“I think it reflects, for me, who we were at that time — who we thought we were, maybe, growing up in that area,” Martin Scorsese told James Corden of the 1968 Rolling Stones song he chose for Mean Streets.
Scorsese is the latest guest on This Life of Mine with James Corden, a new interview show exclusive to SiriusXM where guests pick the music, possessions, memories, places, people, and more that made them who they are.
Martin Scorsese’s Defining Song: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
Scorsese chose the Rolling Stones song “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” to share on This Life of Mine with James Corden — a song he used in his film Mean Streets (1973) starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro.
“I think it reflects, for me, who we were at that time — who we thought we were, maybe, growing up in that area. You see it in Mean Streets. The song’s there, but you feel that swaggering, to a certain extent,” Scorsese told James. “A sense of danger, a great use of language … It’s being knocked around in life and making you stronger. But the most incredible rock ‘n’ roll you can imagine. That’s a very important piece.”
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” plays in the film when the audience is first introduced to De Niro’s character, Johnny Boy, as he enters a bar with a woman on each arm. Scorsese’s runner-up song choice was “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes, also featured on Mean Streets.
When James asked Scorsese if he knows what song he’s going to use before he even starts a film, Scorsese said yes. He even had “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos playing on set when they shot the pink Cadillac and garbage truck scene in Goodfellas (1990).
“So that’s a picture you’ve painted long before you’ve ever stepped on that set,” James said.
“It all comes from the music,” Scorsese confirmed, “whether it’s the rock music of that period, whether it’s British rock like [Eric] Clapton and Cream and Derek and the Dominos or Blind Faith, even.”
Killers of the Flower Moon — the 2023 epic western crime drama based on the book of the same name that Scorsese co-wrote, produced, and directed — is nominated for 10 awards at the upcoming 96th Oscars, including Music (Original Score) and Best Picture.
Martin Scorsese talks about growing up in New York City, having a child at 56, his wife’s enduring strength, the contents of his briefcase, and more in the latest episode of This Life of Mine with James Corden, now available to stream on the SiriusXM app. New episodes premiere Thursdays at 5pm ET exclusively on Stars (Ch. 109).
Better yet, these achievements could happen across all types of categories, from best picture and directing to acting and various technical categories.
While you get your predictions in order for Hollywood’s biggest night, we’ve got you covered on potential historic wins you should keep an eye on.
Here are some moments to watch out for at the 2024 Oscars.
Lily Gladstone could make history for Native Americans
This image released by Apple TV+ shows Lily Gladstone, center, in a scene from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” (Apple TV+ via AP)
Apple TV+ via AP
Lily Gladstone would be the first Native American woman to win the Oscar for best actress should her performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon” triumph against the competition.
Not only that, but she would also become the first person of Native American heritage to win an acting Oscar.
In a phone call with ABC News after her historic nomination, Gladstone said she is excited for others in her community to “feel seen and represented.”
Gladstone is of Siksikaitsitapi and NiMíiPuu heritage and uses she/they pronouns, according to her Instagram.
‘Oppenheimer’ could join — or beat — an elite group of films
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, left, and Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer in a scene from “Oppenheimer.”
Universal Pictures via AP
“Oppenheimer” scored an impressive 13 nominations this year, positioning the film to potentially tie — or even break — the record for the most Oscar wins by a single film.
The record currently stands at 11 and is held by “Ben-Hur” in 1960, “Titanic” in 1998 and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004.
Martin Scorsese could set a new record for best director
Martin Scorsese waves while holding his Oscar for his work on “The Departed” as he arrives at the annual Vanity Fair Oscar party in West Hollywood, Calif. on Feb. 25, 2007.
AP Photo/Danny Moloshok
With his best director nomination for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese became the most-nominated living director.
This is Scorsese’s 10th nomination in the category, putting him two behind the late William Wyler, who holds the record with 12 nominations.
This year, Scorsese also became the oldest nominee in the category’s history at 81 years old. If he wins the Oscar, he would become the oldest best director winner.
Sandra Hüller could score a historic win
This image released by Neon shows Sandra Hüller in a scene from “Anatomy of a Fall.”
Neon via AP
If she wins the best actress Oscar for her role in “Anatomy of a Fall,” Sandra Hüller would become the 1st German-born actress to win in the category in more than 60 years.
Simone Signoret, who was born in Germany but is best known as a French actress, won the best actress Oscar for “Room at the Top” at the 1960 ceremony.
A non-English language film could make history in the best picture category
This image released by A24 shows Greta Lee, left, and Teo Yoo in a scene from “Past Lives.”
Jon Pack/A24 via AP
Three films in the best picture category — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Past Lives” and “The Zone of Interest” — could make history with a best picture Oscar win this year.
Only one non-English language film has won best picture. The first to do so, “Parasite,” won the top prize in 2020.
“Anatomy of a Fall,” from France, features French, English and German spoken throughout the film. “Past Lives,” an American film, features both English and Korean.
“The Zone of Interest,” a co-production between the United Kingdom and Poland and the U.K.’s submission for international feature film, is the only film to feature no spoken English. German is predominantly spoken throughout.
Emma Stone could achieve a rare feat
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Emma Stone in a scene from “Poor Things.”
(Searchlight Pictures via AP)
With her nominations for best actress for her performance in “Poor Things” and for best picture for producing the film, Emma Stone could pull off a rare double win.
Stone would become the second woman to win for acting and best picture for the same film, the first being Frances McDormand for “Nomadland” in 2021.
Colman Domingo could win big for Afro-Latinos
This image released by Netflix shows Jeffrey Mackenzie Jordan, left, and Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin in a scene from “Rustin.”
Parrish Lewis/Netflix via AP
Colman Domingo could make history if he wins the Oscar for best actor for playing gay Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin in “Rustin.”
Should he take home the trophy, Domingo would become the first actor of Afro-Latino descent to win in the category.
‘American Fiction’ could deliver historic double win for Black actors
From left to right: Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown pose for portraits during the Oscar nominees luncheon on Feb. 12, 2024 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown play brothers in “American Fiction,” and each earned Oscar nominations for their work in the film.
If Wright wins best actor and Brown wins best supporting actor, it would mark the first time two Black male actors won Oscars for the same film.
Bradley Cooper could direct himself to acting win
This image released by Netflix shows Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in a scene from “Maestro.”
Jason McDonald/Netflix via AP
Bradley Cooper, who is up for best actor for playing famed composer Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” could join a small group of people who have directed themselves to acting wins.
If he achieves this, Cooper would be just the third person to do so. The first was Laurence Olivier for “Hamlet” in 1949 and Roberto Benigni for “Life Is Beautiful” in 1999.
Thelma Schoonmaker could become most-awarded film editor
Thelma Schoonmaker arrives at the 96th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s longtime film editor, could make history as the winningest person in the best film editing category if she wins for her work on “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
With a potential fourth win, Schoonmaker would have more Oscars for best editing than anyone else in history.
Schoonmaker has previously won Oscars for editing “Raging Bull,” “The Aviator” and “The Departed.”
John Williams could hit a high note
Composer John Williams poses on the red carpet at the 2016 AFI Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to John Williams in Los Angeles on June 9, 2016.
Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File
With his nomination this year for best original score for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” John Williams became the oldest person to be nominated for an Oscar across all competitive categories at the age of 91.
Having recently celebrated a birthday, the 92-year-old could become the oldest person to win an Oscar if he takes home the trophy this year.
James Ivory currently holds the record as the oldest Oscar winner with his win for best adapted screenplay for “Call Me By Your Name” at the age of 89 at the 2018 ceremony. Ivory is now 95.
Williams is the most-nominated living person in Academy Awards history with 54 nominations — only behind the late Walt Disney, who has the most nominations ever for a person, with 59.
Justine Triet could become latest female best director winner
Justine Triet poses for a portrait during the 96th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
With her nomination for best director, Justine Triet became only the eighth woman to be nominated in the category in Oscars history.
Should she win, Triet would become just the fourth woman to win best director, following in the footsteps of Kathryn Bigelow, who won in 2009 for “The Hurt Locker”; Chloé Zhao, who won in 2021 for “Nomadland”; and Jane Campion, who won in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog.”
March 10 is Oscar Sunday! Watch the 2024 Oscars live on ABC.
Red carpet coverage starts at 1 p.m. ET 10 a.m. PT with “Countdown to Oscars: On The Red Carpet Live.” At 4 p.m. ET 1 p.m. PT, live coverage continues with “On The Red Carpet at the Oscars,” hosted by George Pennacchio with Roshumba Williams, Leslie Lopez and Rachel Brown.
Watch all the action on the red carpet live on ABC, streaming live on OnTheRedCarpet.com and on the On the Red Carpet Facebook and YouTube pages.
The 96th Oscars, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, begins at 7 p.m. ET 4 p.m. PT, an hour earlier than past years.
The Oscars are followed by an all-new episode of “Abbott Elementary.”
“It’s basically not real if it’s not on the internet,” Francesca Scorsese tells her father, Martin, in a newly released teaser for the Oscar winner’s upcoming Super Bowl ad. It’s a fitting sentiment for the pair, whose viral TikToks have both boosted the icon’s profile among the younger generation and introduced the world to his 24-year-old daughter, an aspiring filmmaker.
The elder Scorsese helms his first Super Bowl ad for Squarespace, a teaser which features the director learning how to create a website with Francesca, who serves as the commercial’s behind-the-scenes creative director. In the teaser, which can be seen below, the father and daughter mimic the banter found in their popular TikTok and Instagram videos, which contain artful trolling of Marvel movies and a fan cam clip where Francesca calls Martin a “certified silly goose.”
At one point, Martin quips, “This website slaps, kid, doesn’t it?—a direct callback to Francesca explaining Gen Z slang terms to him. Although she jokingly replies, “I really regret ever teaching you that,” the Tisch graduate says that neither of them plan on pausing their partnership—including in more TikToks. “He tells people that I pull him into them, but actually, it’s the other way around,” Francesca tells Vanity Fair.
The younger Scorsese, who only recently saw her brief role in her father’s film The Aviator for the first time, insists she “leans more toward darker themes” in her own work. Francesca was the behind-the-scenes creative director on Scorsese’s 2023 Bleu de Chanel commercial featuring Timothée Chalamet, and at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, both father and daughter debuted projects. Scorsese’s was the Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon, while Francesca’s was her latest short, titled Fish Out of Water. In between work on an A24 book she’s writing with her father and a short film inspired by her mother Helen Morris’s childhood, Francesca spoke to VF about growing up Scorsese, attending the Oscars, and embracing the nepo-baby label.
Vanity Fair:In the Super Bowl ad teaser, you joke about regretting teaching your dad what “slaps” means. Do you have any remorse about introducing him to some of the more Gen-Z stuff, likeLetterboxdorTikTok?
Francesca Scorsese: Oh, my God, I don’t have any regrets. Honestly, sometimes, he’ll like….Oh God. Sometimes, he will use Gen-Z slang because he’s heard it, and it’s the funniest thing to me. I feel like hearing your dad say, “Oh yeah, that slaps,” or, “I’m so woke,” or whatever, it’s just so cringy to me. It just makes me crack up. He is from a different generation, so it’s a little—I wouldn’t say embarrassing to hear him say it, but it’s funny because it feels like he is really trying to stay current with my generation and with me.
The announcement was made Friday at a TCM 30th anniversary party at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, with Spielberg and Anderson in attendance. Warner Bros. co-film chief Pamela Abdy told guests the trio “will be extending their involvement with TCM for another year starting this month — several months earlier than their original agreement, which we started last May, so we can all look forward to this amazing collaboration.”
“It’s truly a dream to be in these conversations and really just listening to Paul and Steven and Marty just talk about film, it’s humbling, it’s awesome. It just reminds you how amazing it is to be part of this industry and part of this history,” she added.
The filmmakers have been actively involved in TCM since the brand was in the midst of a shake-up and each met with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav about his unpopular plans to restructure the channel.
At the event, fellow Warner Bros. film chief Michael De Luca credited Zaslav, who also was in the room, for “the brilliant idea of asking three extraordinary filmmakers to come inside TCM and to help curate, advise for the channel. They’ve been invaluable partners, producing incredible new content for the channel.”
The trio will be involved in some of this year’s 30th anniversary programming, which includes a new podcast, fresh franchises and a studio tour. A TCM theatrical trailer also debuted at the event, as Abdy explained, “The first thing that Steve and Marty and Paul advocated for earlier this year was a theatrical trailer that would remind everyone of TCM’s mission and purpose to present and educate past, present and future generations about the history of film; its place in our society as a cultural roadmap.”
TCM hosts Ben Mankiewicz, Jacqueline Stewart, Dave Karger, Alicia Malone and Eddie Muller were all on hand at the event, as well as Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, Quinta Brunson, Brian Cox and CAA’s Bryan Lourd.
Martin Scorsese, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and, in the eyes of many, the greatest filmmaker alive today.
Over the course of a career spanning nearly 60 years, Scorsese has directed 26 narrative features and 16 documentary features, among them 1973’s Mean Streets, 1976’s Taxi Driver, 1980’s Raging Bull, 1990’s Goodfellas, 1995’s Casino, 2006’s The Departed, 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street and, most recently, 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon. The adaptation of David Grann’s bestselling book features a script co-written by Eric Roth and Scorsese, who also produced the film, which stars his two great muses, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, plus breakout Lily Gladstone. It follows a series of murders in the Osage Nation after oil was discovered on tribal land in the 1920s.
Described by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Scorsese has been the recipient of just about every honor that exists. Those include an Oscar, three Emmys, a Grammy, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, two Directors Guild Awards, an AFI Life Achievement Award, a Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and a BAFTA Fellowship, among many others. He has also been recognized with achievement awards from the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival.
For Killers of the Flower Moon, specifically, he has already been awarded multiple best film and best director awards, including from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle. Killers was also chosen as one of 2023’s 10 best films by the AFI Awards, and Scorsese was nominated for best director and best screenplay at the Golden Globes. He also received nods for the best director at the Directors Guild Awards and the Critics Choice Awards, where he was nominated for best adapted screenplay. Oscar nominations are almost surely to follow.
Over the course of a conversation at the Hotel Bel-Air, the 81-year-old reflected on the tug of war that he felt as a kid growing up in Little Italy between his faith and the reality of his life, and how that shaped the films that he made. He also opened up about the origins and evolution of his special relationships with De Niro and DiCaprio, with whom he has made 10 features and six features, respectively; how he almost directed Schindler’s List; how he feels about the Scorsese vs. Marvel controversy; how Killers of the Flower Moon is sort of an amalgam of his gangster films, period costume drama, family film and trilogy of films about faith; plus much more.
The Golden Globes is no stranger to being riddled with scandal. Even in the 1950s, when it was still a relatively germinal organization (with the first edition airing in 1944), the awards ceremony was “renowned” for taking what amounted to bribes and payoffs via various “gift-giving” endeavors from studios, production companies and individual stars themselves. By the 60s, the Golden Globes were exposed for determining their winners based on advertiser influence, and that, furthermore, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) put pressure on nominees to attend the ceremony, lest they lose their win to another nominee who actually did attend. The entire thing was such a shitshow—such a complete and blatant display of nepotism and abuse of power—that the ceremony was actually banned from being aired on television between 1969 and 1974.
Scarcely back on the air for a full ten years after returning post-1974, the next major scandal was Pia Zadora’s “miraculous” win for “New Star of the Year” (another made-up award in the vein of Cinematic and Box Office Achievement) thanks to her performance in Butterfly, a movie that was both unanimously panned and had not even been released yet at the time the awards ceremony aired. Not so hushed whisperings about how Zadora’s husband, Turkish-Israeli financier Meshulam Riklis, bought her the award led to a further degradation in the Golden Globes’ credibility. Yet this has never stopped the show from enduring. In fact, from being second only to the Academy Awards in terms of prestige and well-knownness to the layperson outside of Hollywood. Yet, as Scarlett Johansson once called out, the show was merely used as a tool by the likes of Harvey Weinstein to curry Oscar favor. Hence, the flagrancy of bribery.
Some cynics would even argue that it surely can’t be a coincidence that the only time Madonna was ever recognized for her acting ability was thanks to the Golden Globes, as she won the award (in 1997) for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Evita. The HFPA had a less speculative case of being paid off for the 2011 Golden Globes, when both Burlesque and The Tourist managed to secure nominations in the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category. This despite Burlesque being a critical laughingstock (though, yes, it is lauded by those who appreciate camp) and the fact that The Tourist was a spy/action-adventure movie. Needless to say, HFPA members were cajoled into nominating these films thanks to getting “flewed out” to Las Vegas to see a Cher concert and a little personal lobbying from Angelina Jolie herself re: The Tourist.
At the end of 2020, amid then-fervent cries about changing Hollywood’s openly discriminatory practices as a result of the overall anti-racist spark ignited by George Floyd’s murder in May of that year, the Golden Globes were once again put on blast for a lack of Black members and generally arcane membership “policies.” So it was that, yet again, the awards ceremony was barred from being aired on television in 2022, with Tom Cruise going so far as to return the Golden Globes he won as a show of “solidarity” the year before. By 2023, the organization had been (theoretically) totally revamped, sold off to Eldridge Industries (also known for buying Dick Clark Productions) and repackaged as a for-profit entity with a larger and more “diverse” membership working behind the scenes to nominate people and the films they’re part of. Not only that, but as Robert Downey Jr. pointed out during his acceptance speech this year, the organization changed its name, doing away with the HFPA altogether. It also transitioned to a new network, swapping NBC out in favor of CBS, billed as the “less fun” of the Big Three broadcast networks (NBC, ABC and CBS). And, indeed, it didn’t seem like much fun for anyone when the last-minute host, Jo Koy (relatively unknown up until this moment), took the stage to deliver a monologue that induced cricket-chirping silence (though Taylor Swift really didn’t need to be so uppity about the harmless “difference between the NFL and Golden Globes” joke that Koy made).
Luckily, things picked up slightly as the evening wore on, and viral moments of levity were provided, including Jennifer Lawrence mouthing, “If I don’t win, I’m leaving” and what felt like two minutes of watching Timothée Chalamet (who, mercifully, did not win for Best Actor in Wonka) and Kylie Jenner “canoodling” and saying shit to the effect of, “No, I love you more.” It was pretty nasty (and not nearly as noteworthy as Ali Wong’s show of PDA with Bill Hader), but obviously the stuff of viral and meme gold. Even that “bit” between Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell presenting the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy proved to, for whatever reason, endlessly charm audiences. Which proves that the Golden Globes isn’t quite yet the stodgy, irrelevant entity that people would like to make most long-running institutions out to be.
That said, the presence of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish (who also won the award for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?”) alone served as enough proof that the ceremony has carried on to subsequent generations. Even if only the most blanca and monoculture-oriented. But that didn’t stop the voters from doing their best to promote “inclusivity” in the lone manner they could: by giving the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama to Lily Gladstone for her performance as Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon. Even if there were many Native Americans who weren’t quite as moved by the film as some of the white viewers who watched it (a phenomenon that also seemed to occur with 2016’s Moonlight). In truth, Gladstone’s capitulation to the proverbial white male as the teller of an Osage story can be viewed as at Native American version of the Uncle Tom trope. And yet, how else is a girl (or boy) supposed to get representation in mainstream Hollywood without “cozying up” a bit?
This seemed to be the underlying theme of the night, with audience silence resounding well beyond the Jo Koy monologue in terms of nary a celebrity making any political statement. That’s right: for arguably the first time in history, celebrities at an awards ceremony were not feeling political. Almost as though to do so would be “too much” amid the tinderbox climate (figuratively and literally) of now. Particularly with regard to mentioning anything about Israel and Palestine. Which proves, once again, that Hollywood hypocrisy is alive and well no matter how much its awards ceremonies feign “evolution.” For how can an awards show really evolve if the industry itself hasn’t?
Lily Gladstone’s front-runner status in the best-actress race was solidified at the Golden Globes 2024, where she dedicated her historic win for Killers of the Flower Moon to “every little res kid, every little urban kid, every little native kid out there that has a dream.”
The actor, who was nominated alongside Anatomy of a Fall’s Sandra Hüller, Nyad’s Annette Bening, Past Lives’ Greta Lee, Maestro’s Carey Mulligan, and Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny earned Killers’ sole win at the 81st Golden Globes. She began her powerful remarks by speaking in her native Blackfeet language. In English, Gladstone then thanked “the beautiful community nation that raised me, that encouraged me to keep going, keep doing this,” adding, “My mom, who even though she’s not Blackfeet, worked tirelessly to get this language into our classrooms so I had a Blackfeet-language teacher growing up.”
Gladstone acknowledged Hollywood’s history of erasing Native American actors and narratives onscreen, noting that “in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English” before a sound mixer would play the tracks backwards in order to approximate Native languages—a technique that produced gibberish passed off as authentic speech. “This is a historic win,” Gladstone continued. “It doesn’t belong to just me. I’m holding it right now, I’m holding it with all of my beautiful sisters in the film at the table over there, and my mother, standing on all of your shoulders.”
Accepting the honor for her performance as Mollie Kyle, whose community in the Osage Nation of 1920s Oklahoma was ravaged in a series of serial killings, Gladstone concluded her speech by thanking her cohort, including director Martin Scorsese, and costars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. “You are all changing things,” she said. “Thank you for being such allies.”
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The 2024 Golden Globe Awards promise high honors to some of the year’s best in film and television — Barbenheimer, “Succession,” “The Crown” and Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie are just a few standouts that earned big nominations. With the expected celebration comes the possibility of a fresh start for the Globes, an awards ceremony trying to rebuild its image in the wake of controversy that prompted an overhaul of changes to the show and how it operates.
For the first time in decades, the Golden Globe Awards will be broadcast live on CBS this Sunday, Jan. 7, from 8-11 p.m. ET (5-8 p.m. PT), with the comedian Jo Koy as host. The ceremony will also be available to stream on Paramount+ and the CBS app. Paramount Global is the parent company of CBS.
The network shift followed an end to NBC’s longstanding partnership with the Golden Globes, after the show faced widespread criticism and boycotts over allegations of racism and corruption within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization that ran the Globes for decades and voted annually to select nominees and winners.
The HFPA has since dissolved and the Globes, in turn, has come under new leadership with a clear focus on expanding diversity. Its current voting body consists of 300 entertainment journalists from 75 countries, according to the awards show.
“I’m most interested in the tone of the awards show,” said Aramide Tinubu, a TV critic at Variety who has also covered film. “I’m interested to see, will the Globes continue to be a fun, off-the-wall ceremony as it’s always been, or is it going to be a little bit more buttoned-up or taken a little bit more seriously?”
Golden Globes ceremonies were historically known as Hollywood’s lighthearted “party of the year,” signaling that awards season had begun. Its somewhat unpredictable nominations and winners often stood apart from other awards shows along the path to the Oscars, and now, with different leadership, voters, and two new categories, the outcome of any competition is that much more of a toss-up. Here are the top races to watch.
Best motion picture
The award for best motion picture is given to two winners in two separate categories.
Unlike the Oscars, coming up in March, the Golden Globes splits its major film contenders into two categories: musical or comedy films in one, and dramas in another. That means the Barbenheimer rivalry that gave rise to its own cultural moment over the summer may not take center stage on Sunday to the extent it could later this awards season, when the blockbusters will be eligible to compete against each other for top honors.
Still, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”, in the musical or comedy category, and Christopher Nolan’s drama “Oppenheimer” dominate the Globes nominations, with nine nods for “Barbie” and eight for “Oppenheimer,” and how their winnings eventually shake out is going to be a major focal point of the night.
In addition to box office success and critical acclaim, “Barbie” fueled an aesthetic craze over the color pink that for a time seemed to take over the world. Its fellow contenders for best musical or comedy film are Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction,” Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” Todd Haynes’ “May December” and Ben Affleck’s “Air.”
Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” were the films of the summer, with the Barbenheimer phenomenon born out of their dueling popularity. Both movies are neck-and-neck as contenders at the 2024 Golden Globes.
Chris Pizzello / AP
“Oppenheimer,” the dark WWII saga that, like “Barbie,” drew audiences to theaters in droves, will compete for the award for best drama. It’s contending with some heavy-hitters: Martin Scorcese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall.”
“I think that overall, ‘Barbie’ might take home more prizes than ‘Oppenheimer,’” said Tinubu, citing the staggering popularity of Gerwig’s movie. The fact that they’ll compete in separate categories for the Globes’ top film awards could potentially favor “Barbie,” she added.
“I can’t call ‘Oppenheimer’ necessarily for drama, because it’s up against ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ and it’s up against ‘Maestro’ and ‘Past Lives,’” Tinubu said. “I do think ‘Barbie’ might have an angle over ‘Poor Things’ and ‘American Fiction’ and ‘May December,’ only because it’s more seen and widely-known. ‘American Fiction’ and ‘Poor Things’ are fantastic but I think it might prevail there.”
Cinematic and box office achievement
The Golden Globes debuted two new categories this year: one for cinematic and box office achievement, and a second for TV stand-up comedy performance.
The first recognizes “nominees from among the year’s highest-earning and/or most-viewed films that have gained extensive global audience support and produced exceptional creative content,” the awards show said in a statement.
It may seem “Barbie” is a shoo-in to win the prize in this category, since the film won fanfare in addition to $1.4 billion in gross ticket sales that placed it among the top 15 box office hits of all time, in the U.S. and worldwide. But, owing in part to a lucrative box office year that approached pre-pandemic sales, there are other strong contenders in this race, too.
“Barbie” star Margot Robbie is photographed during a photocall for the film “Barbie” in Los Angeles on June 25, 2023.
MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS
Both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” had already raked in hundreds of millions by the end of their opening weekend showdown last July. “Barbie,” which had an edge even then, ultimately ranked as the highest-grossing film of the year, according to Box Office Mojo, while “Oppenheimer” trailed closely behind on the global box office list, ranking third after “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which nearly paced with “Barbie.”
The animated film based on Nintendo’s popular video game franchise is nominated alongside Barbenheimer for the cinematic and box office achievement award, joining several of last year’s leading earners. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “John Wick: Chapter 4,” “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” and “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” round out this category.
Taylor Swift performs during “The Eras Tour” in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 5, 2023.
George Walker IV / AP
Swift’s concert film could potentially give “Barbie” a run for its money. The movie follows her along the “Eras Tour,” her ludicrously successful international performance series that’s drawn millions to stadiums across five continents (including one venue in Seattle where the crowd of excited Swifties caused minor seismic activity). The tour itself became the first ever to surpass $1 billion in revenue, and at one point the Federal Reserve actually credited it with helping to revitalize the U.S. economy.
“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” went on to shatter box office records in just over two months since its premiere, which was the latest of any film nominated for this award, and the film’s distributor AMC Theaters has called it the highest-grossing concert movie in history. The “Eras Tour,” in concert and film form, was also a defining cultural moment in 2023, and Swift in December was named Spotify’s most-streamed artist and TIME’s person of the year.
Best TV drama series
The Golden Globe award for best television drama series could be a tight race, as it pits a handful of decorated old-timers against hopeful newcomers that made quite a splash with their releases in 2023.
“Succession,” HBO’s hit satire about a dysfunctional family’s media dynasty, is a frontrunner in this category. The series returns this year as a six-time Golden Globes winner and 18-time nominee, which has twice taken home the award for best television drama. Whether the buzz surrounding its farewell season will translate into yet another awards show sweep for “Succession” remains to be seen, but the series already leads the Globes’ television nominations, with nine nods, as it does the nominations for the Emmy Awards coming up the following week.
Brian Cox in “Succession,” the HBO satire about a family media dynasty that leads television nominations at the Golden Globes this year, with nine nods across multiple categories.
David Russell/HBO
Competing with “Succession” for the award for best drama is “The Crown,” another acclaimed series about a powerful and often dysfunctional lineage that is also a darling of the awards circuit and just finished its final season. A 23-time nominee and seven-time winner at the Globes, “The Crown,” like “Succession,” has won the prize twice in this category, although the two series have only been nominated once at the same time.
“The Morning Show,” a nine-time Globes nominee that has earned nods in this category for each of its three seasons, will also contend for the prize again alongside “The Last of Us,” “The Diplomat” and “1923,” all of which debuted last year and were met with widespread praise.
Actors Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, who co-star in “The Last of Us,” attend an event for the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles on April 28, 2023.
Photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO via Getty Images
Tinubu said gauging the outcome of this particular race would be challenging, considering the track records of both “Succession” and “The Crown” and the potential of “The Last of Us,” HBO’s video game adaptation that pulled remarkable global ratings and largely earned rave reviews. She predicted the prize this year will go to one of those three nominees.
Best director
Films directed by women still make up a small minority of box office hits, though a handful break the glass ceiling. Results of a study released by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative showed less than 9% of the top-grossing film directors were women in 2022, a figure that marked progress nonetheless from 2007, when women directed just 2.7% of the year’s biggest films.
Part of the historic success of “Barbie” was the fact that it was headed by Gerwig, who in August became the first woman to direct a film that surpassed $1 billion in ticket sales. Gerwig has earned praise before as the director of “Lady Bird” and “Little Women,” but this is her first time being nominated in the director’s category at the Globes. One other woman is nominated in the category this year: Celine Song, the South Korean-Canadian playwright who made her directorial debut with the festival hit “Past Lives.”
They are competing against Martin Scorcese, a 10-time nominee and three-time winner in this category, for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and Christopher Nolan, a three-time nominee, for “Oppenheimer.” Bradley Cooper, nominated for “Maestro,” marking his return to the category for a second time after receiving a nod in 2019 for “A Star is Born,” his directorial debut. Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director known for his acclaimed dark comedies “The Lobster” and “The Favourite,” received a nod for the first time in this Globes category for “Poor Things.”
“I’d kind of be shocked if Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorcese took home anything, only because I feel like it would be too obvious,” said Tinubu. Noting that Hollywood accolades have notoriously overlooked women directors, she suggested Gerwig could win the prize, if not Cooper, who she, along with vocal fans at the time, felt was snubbed in awards circles over “A Star Is Born.”
“I also would love for Celine Song to get it for ‘Past Lives,’ which I think is also excellent,” she said. “And I actually love ‘Poor Things’ as well. I think the director has such a singular vision, but I don’t know if he’s going to be able to usurp the ‘Barbie’ of it all.”
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
Richard Romanus, the tough-guy character actor best known for his turn as Michael Longo, the Little Italy loan shark who gets into it with Robert De Niro’s Johnny Civello in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, has died. He was 80.
Romanus died Dec. 23 in a private hospital in Volos, Greece, his son, Robert Romanus, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Romanus handled prominent voice roles for Ralph Bakshi in 1977’s Wizards (as the elf warrior Weehawk) and 1982’s Hey Good Lookin’ (as the leader of a 1950s greaser gang), and in between, he played the cab driver Harry Canyon in another animated film, Heavy Metal (1981).
He also appeared on four episodes of The Sopranos as Richard LaPenna, the on-again, off-again husband of Lorraine Bracco’s Jennifer Melfi, from 1999-2002.
In Mean Streets (1973), Romanus’ character is famously disrespected by Johnny when he leans on him for his money.
“You know, Michael, you make me laugh,” Civello says. “You see, I borrow money all over this neighborhood, left and right from everybody, and I never pay them back. So, I can’t borrow no money from nobody no more, right? So who would that leave me to borrow money from but you?
“I borrow money from you, because you’re the only jerk-off around here who I can borrow money from without payin’ back, right? You know, ’cause that’s what you are, that’s what I think of you, a jerk-off. You’re smiling ’cause you’re a jerk-off. You’re a fucking jerk-off! I’ll tell you something else, I fuck you right where you breathe, because I don’t give two shits about you or nobody else.”
Michael, of course, will get his revenge on the road to Brooklyn.
The son of a dentist, Richard Joseph Romanus was born on Feb. 8, 1943, in Barre, Vermont, and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1964 with a degree in philosophy and spent a year in law school before studying acting with Lee Strasberg at Carnegie Hall.
In 1970, he appeared on episodes of Mission: Impossible and The Mod Squad and in the David Janssen-starring telefilm Night Chase before he was hired on Mean Streets.
His iconic scene with De Niro came on the next-to-last day of shooting, Scorsese recalled in Andy Dougan’s 2011 book, Untouchable: Robert De Niro.
“Something had happened between Bobby and Richard because the animosity between them in that scene is real, and I played on it,” the director said. “They had gotten on each other’s nerves to the point where I think they really wanted to kill each other. I kept shooting take after take of Bobby yelling all these insults while the crew was getting very upset.”
Romanus said De Niro actually got angry when he saw him laugh during the tirade. “By laughing I was saving face. He thought I should be fuming, but he had no control over my reactions,” he said. “Sometimes the reaction you get from your acting partner is not the one you want. Then you simply have to react off that. But in this scene I laughed organically. I thought Bobby was very funny when he was doing that stuff. And he looked ridiculous.”
Romanus spent the rest of the decade showing up on such shows as Rhoda, Kojak, Starsky & Hutch, The Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-O and in the film Russian Roulette (1975).
In 1981-82, he landed a regular role as Det. Lt. Charlie Gunzer on the ultra-violent ABC crime show Strike Force, starring Robert Stack and produced by Aaron Spelling, but the series was canceled after 20 episodes.
From left: Michael Goodwin, Robert Stack, Dorian Harewood, Trisha Noble and Richard Romanus from the 1981-82 series Strike Force.
Robert Phillips / Everett Collection
He played another cop on another short-lived ABC series, Foul Play, in 1981.
Romanus’ résumé included the films Sitting Ducks (1980), Protocol (1984), The Couch Trip (1988), Oscar (1991), Point of No Return (1993), Cops and Robbersons (1994), Nailed (2001) and The Young Black Stallion (2003) and TV work on Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, MacGyver, Cagney & Lacey and NYPD Blue.
In addition to his son, survivors include his second wife, Oscar-nominated costume designer Anthea Sylbert (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Julia), whom he married in August 1985, and younger brother Robert Romanus, who played Mike Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Twenty-three years ago, Romanus and Sylbert moved to the Greek town of Skiathos, and he wrote about the experience in Act III: A Small Island in the Aegean, published in 2011. Plus, he authored two novels set in the country, 2011’s Chrysalis and 2014’s Matoula’s Echo.
The couple, who were declared honorary citizens of Skiathos in 2021, also wrote and produced two Lifetime telefilms, 1998’s Giving Up the Ghost and 1999’s If You Believe (the latter got them a WGA nomination).
Romanus’ first wife was actress-singer Tina Bohlmann. They were married from 1967 until their 1975 divorce.
Beyond the many big names of Killers of the Flower Moon, beyond the Oscar-front-running revelation that is Lily Gladstone, one performance sticks out in Martin Scorsese’s 1920s epic from an actor most of us had never seen before: Cara Jade Myers. That’s not for lack of trying. Myers is one of many Native talents in Hollywood who have been waiting a very long time to be able to show what they can do. In her decade-plus of trying to make it as a screen actor, she’d booked a handful of background roles, a pair of small TV guest spots on This Is Us and Rutherford Falls. But by and large, the roles were not there. The auditions were not there. She felt ready to call it quits and transition to writing when, out of the blue, she received the chance to try out for a breakout on a scale that anyone would dream for.
Watching Killers, it’s no surprise Myers booked the part—her time in the film is relatively brief but searingly memorable. She plays Anna Brown, whose murder prods the Osage tribe to gather and try to fight back, as their community faces an insidious genocide perpetrated by their white neighbors. Myers’s heartbreaking portrayal of Anna, sister to Gladstone’s Mollie, resonates in its humanity: She imbues her with a big personality, a profound depth of feeling, and a tragic sense of loss, her alcoholism worsening as her family dies off, one by one. This does not feel like the performance of an actor in her first true movie role. She holds her own against the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro and makes the most of every minute onscreen.
Now, Myers is on the awards trail with the top awards contender, itself a very new experience. I caught her during a rare break over Zoom in New York, the morning after the film received a rousing tribute at the Gotham Awards.
Killers of the Flower Moon, with Myers second from right.
Melinda Sue Gordon
Vanity Fair:I understand that the process of booking this role was very emotional for you. Can you talk a little bit about that to start?
Cara Jade Myers: I auditioned for this first in 2019, and I hadn’t really booked anything. I had done This Is Us and Rutherford Falls, which were both costar [credits]. I hadn’t really done much on anything, and I was like, Well, I’ve been doing this since I was 22. That’s 15 years. I was like, Obviously acting just isn’t for me. I thought I’d just focus on writing because I’d been in a few writing workshops by then. Then, this audition came in November 2019, and I remember not thinking I would get it at all. When I did finally book it, it was December of 2020. It was just emotional because it’s something that I’ve been working toward for so long. I love it, and I was ready to give up on it. It just felt like all the hard work that I’d done, all the meetings and all the stress and struggle that I put my family through trying to pay for acting—at that moment, it felt like it was all worth it.
How did you experience the industry before that point, particularly as a Native actor? Given that level of difficulty you’re describing, what kinds of things specifically were you running into in terms of not being able to book things?
The only auditions I was getting was Native American roles. Which is fine, but also, Native American roles come by so rarely. It seemed like they would always book the same three people. You felt just typecast. You couldn’t do anything else but be a Native American, which I’m like—that’s not a role! That’s just a part of an identity. And also, it was just roles for women. I remember reading a casting notice that said, “The woman doesn’t need any acting experience. She’s a prop to the man.” That’s literally what the casting said, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to start writing. I was like, We can do better.
Lily Gladstone stars as Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an Apple Original Film, which is distributed by Paramount Pictures, a division of CBS News’ parent company Paramount Global. She joins “CBS Mornings” to discuss the responsibility she felt making the movie as a Native American woman, working with Hollywood legends and the Oscar buzz surrounding her work.
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The award-winning filmmaker was slated to serve as artistic godfather for Marrakech’s industry arm, which spotlights development titles and works-in-progress from dynamic new talents from across the MENA world. Lending his name to this year’s class, Scorsese planned to mentor the selected filmmakers, offering one-on-one artistic and strategic advice for each and every project.
Unable to travel due to personal reasons, and preferring to engage with workshop participants in a more direct way, the filmmaker will take a rain check, promising to return, in person, for a subsequent edition. News broke from sources close to the Atlas team, while neither festival nor filmmaker are expected to make a formal statement.
Despite this recent turn, event organizers promise no further changes to a program that has quickly become a leading incubator for eye-turning fare.
Projects spotlighted at previous editions include Amjad Al Rasheed’s “Inshallah A Boy,” which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week and will serve as Jordan’s Oscar selection, Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias,” which played Venice and Toronto, and will represent Palestine in the Oscar race, and Asmae El Moudir’s “The Mother of All Lies,” which claimed the best director prize out of this year’s Un Certain Regard in Cannes, and will serve as Morocco’s International Film entry.
“The idea is to have a proper platform that would allow these projects to have the time to developed and to meet international partners,” says Atlas Workshops director Hedi Zardi. “Over the course of four days we offer personal consultation panels, training and mentorships sessions and a coproduction market, all to help our selected filmmakers to share ideas, to develop their projects and to meet new and potential partners, launching the titles on the international market.”
Marrakech’s Atlas Workshop program will run from Nov. 27-30, while the wider festival goes until Dec. 3.
Amid criticism of Brendan Fraser’s role in Martin Scorsese’s latest film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the iconic filmmaker is making it clear that he has no qualms with the star’s performance.
Fraser’s role as W.S. Hamilton, a dramatic attorney for Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters, garnered mixed reviews from fans.
But Scorsese said that in his eyes, the Academy Award winner was “perfect” in the part and “great to work with.”
“We thought he’d be great for the lawyer, and I admired his work over the years,” Scorsese, 80, told LADBible. “We had a really good time working together, particularly with Leo. Particularly in the scene where he says, ‘They’re putting a noose around your neck, he’s saving you, dumb boy.’”
Scorsese added: “He brought the whole scene down on Leo. It was perfect. And he had that girth. He’s big in the frame at that time. He’s a wonderful actor.”
But Fraser’s controversial performance seemed to spark a debate on social media. Some fans on X, formerly Twitter, praised his acting skills while others slammed his over-the-top delivery.
It’s baffling to me that people have taken issue with Brendan Fraser’s performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. Aside from it being historically accurate (by all accounts) he’s the boisterous mask of nobility!
as someone who admired brendan fraser’s acting in the movie the whale, his acting in killers of the flower moon was one of the worst acting performances i have ever seen in my life.pic.twitter.com/tX741uHNEt
Just watched Killers of the Flower Moon today and as most Scorcese films it’s great. It runs long but apart from a bit at the end it doesn’t drag. Was positively surprised to see Brendan Fraser there!
There are some tip-offs that a person is miserable and cannot enjoy anything and I think the people talking shit about Brendan Fraser in Killers of the Flower Moon are revealing themselves as such.
“People say it’s three hours, but come on,” the director told The Hindustan Times last month. “You can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theatre for 3.5 hours.”
He added: “There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”
Thanks to enthusiastic buyers at the 2000 American Film Market, Martin Scorsese was finally able to begin filming Gangs of New York, a project that had been germinating for nearly 30 years. Based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, the film, with its detailed re-creations of 19th century Manhattan, follows an Irish immigrant, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who confronts his father’s murderer, the ruthless gang leader Bill the Butcher, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis.
With a screenplay by Time magazine film critic Jay Cocks — which would eventually be reworked by Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan — the project was originally announced in 1977, but at the time Scorsese instead opted to direct 1980’s Raging Bull. Over the years, as budget estimates rose from $30 million to around $100 million, the project drifted from Universal to Disney. Unable to secure a green light, Scorsese also offered it to Warners, and other studios, which all turned it down. Finally, Miramax Films’ Harvey Weinstein stepped forward in 1999.
But Weinstein needed a financial partner, so he sold foreign rights to the film for $65 million to Graham King, chairman of overseas distribution company Initial Entertainment Group. Sales were brisk: For example, the Japan rights went for $18 million, while the price tag in Italy was $7 million, and IEG was reportedly in the black even before the movie was released. As King told the Los Angeles Times when 20 minutes of the film was previewed at the Cannes Film Festival, “For me to bring [these distributors] a Leonardo DiCaprio picture is huge, because Leo only goes through studios. For us, we wanted to be in the big boys’ game, and this was a way to start.” He added, “It was like a circus. … The Koreans, the Swedish, the Malaysians are coming over to me, ‘Do you really have Leo’?”
Gangs would mark the first of six films that DiCaprio would make with Scorsese, culminating in the current Killers of the Flower Moon. Having shot on elaborate sets built at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, the film finally opened after a yearlong delay in late December 2002, grossing $77.8 million domestically and $193.7 million worldwide.
Anyone who reads a lot of popular non-fiction is accustomed to the inevitable disappointment of the movie version. Stinkers like Unbroken, In The Heart of the Sea, and He’s Just Not That Into You… (and the list goes on) are barely-remembered for a reason, but even relatively-successful, positively-reviewed films like The Blind Side, Moneyball, or Into The Wild still pale in comparison to the books that spawned them, at least for those of us who read them. “The book was better” isn’t just something book readers say to be pedantic; most of the time, it’s true.
That’s part of what makes Martin Scorsese’s take on David Grann’s 2017 best-seller Killers of the Flower Moon stand out. While it’s certainly a different story than the book, as all good non-fiction movie adaptations necessarily should be, Scorsese still gets to the heart of its most important themes (the banality of evil and the lawlessness of frontier capitalism especially) and lends them an emotional gravity and visual power beyond words that books can’t. This is especially true of the movie’s ending, which condenses hundreds of pages of often dense (and brilliant) historical exposition into a single, invented scene that somehow captures perfectly the commoditization of the Osage Reign of Terror without repeating any of the details, imbuing them with the added thump of Scorsese acknowledging his own mortality.
Simply put, it’s hard to remember a non-fiction movie adaptation as successful as Killers of the Flower Moon. (In this writer’s opinion, even the previous film based on a David Grann book—2016’s The Lost City of Z, by the much-loved director James Gray—doesn’t measure up.)
To help us remember some nonfiction-to-movie adaptations that did work, we turned to someone who’s both an expert at researching the recent past and someone who might have some opinions about book-to-movie adaptations: David Grann himself, who agreed to share a few of his favorites.
Zodiac
“I’ve grown a bit exhausted by films about serial killers, but this adaptation is about so much more. It is a deep exploration of the nature of obsession—of the killer’s fixations and our fixations with unraveling the mystery of the killer. And the movie grapples with a question that has always haunted me as a reporter: What happens when the facts we frantically seek to make sense of murderous evil—including the identity of the perpetrator—elude us?”
All the President’s Men
“I recently rewatched this film and I found it no less gripping than when I first saw it decades ago. The movie manages to capture not only the historic Watergate conspiracy but also the deep, unsettling paranoia that can eat away at society when institutions are unstable—something that feels unnervingly familiar today. Plus, the film helped to unleash a whole new generation of investigative reporters—though none of them looked quite like Robert Redford.”
Adaptation
“This ‘adaptation,’ if you can call it that, of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief brilliantly and hysterically gets at the essential conundrum of transforming a work of facticity into a work of cinema. They are such wildly different mediums. One is bound by the literal truth, the author’s decisions dictated by the underlying source materials; the other is visual and elastic, with invented scenes and dialogue, illuminating realms inaccessible to a reporter or a historian. In the case of Adaptation, the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman madly shows what happens when these two equally passionate art forms collide.”
It’s only fitting that the word “Osage,” what the French decided to call the Native American tribe that’s actually named Wazhazhe, loosely translates to “calm water.” For, after enduring what was done to their tribe by the white men they “let” into the fold, the persistent stoicism of the Osage people is something that very few others would be able to uphold. Not in the wake of so much pain and suffering. Perhaps, though, part of the “calmness” that remained upon realizing the white men they “allowed” into their insular, oil-drenched world were nefarious as all get-out stemmed from a feeling of constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. As one Osage elder phrases it, “When this money started coming, we should have known it came with something else.” Knowing, somewhere just beneath the surface, that to trust a white man was to make deal with the devil (#whitedevil). After all, it was no secret that 1) white men’s involvement with anything meant exploitation and 2) white men never took (/take) kindly to the wealth of other races, always trying to characterize it as “unfair” or “rigged” or just plain “false.”
This, too, is why Martin Scorsese deftly opts to incorporate newsreels of the Tulsa massacre that were being played in Oklahoma theaters in 1921. A scene of Killers of the Flower Moon’s, er, chief villain, “King” William Hale (Robert De Niro) shows him watching the footage with rapt interest rather than horror. For it seemed to not only give him permission to keep murdering the Osage as part of his elaborate plan to gain access to various tribe members’ oil rights, but also provided further “creative inspiration” for how he could commit those murders. Of course, like most “kingpins,” he wasn’t wont to do the dirty work himself. Instead, he left that to his various lackeys, including his own nephew, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). It was he who married Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), one of the many wealthy Osage of Fairfax, where the reservation boundaries are coterminous with the town. While, in the movie, co-writers Scorsese and Eric Roth would have viewers believe that Burkhart really did marry Mollie out of love (at first), simple logic and reason tells us he knew damn well the core of that “love” was rooted in Mollie’s familial wealth. For the Osage were the rare tribe in the U.S. able to hold onto their mineral rights (through various conditions established in their treaties) once oil was discovered on their reservation territory.
Naturally, having unbridled control and access to their wealth would have been too good to be true. For, thanks to the Burke Act of 1906, Native Americans with any amount of sizable income (via a land allotment) were appointed white conservators to “help” them manage their finances. Of course, as we saw with Britney Spears, there isn’t much altruism in conservatorships when large sums of money are involved and the conservatee can be so easily exploited. Not only that, but consistently demeaned every time they had to meet with their conservator and say aloud, about themselves, “Incompetent” before proceeding to tell that conservator what amount of money they wanted and how they would be using it. Scenes of Mollie having to endure this utterly debasing practice is complete with her obsequiously agreeing to “keep a better eye out” for how her mother is spending, as though Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal) doesn’t have every goddamn right to spend her oil money how she pleases.
For those wondering why so many Osage women would “let” the (rather dumb) white foxes into their utopian henhouse, so to speak, one must consider that, as an indigenous person, even having money didn’t assert one’s power in the “white world” (that is to say, a world where white hegemony had asserted itself for centuries). The “best” way to do that, some women figured, was to marry white and let the power of having Caucasian male authority at one’s side work its “charms.” Charmless though it might have been. Mollie even jokes with Ernest that she’s well-aware he’s a coyote, after her money. And, appropriately, the movie opens with the Osage elders lamenting the next generation’s seemingly blithe “conversion” to whiteness. Having lost all sense of their heritage with this mixing of their blood with a race so prone to subjugation and erasing all other cultures to fit in with the mold of their own. Among the most memorable scenes to emphasize this “conversion” of the new generation—the one that has benefited from their headrights inheritances—occurs after seeing the elders lament the loss of their culture. Viewers are then presented with the sight of the younger generation gleefully and greedily dancing in shirtless slow motion as oil gushes from the ground, covering them in more symbolic wealth. This shift in ideals from those of pure, nature-oriented and -respecting ones to cold, hollow capitalistic ones demarcates the notion that Native Americans were finally being “modernized,” brought into the twentieth century, as it were. As though that was the “right” and “generous” thing for white men to “facilitate” (read: foist).
At the same time, white men never really wanted Native Americans (or any people of color) to get “too modern.” In other words, they still wanted them to remain powerless and dependent, subject to the unjust systems set up to benefit whites and punish or subdue anybody else. Not just that, but to debase or belittle any success they did manage to carve out for themselves. Hence, the constant running commentary among white men in Killers of the Flower Moon about how “these Indians” didn’t “work” for the money they have. That it was just luck and happenstance that bestowed them with such bounty. As though to say that the white men’s “work” of plundering the riches of others is far “nobler.”
And oh, how Osage wealth is plundered, as we see repeatedly throughout Killers of the Flower Moon. In fact, perhaps what’s most standout about the way the murders are committed is how they’re presented by Scorsese, interspersed throughout as “non sequitur” scenes designed to reveal just how callously and casually they’re done. With no feeling, no second thoughts whatsoever.
The film’s title plays into a metaphor for white oppression, with the book (written by David Grann) the movie is based on describing the phenomenon in nature it refers to as: “In April, millions of tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and vast prairies in the Osage territory of Oklahoma… In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms… The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage… refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon.” Obviously, the white man is represented by the larger blooms overtaking and suppressing the tiny ones, until they’re stamped out completely.
This is conveyed even in how the story of Mollie and the Osages who were killed ends up being overshadowed by white use of those stories for “entertainment” (as paraded in the final scene when the “tale” is being presented as a true crime radio show…how relevant to the present). Roth, a tour de force in screenplay adaptations (see also: Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Dune), assists in revealing the ouroboros of exploitation that goes on vis-à-vis the handling of the stories of the marginalized, with the audience watching Killers of the Flower Moon in the theater contributing to that endless cycle.
Scorsese, no stranger to showing his attraction for stories of indigenous exploitation, also harkens us back to his 1986 film, The Mission, with this latest behemoth. The Mission was described by James Shofield Saeger, a scholar of Spanish missions in the New World, as a “white European distortion of Native American reality.” There’s no doubt that, despite Scorsese’s assurance of consulting with the Osage tribe’s current chief, Standing Bear, throughout the making of the film, many will still take issue with a white man retelling this painful part of Osage history. Indeed, as is the case with the barrage of movies that come out about Black slavery, some Native Americans weren’t happy with the idea that, yet again, their only representation in cinema is that of their historical pain with Killers of the Flower Moon.
For example, Reservation Dogs’ Devery Jacobs had plenty of criticism to lob at the film, stating, “Being Native, watching this movie was fucking hellfire… I can’t believe it needs to be said, but Indig ppl exist beyond our grief, trauma & atrocities. Our pride for being Native, our languages, cultures, joy & love are way more interesting & humanizing than showing the horrors white men inflicted on us… All the incredible Indigenous actors were the only redeeming factors of this film. Give Lily [Gladstone] her goddamn Oscar. But while all of the performances were strong, if you look proportionally, each of the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten, while the white men were given way more courtesy and depth.”
But what does one expect when you “let” a fox in the henhouse? A.k.a. submit to the constantly brushed-aside reality that, for BIPOC stories to be told at all, they must still somehow land in the hands of white people. Ergo, that ouroboros of exploitation constantly feeding on itself.
“Funny Birds,” an heartwarming comedy-drama starring Andrea Riseborough, Catherine Deneuve and Morgan Saylor, has sold in key territories in the run up to the AFM.
Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the movie is directed by Marco La Via and Hanna Ladoul. Newen Connect represents the film in international markets and will host a market screening for buyers at the AFM.
Exploring three generations of women and their last chance for reconciliation, “Funny Birds” has sold to Australia and New Zealand (Kismet Movies), Germany (Filmwelt), Middle East (Grand Entertainment), Spain (Selecta Vision), Austria (Filmladen), Bulgaria (Beta Film), Switzerland (Pathé Films) and Ukraine (Svoe Kino), along with global airlines (Ricochet). In France, “Funny Birds” will be released by UGC Distribution and TF1 Studio.
“Funny Birds” follows Charlie (Saylor) who returns from boarding school to the New Jersey countryside to take care of her estranged mother Laura (Riseborough) who runs a small chicken farm. Their tense day-to-day life on the farm is turned upside down when Laura’s mother Solange (Deneuve), an eccentric French feminist, shows up unannounced. When a bird flu epidemic starts threatening the farm, they are forced to rise above conflict and heal old wounds.
“With a stellar cast that includes French cinema royalty and the industry’s most exciting female talents, ‘Funny Birds’ tackles with understated charm the importance of family and relationships,” said Alice Damiani, SVP international film sales at Newen Connect. The executive pointed “the pedigree of those in front of the camera is matched by those behind it.”
“They have masterfully succeeded in putting together a project that is both spellbinding and uplifting and which has already garnered a great deal of interest amongst film buyers,” Damiani continued.
La Via and Ladoul previously directed “Anywhere With You” which opened at Cannes in the ACID section and went on to play at a bunch of international festivals.
“Funny Birds” is produced by Julien Madon (“Through the Fire,” “Dalida”), Aimée Buidine (“Brothers by Blood”), Melita Toscan Du Plantier (“In The Fade”) and Raphaël Gindre (“Anywhere With You”), with Scorsese exec producing and TF1 Studio co-producing.
Universal and Blumhouse‘s Five Nights at Freddy’s is off to a historic start at the domestic box office, helping drive overall revenue
The latest horror offering from Universal and Blumhouse opened to a record-smashing $78 million, despite debuting simultaneously on sister streaming service Peacock. It started off with a monstrous Friday haul of $39.5 million, including $10.3 million in Thursday previews.
The pic — which came in notably ahead of industry expectations — scared up the third-biggest horror opening of all time behind New Line’s two It movies, as well as the best showing ever for Halloween weekend. It’s also the biggest horror opening of 2023 to date, besting Scream VI ($44.4 million), and the second-biggest opening of all time for a video-game adaptation behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($146.3 million), not adjusted for inflation.
The news is just as good overseas, where Five Nights at Freddy’s opened to an estimated $52.6 million from 60 markets for a global start of $130.6 million against a modest $25 million production budget. It supplants New Line’s The Nun II ($88.1 million) to boast the year’s biggest worldwide start for a horror film.
Freddy’s passed up Halloween, which started off with $76.2 million in 2018, to mark the biggest domestic opening ever for Blumhouse, not adjusted for inflation. It is also Blumhouse’s top global launch. Other honorable mentions: Freddy’s supplants The Mummy Returns ($68.1 million) to rank as the top opening ever for a horror pic rated PG-13, not adjusted for inflation.
While most critics bashed Freddy’s, the audience graced the movie with an A- CinemaScore (it is rare for a horror pic to receive an A or any variation thereof).
Universal insiders say the decision to do a day-and-date release is a win-win for the overall ecosystem (only paid-tier Peacock subscribers have access). Those who want the communal experience of watching a horror movie in a theater can do so, while Peacock can woo much-needed subscribers. Streamers see notable growth in October because of Halloween-themed offerings.
Before the pandemic, most theaters would have outright refused to book a title already available in the home. The COVID-19 crisis changed everything, however, with the traditional 72- to 90-day theatrical window shrinking dramatically to as little as three weeks for films that open to less than $50 million. Day-and-date releases aren’t the norm, but no cinema operator was going to refuse to play Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Directed by Emma Tammi, Freddy‘s stars Josh Hutcherson as a washed-up security guard who has no choice but to take a crappy job safeguarding a long-shuttered family-themed pizza restaurant. The only problem — the pizzeria’s giant animatronic animal characters spring to life and go on murderous rampages. He’s also trying to maintain sole custody of his 10-year-old sister (Piper Rubio) and prevent her from falling into the clutches of their Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson).
Things go from bad to worse when a group of local toughs hired by Jane break into Freddy’s while Mike is off-duty to trash the joint so he’ll lose his job. Needless to say, the giant animatronic animals don’t like the intrusion and try to exact their revenge.
Kat Conner Sterling and Matthew Lillard also star. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop created the animatronic characters.
Elsewhere, Taylor Swift and AMC Theatres’ Eras Tour achieved another huge milestone in singing past the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office, a first for a concert film. It earned another $14.7 million domestically to finish its third weekend with a North American cume of $149.3 million and $203 million globally (the pic only plays Thursday-Sunday).
Martin Scorsese‘s adult-skewing Killers of the Flower Moon came in third behind Freddy’s and Eras Tour with an estimated $9 million, a sharp decline of 61 percent. Apple Original Films produced and financed the $200 million film, with Paramount handling distribution duties. The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, is counting on being a slow burn as Oscar season unfolds, but the producers had hoped for a smaller drop in the film’s second weekend.
Killers of the Flower Moon earned another $14.1 million from 64 markets oversea for a foreign tally of $44 million and $88.6 million globally.
Angel Studios opened its first release since its indie film Sound of Freedom took the summer box office by storm. Its new faith-based movie, After Death, took in $5 million to come in No. 4.
Blumhouse and Universal’s The Exorcist: The Believer, which is now available on Premium VOD after a disappointing showing at the box office, rounded out the top five in its fourth weekend. The movie grossed $3.1 million for a domestic total of $61 million and $120.4 million globally.
The specialty box office saw two high-profile Oscar hopefuls enter the fray, Focus Features’ The Holdovers and A24’s Priscilla. The two films opened in several locations both in New York and Los Angeles, with each reporting a promising per-location average in the $33,000 range.
The Holdovers grossed $200,000 from six locations for a per-theater average of $33,333. Priscilla, launching in four cinemas, earned $132,139 for a location average of $33,035.
Oct. 29, 8:10 a.m.: Updated with revised weekend estimates.
This story was originally published at 7:55 a.m. Saturday.
Before his solemn turn in The Revenant, DiCaprio had been on a run of playing doomed titans. In 2013, he starred in both The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street, respectively playing literary icon Jay Gatsby and disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Gatsby and Belfort are, if nothing else, smooth operators, and DiCaprio tackles them with a twinkle in his eye. While Gatsby is mysterious and Belfort is a little stinker, DiCaprio leans hard into their charm. Both characters throw the sickest parties ever and lord over them like bacchanalian gods.
The biggest criticism of The Wolf of Wall Street was that Scorsese and DiCaprio weren’t hard enough on Belfort, that an uncritical eye could still read him, despite it all, as a Dude Who Rocks. Both Gatsby and Belfort obtain their wealth and status through nefarious means, but they’re also cool. And this is a mode in which DiCaprio is extremely comfortable. It’s one he deploys in Catch Me If You Can, way back in 2002—the first post-Titanic movie to really test what he could do. There he plays con artist Frank Abagnale Jr., who uses his boyish good looks and gift for sweet-talk to cash forged checks and pose as a doctor or an airline pilot.
Time and time again, DiCaprio has played guys who experience monumental highs and even greater lows. The lows were what made the work dramatically stirring, but having been one of the most-desired celebrities who ever lived, he could also channel the feeling of having the world at your feet, only to lose it all. As Howard Hughes in 2004’s The Aviator, his second collaboration with Scorsese, he starts out palling around with movie stars and ends up an emaciated recluse peeing into jars in his screening room. Frank is finally caught, the feds catch up to Belfort, and Gatsby is shot by his pool. And yet at certain points in all of these films, these guys are living out some sort of dream.
Ernest Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon never does that. From the outset, it’s clear he’s pretty dumb, and people around him treat him as such. In the very first scene they share, Ernest’s uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), repeats questions to emphasize how slow on the uptake Ernest is. This is a grim movie about the systematic genocide of the Osage people, but there’s a pitch-black humor to the way Hale and his lackeys berate Ernest throughout the film. The character has all the greed and ambition of a Gatsby or a Belfort, but none of the savvy, and DiCaprio, with his mouth near-permanently downturned, leans into Ernest’s confusion and his worthlessness. He plays the fool extremely well, and it’s to the movie’s benefit—for this story to work, you have to believe that Ernest is dim enough to convince himself he still loves his wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) even as he orchestrates the murder of her family members. In turn, Mollie seems to love him because of his naivete.
Ernest and Rick feel like echoes of one another. They’re both trying to emulate others they perceive as successes; they’re both their own worst enemies. (In between these movies, DiCaprio played an astronomer in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, channeling his earnest passion for the environment into a self-deprecating performance as a nerd who everyone ignores.) In both parts, you can see DiCaprio wrestling with the limits of being Leonardo DiCaprio. For years, no matter how hard he tried to subvert it in his work, DiCaprio was defined by his beauty—as tragic as they are, Gatsby and Belfort are still desirable. Now, at 48– past the point where he can play with a Super Soaker in public without looking goofy—he’s embracing the character actor he’s clearly always longed to be, exploring what it feels like to get older and feel unwanted, allowing himself to be a punching bag, fully debasing himself and his image to the needs of the film he’s in. It’s utterly captivating.
