News

Peaky Blinders season 6’s unexpected connection to real life (Photo Credit – Instagram)

While his arrival was shrouded in mystery, his connection to real-life history is anything but. Uncle Jack isn’t just a fictional mob boss; he’s inspired by Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., father of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

In the Peaky Blinders universe, Uncle Jack’s arrival from the U.S. with plans to buy import licenses for Scotch and whiskey distilleries adds layers to the show’s dark, gritty intrigue. He rolls up to England with a crew straight out of the pages of history: his wife, mistress, and the son of President Roosevelt. The whole setup might sound familiar, and it should. 1933 Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. did the same thing, arriving in London with a similar entourage. He, too, was looking to cash in on the end of Prohibition, buying rights to...

Finn Shelby's small role in Peaky Blinders season 6 suggests he is not heavily involved in the family business, while his announced marriage receives an unenthusiastic response from his family. Finn's absence implies that his past mistakes within the family business have finally caught up with him, potentially explaining his diminished role and lack of trust from the rest of the family. The finale confirms that Tommy knew about Finn's mistakes and lack of trust, leading to Finn being excommunicated from the Peaky Blinders and suggesting a potential return in the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie.

Warning: spoilers for Peaky Blinders season 6.While the family dynamic of the Shelbys is a big part of Peaky Blinders, youngest brother Finn Shelby (Harry Kirton) played a small role in the final season. Peaky Blinders season 6 follows Tommy Shelby as he aims to thwart the British fascists Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) and Diana Mitford...

"Nyad" is a biographical sports drama film that tells the story of Diana Nyad's impressive long-distance swim from Cuba to Florida in 2013. Diana Nyad's swim took over 53 hours without a shark cage, and she completed the journey at the age of 64, becoming an inspiration for many. Despite controversy and the swim not being formally ratified, Nyad's accomplishments continue to be recognized, and she remains active in swimming and motivational speaking.

Nyad tells the true story of Diana Nyad and her long-distance swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, in 2013. The biographical sports drama film premiered on November 3, 2023, on Netflix (it was previously shown for the first time at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on September 1). The movie, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and written by Julia Cox, is based on Nyad's 2015 autobiography Find a Way. While the film goes into detail about Nyad's remarkable swim,...

Netflix plans to create two spinoffs of the crime drama series Peaky Blinders, set in Boston and focused on the character Polly Gray. The Boston spinoff will likely explore the Peaky Blinders' dealings with Boston gangsters in the mid-20th century. The Polly series will likely be a prequel, as the character was killed off-screen in season five due to the actress's passing.

Netflix is planning to create their own Peaky Blinders franchise, with the streaming service now reportedly planning at least two spinoffs based on the crime drama series created by Steven Knight. According to a new report by Bloomberg, Netflix is now working on a sequel to the original show set in Boston, as well as a series centered on the magnetic matriarch, Elizabeth Pollyanna "Polly" Gray.

“One of those would be set in Boston during the middle of the 20th century, a couple decades after the original Peaky Blinders,...

Nyad is a Netflix movie based on swimmer Diana Nyad's true story of perseverance and her successful marathon swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64. The movie is mostly historically accurate in its depiction of Diana's five attempts between 2011 and 2013 to complete the swim, but it does simplify the timeline and only focus on a core group of characters on her team. In real life, Diana's completion of the swim is controversial due to her use of special suits and exceptional completion speed, which made it difficult for marathon swimming organizations to classify it as an "unaided" swim.

Warning: Contains Spoilers for Nyad.Nyad's ending tells the true story of swimmer Diana Nyad's astonishing marathon swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64. The real-life story Diana Nyad is one of perseverance as she continually attempts to complete the 100+ mile unaided swim decades after her first failure. Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi,...

Netflix is filled to the brim with true stories of sporting success. Whether it be noteworthy biopics like The Swimmers, Moneyball, and Ali, or docuseries such as the critically acclaimed The Last Dance, Sunderland ‘Til I Die, or the recently released Beckham, there has never been a shortage of awe-inspiring depictions of sporting triumph and gut-wrenching portrayals of failures. Sport has the power to electrify, galvanize, and incite a burning desire in all of us to succeed and conquer whatever challenge we may be embarking on. Coming to Netflix at the beginning of November is the highly-anticipated biopic Nyad.

The directors of the award-winning documentary, Free Solo, Jimmy Chin, and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, turn their hand to the art of the biopic, capturing the immense journey of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad as she comes out of a 30-year-long retirement to deal with unfinished business as far as her swimming is concerned.

Though not the most popular of subgenres within film, horror westerns have been gaining decent, fan-favorite traction as of late. The earliest example is The Rawhide Terror (1934), directed by Bruce M. Mitchell and Jack Nelson from a script that was penned by the latter. From there, one other horror western from the earlier years of Hollywood remains worth noting today. Featuring Michael Pate as a vampire gunfighter, Curse of the Undead (1959) isn't held in high regard, or anything. But it is noted by historians as an early example of a western-horror film.

It would be several more decades before the subgenre truly took off with regard to worldwide popularity. Filmmakers pumped out B-movie-level products until a certain release in the 1980s, called Near Dark (1987). A neo-Western horror hybrid, it's one of the greatest films of its kind, seeing direction under the great Kathryn Bigelow from a script she co-wrote alongside Eric Red.

Steven Knight's Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy, will continue its award-winning narrative in an upcoming film, leading many predictions of which beloved characters will die in the movie? The Peaky Blinders film could be ready to start filming by the end of 2023 after creator Steven Knight provided an encouraging update on the progress of the script. The movie is set to take place during the Second World War with the Peaky Blinders themselves getting intricately involved in the war effort.

Set during such a violent and destructive period of history, the Peaky Blinders movie is bound to throw the Peakys into another load of danger. It seems inevitable that some of the Shelby clan's members will die a heartbreaking death in classic Peaky Blinders fashion. Some of the show's remaining antagonists could be getting their comeuppance in the highly anticipated feature film. Peaky Blinders has never been afraid of...

In the sixth and final season of "Peaky Blinders," Boston gang leader Jack Nelson is spoken of before he's ever seen. It's not until the end of the second episode that he shows up onscreen inside a cathedral, where series protagonist Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) goes to meet him. James Frecheville, known for his role in the 2010 Australian crime drama "Animal Kingdom," turns around and says in a Boston accent, "Mr. Shelby," finally giving the elusive "Uncle Jack" a face, though the actor playing him is only five years older than the one playing his supposed niece, Gina Gray (Ana...

The post The Real-Life Inspiration Behind This Peaky Blinders Character Wasn't As Obvious As The Show's Creator Assumed appeared first on /Film.

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders series six.

Out now worldwide on Netflix, Peaky Blinders season six was filmed in locations around the UK, including Scotland, Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire, Lancashire and more. Find out which UK sites were used to stand in for Newfoundland, Boston and many more below.

Arrow House – Arley Hall & Gardens, Arley, Cheshire

Tommy’s mansion Arrow House (which he took from an aristocrat over his head in gambling debt between season two and three) is really Arley Hall & Gardens in Cheshire. It’s a Grade II listed stately home which was built in the first half of the 19th century and is currently home to Viscount Ashbrook and his family. You can visit here.

Miquelon Island, Newfoundland – Portsoy Harbour, Scotland

Miquelon Island was a French colonial outpost located just off the coast of Newfoundland on Canada’s eastern coast During US prohibition, being outside of Canadian and US jurisdiction,...

Warning: contains spoilers for the Peaky Blinders finale ‘Lock and Key’.

Towards the end of the Peaky Blinders finale, when all the ‘black cat’ traitors had been killed or ousted from the Shelby family, the gang gathered in the woods of the recently dynamited Arrow House for a farewell banquet. Ada and Karl, Linda, Arthur, Charles, Charlie, Curly, Johnny Dogs, Duke, and housekeeper Frances… everybody but Lizzie, who’d left Tommy after he slept with Diana Mitford, and the newly disowned Finn, raised a glass to “family” as Tommy said his goodbyes. Tommy believed he was travelling to his death, but had a surprise on the way. We break that down, along with other questions fans may have after ‘Lock and Key’.

Why Was Finn Banished From the Family?

Because he failed the test set for him at Arrow House and chose his friend over his family. Ever since Arthur...

Warning: this Peaky Blinders review contains spoilers.

Tommy escaped. He escaped it all – the fascists and the fake diagnosis and his family and himself. He rode out of Peaky Blinders just as he rode into it, only this time (this drama loves symbolism) on a white and not a black horse. Season six had sent him to hell where he’d reckoned with his sins. Then a plot by his enemies presented him with a rare opportunity to ride for the hills and leave it all behind. And as we know, Tommy’s never one to miss an opportunity. When Arthur and Curly and Charlie rake the ashes of Tommy’s wagon for silver and gold, they’ll find his wedding ring and watch and think him gone. He’s free.

Free, that is, until the Peaky Blinders feature film comes out, when Tommy Shelby or Mr Jones or the...

Warning: this Peaky Blinders review contains spoilers.

That felt more like the old days. Having not counted himself among the living since France, Tommy’s terminal diagnosis seems only to weigh on him as a deadline, not a shock to the psyche. There was no grieving in ‘The Road to Hell’, only action. Tommy made deals, made threats, and made preparations for a secret strategy, the end-goal of which is known by him and him alone. There’s the man we recognise.

What is Tommy’s secret strategy this time? We know that it involves a trip to Canada, a $5 million “legacy”, streets of charitable housing, and derailing the fast-track to power currently being laid for British fascism. We don’t know whether it takes into account Jack Nelson’s similarly double-crossing scheme of doing away with Tommy as soon as his opium docks in Boston harbour. Knowing our man,...

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season six episode five ‘The Road to Hell’

The Garrison Tavern really needs to vet its staff more closely. Back in season one, it hired a barmaid who turned out to be working undercover as a spy for Churchill and the Royal Irish Constabulary. Her name was Grace, and her threat was neutralised when she fell in love with the owner Tommy Shelby and became his wife.

The Garrison’s next spy wasn’t neutralised with a wedding, but with a gunshot to the head. That was barman Mickey Gibbs, executed by Tommy in the season five finale after Gibbs was discovered to have been taking bribes from enemies of the Peaky Blinders to inform on their plans. Gibbs was responsible for alerting mercenary Paddy Rose to the presence of Colonel Ben Younger in Small Heath, which resulted in the car bomb that killed...

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season six episode four ‘Sapphire’.

What a sorrowful hour. Maybe after that, all those Peaky Blinders fans who aspire to be Tommy Shelby will see that beneath the sharp cheekbones and the sharp tailoring there’s nothing to envy. Scrape away the cash and the cars and the power and there’s just pain, grief, and now, a deadline. One year to 18 months. To change the fucking world.

If Dr Holford and the country’s top three brain surgeons are right, Tommy won’t live to see the outbreak of World War II. Tommy also won’t live to see Mr Churchill become prime minister, but if his strategy comes off, he will have helped him neuter the fascist threat in Britain and stop the likes of Mosley and Mitford from rolling out the red carpet in welcome to the German chancellor and his new world order.

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season six episode two ‘Black Shirt’.

Peaky Blinders is known to pay homage to different film genres with every season, from Westerns to Gangster flicks to Hitchcockian and conspiracy thrillers. In ‘Black Shirt’, season six revealed its genre: horror. From the Hammer picture image of lightning cracking over Tommy’s stately home, to Ruby’s scrawled drawings of the devil, and Tommy fighting the imaginary yellow-toothed “Grey Man”, episode two was filled with horror imagery – fitting, for a show about somebody who’s haunted.

Haunted, and cursed. Tommy believes that Ruby’s demonic visions and illness are down to a curse laid upon the Shelby family. At the end of the episode, he places a phone call to his widowed sister-in-law Esme Shelby-Lee, whom he hopes will lift the affliction. Even if Esme can lift the curse and cure Ruby, it’s doubtful whether...

Warning: this Peaky Blinders review contains spoilers.

No wonder he’s having seizures; Tommy’s last deal is next-level complicated. He’s intercepted President Roosevelt’s route to British and Irish fascists to undermine their goal of installing a fascist leader in Britain and ultimately ushering in the ideology of their “friend in Berlin”. To do it, he’s pretending to sell Churchill’s secrets to Jack Nelson in exchange for a spurious opium deal that he’s really doing with Nelson’s Jewish enemies in order to unseat the kingpin from his Boston throne.

If this final strategy comes off, Tommy will have snuffed out fascism, avenged Polly’s murder, made more money than God, and earned his escape. That is, if Michael Gray, a brain tumour or a gypsy curse don’t kill him first. And seeing as Tommy’s adopting a ‘keep your friends close and your...

Spoiler Alert: This post contains details about the Season 6 premiere of Peaky Blinders.. After a long wait, Peaky Blinders is back, just having premiered the first episode of the final season on BBC One this evening in the UK, and after the tragic loss of one of the show’s most important players, Helen McCrory (Aunt Polly), who passed away in April last year. Show creator Steven Knight and executive producer Caryn Mandabach sat down with Deadline this weekend to discuss the Season 6 premiere, the impact of losing McCrory on a personal and storyline level, and what’s ahead for the Shelby family.

Deadline: I’d like to start with Aunt Polly’s fate. Clearly fate played a role in what happened given Helen’s sad passing. Steve, did you have to go back and start over, or had you already factored Helen...

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders Series 6 Episode 1 ‘Black Day’.

Who is Gina Gray? Ever since Anya Taylor-Joy’s character slunk into the Garrison Tavern, all fox fur coat and Betty Boop eyes, Peaky Blinders viewers have been asking that question. Michael Gray’s new American wife dropped like a bomb into series five. Her every appearance sparked fan theories: her pregnancy was a lie, she was Mosley’s co-conspirator, she was an assassin sent by a rival gang out for Tommy’s blood… When Michael boasted of Gina’s family connections in the illegal supply trade during his attempted coup, we pegged her as a gangster.

“Like everything else in this city, it’s in the hand of your Uncle Jack”

After the series six opener, it’s clear that ‘gangster’ is an oversimplification. Gina’s family is connected, but not just in the criminal world. The so-far unseen...

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders series 6 episode 1 ‘Black Day’.

An intricately crafted drama that rewards digging through the details (as our exploration of the hidden messages in the season five sets shows), here’s our weekly accompaniment to every Peaky Blinders season six episode, including references, locations, real history and more. Read our spoiler-filled episode one review here.

Episode One: Black Day Charlie Chaplin, William Blake, and The Shining

– The Romani gypsy words spoken by Ruby in her fevered state appear to be “Tikno mora o beng o beng”. In this English/Romani dictionary, ‘tikno’ means child or small, ‘mora’ or ‘maura’ means to slay or kill, and ‘o beng’ means ‘the devil’. Tommy takes those words extremely seriously and instructs Lizzie to keep Ruby away from horses and water, and to have Johnny Dogs’ eldest wife Esmeralda put a Black Madonna pendant around Ruby’s neck for protection from curses.

Warning: this Peaky Blinders review contains spoilers.

What better tribute could Peaky Blinders pay to the character of Aunt Polly – and to the equally redoubtable Helen McCrory – than birdsong and fire and a portrait titled “Fuck Them All”? A portrait the eyes of which lingered in the sky at the funeral of the gypsy queen, watching over the sorry lot of them. The untimely death of McCrory from illness during the Covid-rescheduled production period necessitated a rewrite in which her character became a casualty of Tommy’s ambition. That deep loss was confronted head-on this episode, with a music-free funeral pyre and a vow of vengeance spoken into the flames.

This show’s always lived side-by-side with ghosts, omens and dreams. It’s set in a world where the walls between life and death run thin. So Polly’s gone and yet not gone. Tommy still talks to her. And...

For more decades, famed swimmer Diana Nyad has spoken out about the sexual abuse she says she endured at the hands of her former coach as a teenager. Now, amid the onslaught of assault and harassment victims telling their stories, Nyad is making her voice heard yet again.

“This is not, by any means, the first time that I’ve written or spoken about my particular abuse story from my teenage years. But here we are. I’m not one to give up,” Nyad, 68, tells People. “I decided I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I wanted to...

Raise a glass to the true hero of Daredevil. No, I'm not talking about Punisher, though he's pretty cool too. Nor am I talking about Karen Page, who is also pretty cool. I'm talking about the man himself, Foggy Nelson, played by Mighty Ducks Bash Brother himself Elden Henson. The man may not have any superpowers, and he may not have Charlie Cox's chiseled chin, but man does he got some smarts.

Foggy was a character that could have been an utter annoyance in Daredevil -- the man whose sole purpose is to fill time while Matt Murdock pounds the pavement -- but they sure as heck gave him a lot of interesting stuff to do. In many ways, his appeal also comes in his everyman nature, in that he could be any one of us set in this superhero-laden world. 

Well, lucky fans, it sounds like Mr. Nelson will return,...

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced today that the 2016 News & Documentary Emmy Award honoree for Lifetime Achievement is documentarian and founder of Firelight Media, Stanley Nelson. Mr. Nelson is to be honored for his… Continue Reading →...

Musical genius Prince died April 21 at the age of 57. Subscribe now for an inside look into his private life and shocking death, only in People.June 1985 Playboy centerfold model Devin Devasquez is opening up about her fleeting but passionate romance with the late musical singer Prince in the 1980s. "He was small, but such a sexy, charming guy. I was absolutely in love with him," Devasquez, now an actress and producer, tells People. "During the Purple Rain tour he would fly me to all of the concerts, all over the country." The pair dated on and off again for six...

Musical genius Prince died April 21 at the age of 57. Subscribe now for an inside look into his private life and shocking death, only in People.June 1985 Playboy centerfold model Devin Devasquez is opening up about her fleeting but passionate romance with the late musical singer Prince in the 1980s. "He was small, but such a sexy, charming guy. I was absolutely in love with him," Devasquez, now an actress and producer, tells People. "During the Purple Rain tour he would fly me to all of the concerts, all over the country." The pair dated on and off again for six...

The first three weeks of October 2002 was a tense time for anyone living around the Nation’s Capital. Living in Maryland I vividly recall the amount of fear the Beltway Snipers created, leading to special precautions at schools and people avoiding crowded areas. The movie that tells the story of those two snipers, Blue Caprice, captures that uneasiness with slow-building, methodical filmmaking. There’s a few familiar faces in Alexander Moors‘ film, including Tim Blake Nelson, playing Ray, an “unwitting accomplice” to one of the snipers. While he’s most famous for playing one of the many lovable morons in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Nelson has been working successfully as a writer, director, and, for the past year and a half, a member of James Franco‘s camp. Nelson has now acted in two of Franco’s films, As I Lay Dying and Child of God, making for a collaboration that has put a pep in...

The other day, Erik Childress spotlighted an effort to gather enough small contributions to produce a special DVD edition of the documentary The Way We Get By. The project is being coordinated through Kickstarter, a year-old Brooklyn-based organization whose name has been popping up on the Internet a lot lately. Call me crazy -- go ahead, I'll wait -- but I think this could be the way of the future for independent filmmakers and other artists to get their projects funded.

It works like this. Let's say I need $5,000 to make my documentary about the life of Charles Nelson Reilly. I launch a Kickstarter campaign, ask for pledges, and set a deadline by which the $5,000 needs to be accumulated. People can donate as little or as much money as they want, using a credit card and Amazon's secure payment system. (Amazon and Kickstarter are buddies.) But here's the twist: The...

New York City, summer 1980. I was a baby of 20 years working as an intern for the iconoclastic design master George Nelson--one of the most accomplished voices on design and architecture of the 20th century. He was a towering design hero to me, having defined much of what I knew as "modern" in design. I arrived eager to learn, but George spent most of his time in a closed office, thinking (or so I presumed). I wanted to chat but he was intimidating and unreachable, not even granting eye contact as he shuffled about the office.

I noticed that every afternoon at 4 o'clock sharp George would disappear for thirty minutes. One day I followed him. He was in the restroom down the hall--one of those turn-of-the-century huge pink marble rooms, shared by other offices on that floor. George was standing at an open window twenty-two floors above Gramercy Park, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee.

• Blake Nelson grew up in Portland, Oregon and much like the main character of Gus Van Sant’s latest film, Paranoid Park, of which Nelson wrote the source novel, he spent most of his teenage years skateboarding and performing in various bands. But (hopefully) where the two differ is that the main character of Paranoid Park, Alex, accidentally killed a security guard at an underground skate park.The film’s structure, although seemingly non-linear, flows smoothly through Alex’s struggles with guilt and adolescence. Paranoid Park mixes sound and film in a way that departs from Van Sant’s previous efforts and finally lands the audience in a world that belongs to teenagers and cinephiles.Blake Nelson’s novel is more linear but both works complement each other perfectly. The film almost acts as an existential interpretation of the novel which resides under the misrepresented umbrella term of “Young Adult” literature.

...