be at the helm of the estate, at least until George came of age. Mary eventually remarried toward the end of the series, to race car driver Henry Talbot, but “The Grand Finale” sees the couple divorced and Mary on the outs from society. Still, she has clever ideas about how to keep Downton Abbey afloat and to push it into the modern age as she finally takes the reins from her father. “From the start, she always had a strong personality,” creator Julian Fellowes told The Times in 2022. “And I think what we’ve watched over the years is how she has come to harness her strength, master it and use it to achieve what she wants.”

Edith Pelham (Laura Carmichael)

Laura Carmichael, right, and Elizabeth McGovern in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

For many years Lady Edith was the passed-over second daughter, but by the end of the series she was firmly ensconced as the formidable Marchioness of Hexham. She and her husband Herbert “Bertie” Pelham are happily raising two children and she has become a voice of reason for Mary, offering counsel to the sister who once overshadowed her. “The Grand Finale” even gives Edith a satisfying moment of fortitude when she stands up for the family. “By the time we leave her, Edith is a strong woman and capable of big decisions,” Fellowes says.

Robert and Cora Crawley (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern)

Elizabeth McGovern and Hugh Bonneville in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

The Crawley clan’s patriarch and matriarch have gone through a lot since “Downton Abbey” premiered, including the loss of their daughter Sybil and multiple financial challenges. Cora dealt with a health scare in “A New Era” while both grieved the death of Violet, whose presence still looms in “The Grand Finale.” Although he technically left Mary in charge of Downton Abbey at the end of “A New Era,” Robert is struggling to settle into the next chapter of his life. It’s up to Cora, his always-steady companion, to help him move forward.

Tom Branson (Allen Leech)

Allen Leech in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

After heroically saving the day in the first “Downton Abbey” film, the widowed Tom married Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton) in “Downtown Abbey: A New Era,” giving his daughter Sybbie a mother once again. By the end of the second film, Tom and Lucy have a baby of their own and are living away from Downton. The character already got his much-deserved happily ever after and now shows up to dole out sage advice and support for the family. “I felt Tom Branson was the only one we hadn’t really settled in the series,” Leech told me in 2019. Now, he is.

Daisy Mason (Sophie McShera) and Andrew Parker (Michael Fox)

Sophie McShera, second from left, in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features )

Daisy began her journey at Downton Abbey as a belabored kitchen maid, but eventually the estate’s revered cook Mrs. Patmore took her under her wing. She married the dying William Mason during the series and later settled down with Andrew Parker, a footman in the house who has now taken over for Mr. Carson. In the spirit of the younger generation stepping forward, Daisy takes over the kitchen in “The Grand Finale,” an important moment of growth for the character.

Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton)

From left, Penelope Wilton, Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery and Paul Giamatti in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

It took some time for Isobel to establish herself at Downton Abbey, but her friendship with the Dowager Countess and her relationship to the family became invaluable throughout the series. She married Richard Grey after her son Matthew’s death and continued her good work with the community’s hospital throughout the episodes. Following Violet’s passing, Isobel has taken up the mantle to organize the county fair — a job that comes with some challenges.

Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) and John Bates (Brendan Coyle)

Joanne Froggatt in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

Anna Bates has always been one of Downton Abbey’s most loyal servants and a thoughtful friend to Lady Mary. She married valet John Bates at the beginning of Season 3 and the couple went through numerous ups and downs in the years that followed, including several miscarriages. They got a much-deserved happy end in the series finale when Anna gave birth to their first child. The films haven’t shaken their contentment and “The Grand Finale” brings another uplifting arrival for the pair.

Joseph Molesley (Kevin Doyle)

Kevin Doyle, left, and Michael Fox in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”

(Rory Mulvey / Focus Features)

Mr. Molesley endeared audiences with his hapless but well-meaning misadventures in the series, eventually transitioning from footman to local schoolteacher. He got his due in “A New Era” when he proved himself to be a skilled screenwriter and charmed Phyllis Baxter. In “The Grand Finale,” the couple are married and Mr. Molesley is endeavoring to boost his film career, although he hasn’t left his time at Downtown Abbey in the past.

This fourth “The Conjuring” movie claims to be “Last Rites” and let’s hope that’s a promise.

While it’s highly likely the wildly successful Conjuring Cinematic Universe will itself continue — whether via scary nun, creepy doll or some other cursed object — the story of Ed and Lorraine Warren has been thoroughly wrung dry at this point and there’s no juice left to squeeze, as demonstrated in the dirge that is this final movie.

Credit where it’s due: The horror franchise has turned in some spectacularly scary and entertaining entries, anchored by performances from Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the married paranormal investigators the Warrens, based on an infamous real-life couple. Thanks to their presence, these films have been the best of the Conjuring series, exploring themes of faith and seeing as believing when it comes to both God and the Devil. These films have also offered portrayals of the Warrens that skirt any of their personal controversies, presenting them as blissfully married, heroic figures. Onscreen text might indicate that they were polarizing figures, but the films itself never engage with the scandals.

The first two films, directed by James Wan, ingeniously engaged with many variations on the idea of vision: physical, psychic and through a camera’s lens. Bravura cinematography aligned the audience point of view with Lorraine’s terrifying otherworldly dreams of hauntings, possessions and demonic presence. Michael Chaves, who directed the spinoff “The Nun II” and “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” has mostly upheld these requirements, though his approach is more bombastic than Wan’s elegant style.

Chaves is once again behind the camera for “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” with a script by Ian B. Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick that promises to deliver a final Warren case that devastated the family and ended their careers on a dark note. Instead, “Last Rites,” is merely a sluggishly routine send-off for the Warren family.

If you’ve seen a “Conjuring” movie, you’ll know what to expect and “Last Rites” doesn’t break with formula. While the film starts in 1964 with the harrowing birth of the Warren’s beloved daughter Judy, the plot largely takes place in 1986, an annus horribilis for the misbegotten Smurl family from West Pittstown, Penn., haunted by an antique mirror adorned with three carved baby heads, picked up from a swap meet. After a series of unfortunate eventsand increasingly violent visitations, a media frenzy surrounds them and the Warrens turn up to rid the house of creepy crawlies.

This time there’s the added complication of wedding planning: Judy (Mia Tomlinson) is about to get married, but she just can’t shake those pesky psychic flashes she inherited from her mother. Judy is the one who ventures to the Smurl household first. Then her parents, who had been hoping to hang up their ghost-hunting spurs, reluctantly join her for one last ride. Ax-swinging ghouls, terrifying baby dolls and demonic possessions ensue.

In “Last Rites,” the thematic metaphor for seeing is the mirror itself, suggesting that we need to look at the darkest, most terrifying parts of ourselves and not shut them out. Lorraine has tried to protect her girl from the life she has led, facing down the most terrifying demons, ghosts and spooks, but she can’t stop Judy’s destiny and the only way out is to not look away.

“Last Rites” extends the concept of a new generation by incorporating Judy’s fiancé, Tony (Ben Hardy), as a fresh member of the family business. His function in the story is a bit awkward and random, but required for the Warren plotline to end on a high note (that opening bit about the family devastation never seems to come to pass).

The heart of these movies has always been Wilson and Farmiga, and without them, the “Conjuring” movies wouldn’t be worth it. With this fourth movie, the Warren lore has been so thoroughly picked over, the tropes and rhythms now so ingrained, the jump scares end up feeling routine at best. Enduring the dour drudgery of “Last Rites,” it’s never been clearer that it’s time to give up the ghost.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES

(15) 135mins

★★★★☆

3

FOR over a decade, the Conjuring franchise has been scaring us silly with its “true stories”.

But this will be the final haunted hurrah from parapsychologists Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson).

The married couple are as devoted to keeping bad spirits at bay as they are each other.

The film begins with a flashback to 1964, where a haunted mirror causes Lorraine to go into early labour.

The birth is traumatic and the demon that wants to get her young baby, Judy, almost wins, with the tot being stillborn.

Evil presence

But after begging the Lord to make the baby breathe, Lorraine wins that battle and we see the loving family grow up with happiness around them.

All while ghostbusting, of course.

But demons don’t rest and Judy, who has visions like her mum, often feels that she is being watched.

Fast-forward to 1986 and the Warrens are retired due to Ed having a heart condition.

But that pesky mirror turns up again, this time in the family home of the Smurls in Pennsylvania.

There are some seriously creepy goings-on and this is a demon not to be messed with. The Smurls have been so violently attacked by a powerful evil presence that they all live in terror.

As usual in these films, what you don’t see is far more terrifying than what you do.

Every usual horror trope is thrown out with a vengeance. But hey, if it ain’t broke. . . 

And it certainly feels like it’s not, as my palms grew clammy and heart rate shot up countless times.

The performances by Farmiga and Wilson are as extraordinary as always, bringing believable calm to the roles.

The climax of the supernatural events includes daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her boyfriend Tony (Brit actor Ben Hardy), are both tense and unsettling.

Directed by Michael Chaves, who was also the director for the three previous entries in the franchise, the film has a hand-held camera effect that tunes into the 1980s feel very well indeed.

There’s also a nice rounding off at the end with some familiar faces that superfans will appreciate.

A spine-tingling finale to a series of films that will likely haunt generations of fans to come.

ON SWIFT HORSES

(15) 119mins

★★☆☆☆

3

THIS odd beast of a film from Daniel Minahan is adapted from Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel.

It opens with Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her soon-to-be husband, Lee (Will Poulter), chasing the Californian dream after his return from the Korean War.

Their plans for a fresh start are almost derailed by the arrival of Lee’s magnetic younger brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), who departs for Las Vegas the next day.

There, Julius finds work in a casino and falls into a secret romance with his charismatic coworker, Henry (Diego Calva).

Back in California, Muriel begins her own double life, gambling at racetracks and discovering an unexpected passion with her neighbour, Sandra (Sasha Calle).

On paper, this is rich material, but on screen, Minahan never quite delivers the goods.

The film certainly looks the part – Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography bathes everything in a golden haze – but beneath the gloss there isn’t enough here to truly hold it together.

In the end, On Swift Horses aspires to be a sweeping saga in the vein of East Of Eden, but it never gets out of a slow trot.

All style, with little substance.

LINDA MARRIC

THE COURAGEOUS

(12A) 83mins

★★★★☆

3

JASMIN GORDON’S debut feature film is an honest portrait of survival, love, and dignity.

Set against the beautiful landscape of Switzerland’s Valais region, it follows Jule (Ophelia Kolb), a rebellious single mother of three who refuses to give up on her family despite poverty, past mistakes and the indifference of the welfare system.

Kolb, best known for the hugely popular series, Call My Agent!, gives a career-defining performance. She captures Jule’s contradictions with remarkable depth.

Gordon directs with sensitivity, as she blends social realism with poetic imagery in a film that never feels needlessly moralising.

Her film never resorts to cliché or sentimentality; instead, it shines a light on the often invisible battles of the working poor in a modern Swiss society where destitution is often a taboo subject.

This is a powerful, heartfelt drama about love, resilience, and the complexity of being a flawed human.

Gordon’s sensitive direction and Kolb’s mesmerising performance combine to create a film that is both socially aware and profoundly moving.

It may be her first ever feature, but Gordon has made a film that feels both mature and hugely engaging.

LINDA MARRIC

TORONTO — Kicking off Thursday night, the Toronto International Film Festival marks its 50th edition this year, bringing together a heady combination of art, business and celebrity.

The festival has become a reliable launching pad for films in North America, particularly those looking to enter the Oscar race. Though TIFF’s status as an awards-season kingmaker has found fiercer competition in recent years from adjacent events in Telluride and Venice, it unquestionably still matters, remaining an essential spot on the annual calendar of any movie year.

“I think TIFF is a really adaptable festival,” said Robyn Citizen, the festival’s director of programming, over Zoom this week. “We can’t always tell where the industry’s going, but we do want to be able to still serve our audiences and our industry the best we possibly can.”

Here are just a handful of reasons why TIFF has maintained such a significant role for so long.

It’s the ultimate one-stop shop

There will be more than 200 features screening at this year’s festival. Among those having their world premieres are Aziz Ansari’s wealth-inequality comedy “Good Fortune,” Nia DaCosta’s updated Ibsen adaptation “Hedda,” Derek Cianfrance’s true-crime caper “Roofman,” Hikari’s family drama “Rental Family,” Nic Pizzollatto’s Las Vegas-set “Easy’s Waltz,” David Michôd’s Sydney Sweeney-starring boxing drama “Christy” and Rian Johnson’s latest Benoit Blanc adventure “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” The festival will open with Colin Hanks’ documentary “John Candy: I Like Me,” also having its first screening ever.

Tessa Thompson stars in director Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” an adaptation of Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler.” The movie will have its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

(Prime Video)

TIFF remains valuable for more than just its world premieres, though. Among those titles playing at Toronto after having just bowed last week at Venice or Telluride (or even both) are Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare-inspired “Hamnet,” Mona Fastvold’s historical musical “The Testament of Ann Lee” and Edward Berger’s gambling drama “Ballad of a Small Player.”

Movies that played even earlier in the year at festivals such as Sundance, Berlin or Cannes are also featured in the lineup: Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Rebecca Zlotowski’s “A Private Life,” Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning “It Was Just an Accident” and Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague” will all be at TIFF.

It is exactly that combination of the best from different festivals and different parts of the calendar that makes TIFF unique. The event was originally known as the “Festival of Festivals,” meaning that it has always been a part of its mission to present a curated selection of the year’s best films. For better or worse, TIFF is often trying to be something for everyone.

“It’s important to us to curate with an attention to films that we know our audience may want to see, but that also includes films that we think our audience needs to see,” said Citizen. “We want to be that bridge between the filmmakers, the industry and the audience.”

Journalists covering the event can catch up with films from earlier in the year, get a jump on awards-season titles just beginning to find their way to audiences and even see projects that may not be released until a year or more later.

Add to that spirit of efficiency the fact that for increasingly budget-conscious U.S. media outlets, sending reporters to Toronto can often be a more cost-effective choice than pricier destinations such as Cannes, Telluride or Venice.

These are the festival world’s friendliest audiences

Toronto-born writer-director Chandler Levack will be world-premiering her “Mile End Kicks,” which stars Barbie Ferreira in a story based on Levack’s own experiences as a young music journalist. Levack said she is excited to see how a moment when Ferreira’s character flips off Toronto’s landmark CN Tower plays to a local audience.

Levack has experienced TIFF from multiple perspectives, first as a film student waiting in line for last-minute tickets, then as a journalist hustling for interviews, then working for the festival as a writer and now as a returning filmmaker.

Barbie Ferreira in Chandler Levack’s “Mile End Kicks.”

(TIFF)

“I think it still sets the tone for the cultural conversation in cinema,” said Levack. “The ways that I’ve seen movies at TIFF with those audiences — the way those films hit me and affected me — they’ve been really the most profound cinematic experiences of my life.”

TIFF is often referred to as an audience festival, meaning that the audiences there are particularly receptive, giving warmly enthusiastic responses. The area of the festival’s downtown core around King Street where some of the key venues are located can often be jam-packed with fans trying to catch an autograph, a selfie or even just a glimpse of some of their favorite stars. The most significant prize given by the festival is its People’s Choice audience award, which has often been a strong bellwather for its winner’s chances at the Oscars.

The distributor Sony Pictures Classics has eight movies playing in this year’s edition alone, including “Blue Moon,” Haifaa Al Mansour’s “Unidentified” and Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great.” Over the years the company has brought more than 400 titles to TIFF.

“The audience is one of the most sophisticated in the world, for my money,” said Tom Bernard, who along with Michael Barker is co-founder and co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. “They get every nuance of every tick in a film, be it a comedy, a drama, a gasp that happens where they gasp with it. When you go see a movie in Toronto, you have to be careful because the reaction is so enthusiastic that many times you say, ‘Well, wow, that movie would be great.’ But it might be a little more difficult than the way that it plays in that town.”

The road to the Oscars often goes through Toronto

Though none of them had their world premieres at the festival, last year’s winners “Anora,” The Brutalist,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Conclave,” “Flow,” “I’m Still Here,” “The Substance” and “No Other Land” all played there. The Oscar nominated film “Sing Sing” had its world premiere at the 2023 edition of TIFF.

“Wake Up Dead Man” is the third film in director Rian Johnson’s series of mysteries starring Daniel Craig; all three premiered at TIFF. This marks the fifth time producer Ram Berman and Johnson have premiered one of their films at the festival. Both previous “Knives Out” mysteries earned Oscar nominations for Johnson for original screenplay.

Josh O’Connor, left, and Daniel Craig in the movie “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.”

(Netflix)

Their company, T-Street Productions, also produced “American Fiction,” which premiered at the fest in 2023 and won the coveted People’s Choice audience award (other recent winners include “The Fabelmans,” “Belfast,” “Nomadland” and “Jojo Rabbit”), beginning a wave that took the film all the way to five Academy Award nominations, including best picture and winning the Oscar for adapted screenplay.

Though the new “Knives Out” film has been finished for a few months, Bergman said the plan was always to premiere again in Toronto, even playing in the same theater on the same day at the same time as the previous two films.

“I like going to Toronto and premiering there because the audience is always great,” said Bergman. “And really that’s who we make the movies for. We are not in the game, we’re not strategizing awards or anything, we just want people to have fun. We’ve always had a great time playing the movies in Toronto, so we should continue playing the movies in Toronto. It’s really that simple.”

Provocative documentaries often stir the pot

Nonfiction has always been a big part of Toronto’s identity going back to its very beginnings, which saw the likes of “Harlan County, USA.” and “Roger & Me” playing the festival.

Oscar-winner Laura Poitras returns to Toronto with “Cover-Up,” a portrait of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that she co-directed with Mark Obenhaus. “Free Solo” directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin also return with “Love+War,” a look at the life of photojournalist Lynsey Addario.

This year, Ben Proudfoot’s “The Eyes of Ghana,” a portrait of African cinematographer Chris Hesse, will have its world premiere. Proudfoot previously won two Oscars for the documentary shorts “The Queen of Basketball” and “The Last Repair Shop.” (the latter a film that LA Times Studios co-distributed).

Cameraman Chris Hess in Ben Proudfoot’s documentary “The Eyes of Ghana.”

(TIFF)

“Canceled: The Paula Deen Story,” a look at the rise and fall of the food-world star, will have its world premiere, as will “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” Baz Luhrmann’s documentary.

Documentaries that touch on hot button issues can raise problems for the festival as well. Last year Anastasia Trofimova’s film “Russians at War,” for which the filmmaker embedded herself with Russian soldiers to depict the war in Ukraine, sparked public outcry, threats of protest and safety concerns that caused the festival to ultimately show it after the main TIFF event had officially ended.

This year the festival initially invited the documentary “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” about a hostage rescue mission undertaken by a retired Israel Defense Forces officer following the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The festival then withdrew the film, directed by Toronto filmmaker (and former TIFF board member) Barry Avrich, from the lineup and following public uproar subsequently rescheduled it for a single public showing.

“This is the world we live in,” said Thom Powers, lead programmer of TIFF docs, about the way in which impassioned controversy erupts over films people have not even seen yet — the result of overly politicized environments and the short fuses of the social media era. “We can see this at many festivals.”

A proven half-century track record

For the first four years that Sony Classics’ Bernard brought films to Toronto, he would play then-festival chief Wayne Clarkson in tennis, with the loser paying for talent’s travel expenses. (Bernard won most of the time.)

He also recalled the time that he was able to have the training staff of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs come right to the hotel room of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar to reset his back.

But mainly there are memories of movies, times the festival’s specific magic cast its spell.

“I remember sitting in the theater watching ‘Il Postino’ and the guy who’s selling it is sitting next to me,” said Bernard of the 1994 film that would go on to be nominated for five Oscars, winning one. “And as the movie continues, the guy’s smile is getting bigger and bigger and bigger because he knows he’s going to be able to jack the price up way beyond anything I could pay.

“On the other hand, I remember being at the end of the festival and sitting in ‘Orlando’ and nobody was there but me,” he said of Sally Potter’s 1992 film that was a breakthrough for performer Tilda Swinton. “And I sent it back to the office, everybody saw it and it’s one of those all-time movies just because we were hanging around.”

For Levack, the festival has already provided a launching pad. After her first feature “I Like Movies,” premiered at the festival in 2022, it eventually made its way to the attention of Adam Sandler. Levack is currently finishing “Roommates” for Sandler’s Happy Madison production company.

“TIFF was unbelievably instrumental in making our film not only exist but matter,” said Levack of the response to her debut. “We really broke out and became sort of a viral unexpected hit at that festival and that really made my entire career from that point exist.”

Even as Toronto has weathered the changing fortunes of the film business and grappled with competition from other festivals, there is still something unique that happens when some of the year’s most anticipated new films meet these audiences.

“People say, ‘We’re going to put it in Toronto and then we’re getting into the Oscar game,’” said Bernard. “But it’s the audience [that decides]. You don’t fool anybody in Toronto.”

A film about Hind Rajab, the five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, received a record-breaking 23-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ recounts her final plea to rescuers before she was killed.

There was a 23-minute standing ovation along with chants of ‘Free Palestine’ at the Venice Film Festival premiere of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a film recounting the harrowing final moments of a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“The Wizard of Oz” is certainly the right movie to face the great and powerful ambitions of Sphere, the most expensive entertainment venue in Las Vegas history. Since 1939, the treasured classic has hailed the awe of gazing into a glowing globe, whether it’s glinting atop a fortune teller’s table, transporting the meddlesome Glinda the Good Witch or spying on a teenage girl and her companions like a sinister security camera.

Special effects are central both to “Oz’s” appeal and its plot: The big reveal is that technicians, not wizards, pull the levers that make an audience gasp. For Sphere — officially, there’s no “the” — those tools include three football fields of bright 16K LED screens that curve around its domed interior, with another 10 on the outside that light up Vegas day and night with rotating animations. (I saw blue gingham, scarlet sequins and thatches of burlap and straw.) Sphere cost an estimated $2.3 billion to build and must have an electricity bill scarier than the Wicked Witch. You can make out Dorothy’s slippers from an airplane.

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With no heel clicks needed, I was whisked to “The Wizard of Oz’s” Sphere premiere in a red sedan by a Lyft driver named — no fooling — Ruby, who said she was grateful that the Backstreet Boys’ recent stint at the arena “made Vegas busy for a minute.” There’s a lot of financial pressure on “Oz’s” girl from Kansas. Adapting the film to Sphere’s stunning dimensions took about $100 million. Although the arena seats 17,600 when full, “Oz” showings only offer a slice of the middle section, roughly a third of its capacity. A trimmed 70-minute edit of the movie is playing two to three times a day, nearly every day, through the end of March 2026, with a ticket price that currently starts at $114.

Eighty-six years ago, when a kiddie fare cost 15 cents, my then-6-year-old grandmother watched the theater blink from sepia to vivid color splendor. That innovation gets credited to Hollywood, but the idea of contrasting lush and luminous Oz against soul-drainingly monochrome Kansas is actually right there on Page 1 of L. Frank Baum’s book, published in May 1900, a self-proclaimed effort to write a “modernized” fairy tale that swaps Old World elves for American scarecrows. “When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side,” Baum wrote, adding that her house and her weary aunt and uncle and everything else were gray too, “to the edge of the sky in all directions.”

That’s exactly what Sphere was designed to do: stretch to the edge in all dimensions. It exists neither to save film nor supplant it, but to augment a rectangular screen with new digital and (controversially) generative-AI-supplied imagery, timed props and seats that vibrate whenever the Wicked Witch cackles.

Despite my queasiness about cutting “Oz” by half an hour, the experiment is a romp. I was immersed in — or, more accurately, surrounded by — scenes from one of my favorite movies, a pivotal blockbuster whose artistic influence extends from David Lynch to Elton John to Salman Rushdie. Even more giggle-inducing, I was pelted with scented foam apples and dive-bombed by half a dozen drone-piloted flying monkeys.

“The Wizard of Oz” has always braved new technology. An early adopter of Technicolor, it boasted a lighting budget nearly double that of its rival, “Gone With the Wind,” yet the latter gobbled nearly every Academy Award and poached “Oz’s” director, Victor Fleming, who swapped projects halfway through and won an Oscar for his vision of Sherman’s March instead of the Yellow Brick Road. In the 1950s, when the rest of Hollywood was terrified of television, “Oz” agreed to be the first theatrical movie to screen in full on a prime-time network. TV transformed the prestige money-loser into a hit. Sphere has turned “Oz” into a flash point in the industry’s fundamental fight over the use of AI. Artists and audiences alike fear a future in which, behind the curtain, there might not be a man at all.

I like my art made by human beings. But I’m no nostalgist. “Oz” was a book, a musical, a silent short and a cartoon before MGM made the variant we adore. It should be a playground for invention.

Entering Sphere, the escalators are tinted sepia and the soundscape hums with birdsong and lowing cattle. The implication is that we’ve not yet been whirled over the rainbow. Preshow, the view from one’s seat is of being in a massive old opera house with dusky green drapes flanked by rows of orchestra seats. None of the proscenium is actually there, nor are the musicians heard running scales and rehearsing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

The simulation of human handicraft — of stagehands and horn players hiding in the wings — is unnerving. But it gets you thinking about the actual, contemporary people who are behind that curtain. Visual artists who labored on the Sphere project have justly grumbled that their sweat has gotten publicly dismissed as AI. An actual symphony orchestra rerecorded “Oz’s” mono score on the very same MGM stage used in 1939, allegedly with some of the same instruments. It sounds fantastic, and it’s so loyal to every jaunty warble that audiences might not notice.

A few scenes have been lopped off entirely. The Cowardly Lion no longer trills about becoming king of the forest. The majority of the shots have been micro-trimmed to be snappier, a pace that wouldn’t suit stoners’ penchant for synchronizing the movie to Pink Floyd’s dreamy, woozy “The Dark Side of the Moon.” Occasionally, the camera’s placement appears to have been adjusted to allow the visuals to expand to fill the space. Inside Dorothy’s Kansan house, a once-shadowed frying pan on the wall now dangles front and center, as does a digitally added “Home Sweet Home” needlepoint nailed to the threshold. (The plotting has become so brisk that we might otherwise miss the message that there’s no place like it.)

The tweaks can be subtle and lovely. Dorothy belts “Over the Rainbow” underneath newly actualized bluebirds and an impressively ominous sky. When the tornado happens, the tech changes hit us like a cyclone. We’re pulled through the window and into the eye of the storm, where a cow spirals around like it wants to outdo the scene-stealing bovine from “Twister.” A great, giddy blast of air from the 750-horsepower fans blew my bangs straight off my forehead. I kept one eye on the screen while trying to catch a flurry of tissue-paper leaves. The wow factor is so staggering that you might not spot that Sphere’s founder and chief executive, James Dolan, and Warner Bros. president and CEO David Zaslav have superimposed their faces on the two sailors twirling past in a rowboat — an apropos in-joke for people concerned the moguls have been swept away by their own bluster.

“Anyone can blow wind into your face,” Dolan said to the premiere audience before the film began. “Not everyone can make you feel like you’re in a tornado.” Wearing the Wizard’s green top hat and suit and with his microphone dropping out inauspiciously, Dolan never introduced himself, but he did compliment the other creators of the event, who also wore costumes. (I overheard that some of them thought Dolan was kidding about dressing in character until they found themselves spending four hours getting groomed to look lionesque.)

Just a week earlier, in trial runs, perfumes were piped into the air so people could get a whiff of the Emerald City. (Gauging by the souvenir candles in Sphere’s gift shop, it is chocolate mint.) They’ve currently been scaled back out of concerns that it all might get too overwhelming. Having figured out how to do sight, sound, feel and smell, Dolan conceded that only one sense remains: “We still haven’t figured out taste.”

Taste is definitely still a concern. Oddly, Sphere’s “Oz” loses a dram of its spellcraft once audiences touch down in Munchkinland. Seeing the newly added tops of Oz’s trees makes the fantastical place look smaller.

The margins of “The Wizard of Oz” have been expanded by generative AI to fit the enormous venue.

(Rich Fury / Sphere Entertainment)

You feel for the design teams. They’ve been challenged to magnify a 4-foot matte painting of the arched hallway into the Wizard’s throne room — initially done in pastels on black cardboard — into a 240-foot-tall tableau. One of the 1939 film’s production designers, Jack Martin Smith, said that his instructions were to make Oz “ethereal” and “subdued.” Descriptions of the cornfield’s hand-painted muslin background make it sound like a proto-Rothko. Now, you can see every kernel. The razor-sharp mountains on the horizon don’t inspire your imagination — they make you think of Machu Picchu.

More troublesome are the Munchkins and the citizens of Emerald City. Tidied into high definition, they often appear restless. As Dorothy pleads for the Wizard not to fly away without her, we’re distracted by hundreds of waving extras who visibly don’t give a hoot what happens to the girl. Worse, they occasionally seem to glitch. If that’s the best AI can do in 2025, then Sphere isn’t a resounding endorsement.

By contrast, Judy Garland’s performance, delivered at just age 16, feels monumental. Her big brown eyes dominate the screen. When the heartbroken girl sobs that the Wicked Witch has chased away her beloved Toto, I found myself annoyed by a flying monkey on the left side of the frame who simply looked bored.

The field of poppies is dazzling; the additional deer, ants and rodents skittering across the golden sidewalk are simply strange. Overall, you’re so caught up observing the experience itself that the emotions of the story don’t register as anything more than theme-ride hydraulics. Still, it’s nice to have a sweeping view of the first film’s prosthetic makeup: the Cowardly Lion’s upturned nostrils, the Scarecrow’s baggy jowls, the real horses painted purple and red with Jell-O. (Due to pace tightening, we only see two ponies, not all six).

I recoiled when the Wizard’s disembodied head loomed above. Who decided to make him look like a cheesy martian? Flipping through sketches from 1939 afterward, I realized that he always looked that bad. His gaunt cheekbones just weren’t as obvious before. Nevertheless, be sure to look to the right when Toto reveals Oz’s control booth. In a clever touch, Sphere lets us continue to see the monstrous green face, now neutered and ridiculous, mouth along as the panicked geek apologizes for being a humbug.

Can Sphere win big on its risky gamble that there’s no place like dome? It’s not the first Las Vegas attraction to bet on our love for the MGM extravaganza. “The Wizard of Oz” has been tangled up with Las Vegas’ fortunes for more than half a century, ever since real estate investor Kirk Kerkorian purchased MGM Studios in 1969 and, one year later, auctioned Dorothy’s slippers to help fund the construction of the first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. The second MGM Grand, the one that opened in 1993, was branded for “The Wizard of Oz” — that’s why it’s green like Emerald City — and during the first year, visitors could walk through an animatronic forest of lions, tigers and gamblers.

The Strip was once a magical place where innocents like Dorothy flocked to get into trouble, often in encounters with sleight-of-hand hucksters like Professor Marvel. Hopes are high that tourists will come back to be transported to Oz, even at a ticket price that costs a chunk of the family farm. The hurdle is that although audiences have become begrudgingly accustomed to spending more than $100 to see their favorite bands, they’re still seeing an actual band and not a shortened version of a movie that’s popular in part because everyone grew up watching it on TV for free.

But on opening night at least, the crowd was treating the cinema like a concert. Many folks were in some sort of costume, including me. (I couldn’t resist wearing a pair of red shoes.) When I complimented a man’s blue gingham suit, he handed me a handmade beaded, Taylor Swift-style bracelet that read: Toto Too.

If fans like him turn this techno-incarnation of “Oz” into a hit, Sphere has said it would consider following it up with a similar presentation of “Gone With the Wind.” Imagine the smell of the burning of Atlanta. Much better than the air of burning money.

As if we needed another reason to question Woody Allen’s judgment, the 89-year-old director praised President Trump as “polite” and “a pleasure to work with” on Bill Maher’s podcast, “Club Random.”

Allen, who cast Trump in a cameo appearance for his 1998 film “Celebrity,” said on Monday’s podcast that the then-real estate mogul “hit his mark, did everything correctly and had a real flair for show business.”

“As an actor, he was very good,” Allen said. “He was very convincing, and he has a charismatic quality as an actor. And I’m surprised he wanted to go into politics. Politics is nothing but headaches and critical decisions and agony.”

Trump’s latest critical decision as commander in chief? Sharing the filmmaker’s positive comments on his Truth Social account. Heavy hangs the crown …

But why would Trump even want Allen on his side?

Allen’s legacy as a groundbreaking filmmaker was tarnished by revelations about his personal life that emerged in the 1990s. It was revealed that he had a romantic relationship with his then-girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. He was 56. She was 21. Allen’s own daughter with Farrow, Dylan, would later accuse Allen of sexually molesting her, claims that he denies. Even if fans want to separate the artist from news stories about the man, it’s difficult given that Allen’s films often reflect an obsession with youthful — and occasionally underage — women.

The president has been doing everything possible to bury his past associations with older men who allegedly prey on younger women. There’s this guy named Jeffrey Epstein …

There’s obviously no comparing Allen to the late convicted child sex trafficker, but why even open the door to such scrutiny? It’s because a compliment is a compliment, and there are so few of them coming from Hollywood that Trump could not help but copy, paste and post.

More troubling is that Allen now joins Maher in normalizing America’s first president who operates like a dictator, describing Trump as “pleasant,” “gracious,” even “measured.” Meanwhile, the White House is siccing militarized forces on American cities, trying to deport planeloads of children and attempting to rig the 2026 midterms.

Maher responded to Allen’s flattering words about Trump with mock outrage: “How dare you?!”

Allen may have surprised listeners who know the director as a master satirist of the flawed personality, but Maher was right on brand. The 69-year-old has forged a career playing to all sides of contentious issues while sincerely committing to none.

Earlier this year, the host of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” who describes himself as a “vocal critic” of Trump, caught flak for dining with the president at Mar-a-Lago, then later describing Trump as “gracious,” “not fake” and that “everything I’ve ever not liked about him was absent.” He praised Trump for being “measured” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.”

Larry David, the creator of “Seinfeld” and star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” responded to Maher’s laudatory dinner recollection with a satirical essay in the New York Times titled “My Dinner With Adolf.” David wrote from the perspective of a “vocal critic” of the Nazi dictator who, over dinner, finds Hitler to be surprisingly “disarming” and “authentic.” The essay went viral.

During Monday’s podcast, Allen counterbalanced his kind words about Trump with the revelation that he voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He also said that he disagrees with Trump on “99%” of issues.

After wondering aloud why Trump went into politics, Allen said, “This was a guy I used to see at the Knicks games, and he liked to play golf, and he liked to judge beauty contests, and he liked to do things that were enjoyable and relaxing. Why anyone would want to suddenly have to deal with the issues of politics is beyond me.”

Perhaps it’s about seizing total power? Exacting revenge on enemies such as his former national security advisor John Bolton? Scrubbing the Epstein files? Profiting off his office?

But let’s get back to Allen.

The director reiterated that he disagreed “with many, almost all, not all, but almost all of his politics, of his policies. I can only judge what I know from directing him in film. And he was pleasant to work [with], and very professional, very polite to everyone…

“If he would let me direct him now that he’s president, I think I could do wonders.”

He kids. But it was only just a few days ago that Allen came under fire for virtually attending the Moscow Film Festival as a guest of honor. He praised Russian cinema and hinted at wanting to shoot a film in the country. After some “measured” thought, perhaps Putin will get a cameo.

LOCK, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star Jason Flemyng has been banned from driving after being caught speeding — at 24mph.

The 58-year-old was pinged in a 20mph zone in his Kia Sorento.

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It was the fourth time Flemyng had been caught speeding in the past year.

He already had 12 points on his licence but had not been banned because of a justice system administrative error.

The actor admitted speeding near his home in Clapham, South West London, on December 5.

He was banned for six months and fined £775.

He told Lavender Hill JPs: “I don’t want to waste the court’s time. I accept what has happened.”

Asked whether he wanted to claim exceptional hardship, the actor, wearing a black suit, said: “Well, my work and what I do for a living, and my charity work, all depend on me driving.

“Maybe I should have thought about that before I drove 24mph in a 20mph zone.”

Flemyng played Tom in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and has appeared in Snatch and From Hell with Johnny Depp.

In 2009, the actor joined the cast of the ITV science fiction cult drama series Primeval during its third series, as maverick ex-policeman Danny Quinn and he reprised the role in 2011.

He has been married to actress and producer Elly Fairman since 2007, best known for Blitz, and has also starred in BBC drama series Casualty.

Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

Jesse Plemons is never one to chew scenery. Even when handed a role that edges on madness, he doesn’t go big. Instead, he goes deep, building tension quietly from the inside out. And in Yorgos Lanthimos’ uncategorizable, darkly comic sci-fi thriller, Plemons — reuniting with the director after playing three characters in last year’s “Kinds of Kindness” — delivers one of his most riveting performances yet. As Teddy, a rumpled, reclusive beekeeper convinced that a pharma CEO (Emma Stone) is an alien from the planet Andromeda, Plemons channels paranoia, grief and righteousness into something both absurd and unnervingly sincere. The “I do my own research” archetype could easily veer into “SNL” sketch territory but he plays it heartbreakingly straight, creating a chillingly familiar portrait of a man lost in an algorithmic maze of internet rabbit holes and desperate for clarity in a world that no longer makes sense. Teddy enlists his younger cousin Don (Aidan Delbis, an autistic first-time actor in a mesmerizing turn) to help him abduct Stone’s steely executive, drawing him into the mission in a misguided effort to protect him. Even as things spiral into chaos, Plemons (a 2022 supporting actor Oscar nominee for Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”) roots the performance in a warped but recognizably human emotional logic. The result captures the anxious, conspiratorial spirit of 2025 with eerie precision, proving once again that Plemons doesn’t need to raise his voice to deliver a performance that speaks volumes. — Josh Rottenberg

Graham Greene, the Oscar-nominated actor who helped open doors for Indigenous actors in Hollywood, died on Monday in Toronto after battling a long illness, Deadline and others report. The Canadian actor was 73.

Born in Ohsweken, on the Six Nations Reserve, Greene saw his Hollywood profile catapult after Kevin Costner cast him as Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka) in 1990’s “Dances With Wolves,” which won the Academy Award for best picture and earned Greene an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

During his screen career, which began with the 1979 Canadian drama series “The Great Detective,” Greene was cast in more than 180 films and TV shows. His first movie role was in 1983’s “Running Brave.”

He went on to star in several other high-profile films including “Maverick,” “The Green Mile,” “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2.” The actor also appeared in “Tulsa King,” “Riverdale” and as Maximus in the final season of the Emmy-nominated show “Reservation Dogs,” which was among his final roles.

Graham Greene, right, and Kevin Costner in “Dances With Wolves.”

(Courtesy of Orion Pictures Corp.)

At the time of his death, he had eight upcoming projects, including the Stefan Ruzowitzky-directed thriller “Ice Fall,” which he had completed filming with Joel Kinnaman and Danny Huston. It’s scheduled to be released in October.

“He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed,” Greene’s agent Michael Greene (no relation) said in a statement released to several outlets, including Deadline and TMZ. “You are finally free. Susan Smith is meeting you at the gates of heaven,” he added, referring to the actor’s former agent, who died in 2013.

Graham Greene and Molly Kunz in a scene from the 2021 drama “The Wolf and the Lion.”

(Emmanuel Guionet / Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)

Outside of his acting career, Greene won a Grammy in 2000 for best spoken word album for children for his work on “Listen to the Storyteller.” He is also a Gemini and Canadian Screen Award winner and an Independent Spirit nominee. In 2021, he was immortalized with a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, and earlier this year, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in his native country.

Graham Greene in 2022 at the unveiling of his commemorative plaque for Arts & Entertainment on Canada’s Walk of Fame at Beanfield Centre in Toronto.

(Mathew Tsang / Getty Images)

In 1991, Greene told The Times that “Dances With Wolves” “was certainly the biggest film I’ve done. It’s made definite changes in my life — I’m more popular with the media, scripts are being offered to me from people I’ve never heard of. On the other hand, I’m being inundated. It’s good in a way. I shouldn’t complain.”

Greene is survived by his wife of 35 years, Hilary Blackmore; daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene; and grandson Tarlo.

A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired “Walking Tall,” a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime, killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities said last week.

Authorities acknowledged that the finding will probably shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans after watching “Walking Tall,” which immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The 1973 movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District.

There is enough evidence that if Pusser, a McNairy County sheriff who died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death, were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser, Davidson said. Investigators also uncovered signs that she suffered from domestic violence, he said.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said in a news conference streamed online. “The truth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later. Pauline deserves both.”

Evidence does not back up sheriff’s story

The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got a call in the early-morning hours about a disturbance. He reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him as he responded. The sheriff said that shortly after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, a car pulled up and fired several times into the vehicle, killing Pauline and injuring him. He spent 18 days in the hospital and required several surgeries to recover. The case was built largely on his own statement and closed quickly, Rausch said.

During the reexamination of the case, Dr. Michael Revelle, an emergency medicine physical and medical examiner, studied postmortem photographs, crime scene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’s statements. He concluded that Pauline was more likely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.

He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline didn’t match crime scene photographs of the car’s interior. Blood spatter on the hood outside the car contradicted Buford Pusser’s statements. The gunshot wound on his cheek was in fact a close-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as she sheriff had described, and was probably self-inflicted, Revelle concluded.

Pauline’s autopsy revealed she had a broken nose that had healed before her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion that she was a victim of domestic violence.

Brother says investigation gave him closure

Pauline’s younger brother, Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recorded video played at the news conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened to Pauline, and he is grateful he will die knowing.

“You would fall in love with her because she was a people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they had an issue or they needed some advice, and she was always there for them,” he said. “She was just a sweet person. I loved her with all my heart.”

Mullins said he knew there was some trouble in Pauline’s marriage, but she wasn’t one to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said, he was “not totally shocked” to learn of the investigators’ findings.

Asked about the murder weapon and whether it matched autopsy findings, Rausch recommended reading the case file for specifics.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation plans to make the entire file, which exceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finishes with redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database for the case. Until then, members of the public can make appointments to review it in person or can purchase a copy, said university Chancellor Yancy Freeman Sr.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

TELLURIDE, Colo. — It’s customary at Telluride for a director premiering a movie to step onstage, say a few words and slip away before the lights go down. On Friday night, before unveiling her new film “Hamnet,” Chloé Zhao admitted she couldn’t find the right words. For a film centered on William Shakespeare, the most famous wordsmith in history, that felt oddly fitting.

Instead, the 43-year-old Zhao led the packed Palm Theater in a meditative “ritual” she and her cast had practiced throughout the shoot, from before the script was even written until the final day on set. She asked the audience to close their eyes, place a hand over their hearts and feel the weight of their bodies in the seats and the surrounding Rocky Mountains holding them safe. Together, the crowd exhaled three long, loud sighs, then tapped their chests in unison, repeating softly: “This is my heart. This is my heart. This is my heart.”

By the time the film ended, those same hearts were left aching. Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, “Hamnet” tells the story of Shakespeare’s marriage to Agnes (played by Jessie Buckley) and the devastating death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Paul Mescal plays Shakespeare — not the untouchable bard of legend but a husband and father reckoning with grief. At once grounded and dreamlike, the film drew perhaps the most rapturous and unanimous response of any debut in this year’s lineup.

Eight years ago, Zhao came to Telluride with “The Rider,” fresh from Cannes and still largely unknown. In 2020 she returned with “Nomadland,” which received a Telluride-sponsored drive-in screening at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl due to the pandemic and went on to win best picture and make Oscar history, with Zhao becoming only the second woman — and the first and only woman of color — to win the directing prize. Then came Marvel’s “Eternals,” a massive undertaking that thrust Zhao into the franchise machine and brought with it a bruising critical reception. With “Hamnet,” she’s back to a smaller canvas, trading cosmic spectacle for intimate human drama.

On Sunday morning in Telluride, still processing the reaction to her latest film, Zhao sat down to talk — speaking so softly that even in a hushed room her words can be hard to catch — about why she took on O’Farrell’s story, how she approached Shakespeare’s world and the delicate task of turning heartbreak into art.

Jessie Buckley, center, in the movie “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features)

When I interviewed you for “The Rider” in 2018 you said you’re a very pessimistic person and when you get a good review, you’re just waiting for the bad one to drop. What are you feeling right now? Did you expect anything like the reaction “Hamnet” has received?
I was nervous. I’ve walked through fires. I’ve been through the fire — a very painful fire — and I think there is probably a bit of fear around that.

What was the fire? You mean the reaction to “Eternals”?
I’m not going to say out it loud, because when I do, things always get … [trails off]. Let’s just say we were very scared.

I think the fear mainly came from the fact that we felt so sure of what we experienced. It changed all of our lives and mine so profoundly that it’s still reverberating. You think: Were we crazy? And no one else will get it but us?

You go through this long, treacherous journey to deliver these things to safety and now it’s very tender because you look back at all the loss and the sacrifices along the way and you haven’t really had time to process it.

I’m curious what your history was with Shakespeare growing up in China and then moving to England and later Los Angeles as a teenager. What kind of early impression did he make on you?
Shakespeare is very revered in China. In Chinese theater, they do Chinese versions of his plays. When I studied in the U.K., I didn’t speak English at the time and I did have to learn Shakespeare, which was very difficult. I don’t think I’m anywhere near where Paul and Jesse are with their understanding of Shakespeare. The language was always a barrier but the archetypal element of his stories was big for me — particularly “Macbeth.” In high school in Los Angeles, I performed Lady Macbeth’s speech on the stage because everybody had to do some kind of monologue for a project. And I barely spoke English.

You’ve said you initially weren’t sure that you were the right person to direct this movie. What was your hesitation?
There were three elements to that. One is that I’m not a mother. I never felt particularly maternal. People in my life say, “That’s not true, Chloé,” but I don’t see myself stepping into that archetype at all. The second was the idea of a period film — how can I be authentic and fluid in a period film, where you can’t just make things up in the moment, you can’t be spontaneous? The third was Shakespeare. I wondered if I needed to be scholarly.

So how did you come around?
I was driving near Four Corners, New Mexico, when Amblin called. I said, “No, thank you.” Steven [Spielberg] really wanted me to consider it. Then my agent said Paul Mescal wanted to meet me. I didn’t know his work. “Aftersun” was the secret screening here [in Telluride 2022], and we went for a walk by the creek. I watched him talking and thought, “Could he play young Shakespeare?” He already read the book. Then I read it and thought, if Maggie [O’Farrell] can write this with me, she can show me that world. As soon as I read the book, I said, “Can you set a meeting with Jessie Buckley?” I couldn’t see anyone else but her as Agnes.

Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare in the movie “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features)

You’d just come off “Eternals” after making small films like “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and “Nomadland.” Now you’re back with something more intimate again. Did it feel like a reset?
Every child has its own beauty and troubles. This budget was maybe six or seven times “Nomadland,” but much less than “Eternals.” But it’s also a period film, which has its own challenges. I come from a tradition of: Tell me how much money you have and I’ll make something with it.

But I changed a lot after “Nomadland” and “Eternals.” In my 30s, I wanted to chase the horizon. I didn’t want it to ever end. I’d just keep running. Then, at the end of “Eternals,” I felt I couldn’t film another sunset that would satisfy me the way in the way it had with “The Rider” and “Nomadland.” I went through a lot of difficult personal times and pushing midlife, I realized I’d been running like a cowboy, like a nomad.

When you stop running and stop chasing horizons and you stay still, the only place you can go is above or below. I descended pretty heavily these last four years. By the time I got to “Hamnet,” I was ready. The difference now is a different kind of humanity: older, more vertical.

We know so little about Shakespeare or his son. Some parts of your film are grounded, others dreamlike. How did you balance that?
First of all, what’s real? Ancient mystics tried to understand what is being. “To be or not to be” goes beyond suicidal thought — it’s about existence itself. Every film has its own truth. For me, the truest thing is what’s present in the moment. I hired department heads and actors with knowledge of the history, but also the capacity to stay present and shift as we go. If someone came in too factual and literal, I said no. I wanted people who could do the research but also stay alive to the present.

Shakespeare’s name isn’t even spoken until late in the movie. This isn’t the icon — he’s a husband and father. Was it appealing to free him from the iconography?
Maggie’s book laid the foundation, really focusing on Agnes. For the film, I wanted it to be about two people who see and are seen by each other. They’re archetypal characters. I’ve studied Jungian psychology and Hindu Tantra — the energies of masculine and feminine, being and doing, birth and death. If we don’t have a healthy connection to our roots, those forces battle within us. By creating two characters who embody that, the story can work at a collective level and an internal one. The alchemy of creativity lets those forces coexist. Hopefully it becomes something more than a story about marriage or the death of a child.

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in the movie “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features )

The loss of a child is hard to film and for audiences to watch. We’ve seen it tackled in different ways on screen, from “Ordinary People” to “Manchester by the Sea.” How did you approach portraying that kind of grief honestly without it being too much for the audience to bear?
It might be for some people, which is understandable. I love both those films you mentioned very much and watched them multiple times. I’ve been making films about grief for a while. I don’t think about what’s too much or too little. Agnes’ wailing — I could do that right now in front of you. We should be allowed to. The silence for thousands of years has done great damage.

How do you mean?
Think about ancient warriors coming back from battle — they danced, screamed, healed together. In Tantra, sexuality was part of healing. Now it’s: Talk to a therapist, take medication, go back to your family. The body is restricted. Telling a woman to be quiet when she gave birth and pinning her down. We know why this control happens. But I think people are responding to films where actors are embodied, because we miss that.

How do you see grief as a through-line in all your films?
All my films start with characters who’ve lost what defined them: dreams, home, purpose, faith. They grieve who they thought they were in order to become who they truly are. That’s grief on an individual and collective level. I wasn’t raised to understand grief. So I made films to give characters catharsis and through that, myself.

My friend [“Sinners” director] Ryan Coogler, who knows me so well, sat me down after seeing “Hamnet” and he said, “The other films were beautiful but you hid behind things. This is the first time I saw you in there. You’re finally being seen.” It took four films, working with that kind of grief and fear to get to that point.

The Oscar chatter has already started. You’ve obviously been through this before. How do you tune that out and just focus on what’s in front of you?
The same way that me, Paul and Jessie were doing on set. We made the film by being present. It’s difficult, so I’m trying to take that practice daily — just saying, “OK, today is all we have.” It’s flattering and nice but after what I’ve experienced in my career, you cannot possibly predict how things are going to go. I never expected “Nomadland” to go on that journey. So I surrender to the river.

Do you know what you’re doing next?
I just wrapped the pilot on the new “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, which is set 25 years later. My company is part of developing it. The fandom is so special to me and I’m excited about how that’s going to go into the world. Then I think I want to do a play. I was working on “Our Town” and I had to let that go in order to do “Hamnet.” But I figured maybe I’ll learn something from this film and come back to the stage.

The industry feels pretty shaky right now: fewer jobs, studio consolidation, anxiety around AI. As a filmmaker, how do you see the state of the business and the art form?
I sense we’re at a threshold — not just the film business, everything. It’s uncomfortable. We’re like Will standing at the edge of the river when, at least in our film, the “to be or not to be” monologue was born. We can’t go back and we don’t know how to go forward. In physics, when two opposing forces pull so strongly, a new equilibrium bursts out. That’s how the universe expands. I think we’re there. We can kick and scream or we can surrender, hug our loved ones and focus on what we can do today.

Hopefully I’m not so pessimistic now. Or at least a little bit less.