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Remakes from foreign-language originals often face difficulties in translating material from one cultural context to another, but seldom has that been so awkward as in “Uppercut,” Torsten Reuther’s Americanized retooling of his 2021 German debut “Leberhaken” (aka “Liver Punch”). What was already a problematically stagey wade into normally action-oriented terrain — the underdog sports drama — gains additional hurdles here from the writer-director’s tin ear for English dialogue, as well as the inexplicable return of a lead actor even less adept in a foreign tongue. Lionsgate is rolling this earnest but unconvincing feature out to limited U.S. theaters as well as digital platforms on Feb. 28.

The setup may well remind you of prior female boxer films, notably “Million Dollar Baby” and recent “The Fire Inside.” Alas, it never really gets beyond their narrative starting gates, in which a green but determined young woman pushes to be accepted as pupil by an initially dismissive,...

It's become a fun pub trivia act to be able to rattle off the legion of beloved performers who got their start on the big screen by acting in horror movies. It's less common, however, to learn about actors famous for their roles in horror films pivoting to directing and nabbing an Academy Award nomination for Best Director in the process. But that's precisely what happened with Brady Corbet, the director behind one of the frontrunners for Best Picture (at the time of writing) and a film that /Film's Chris Evangelista called "an overwhelming triumph" in his review, "The Brutalist."

Corbet, for those not familiar, made his feature directorial debut in 2015 with "The Childhood of a Leader." Loosely adapted from Jean-Paul Sartre's short story of the same name, the film centers on an American boy living in France with his authoritarian parents during the Treaty of Versailles and explores...

Exclusive: Before Oscar ballots were due Tuesday, The Brutalist director-writer-producer Brady Corbet sent a loud and clear message on Marc Maron’s Wtf podcast just how indie his 10-time Oscar-nominated movie The Brutalist was, declaring he made “zero dollars” on the nearly three-hour epic.

And not just “zero dollars” on The Brutalist, but also on his 2018 Natalie Portman-starring tortured pop star drama Vox Lux as well. Neon acquired U.S. on the 2018 pic, which grossed only $727,000 at the domestic box office and $1.4M worldwide.

As brutal as Corbet’s payday sounds, we figured some clarity was needed. While the filmmaker’s point in the Maron interview, per sources, was to emphasize how challenging and cash-strapped it is to pull off indie films in a world where streamers and motion picture studios throw around $100M to top-shelf fare, the filmmaker’s comments about his paycheck on the under $10M production...

The Brutalist director Brady Corbet insists he has not made any money from his critically acclaimed movie. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker recently claimed the Best Director trophy at the recent BAFTA Awards for helming the A24-distributed period drama.

Corbet shared details about his financial predicament on the Wtf with Marc Maronpodcast. "I just directed three advertisements in Portugal. It's the first time that I had made any money in years," he said. Corbet revealed that he and his wife, Mona Fastvold, who is also his creative partner, "made zero dollars" from their last two movies, The Brutalist and 2018’s Vox Lux. "Yes actually. Zero," the director insists. "We had to just sort of live off a paycheck from three years ago." The situation, according to Corbet, is pervasive. "I've spoken to many filmmakers who have the films that are nominated this year that can't pay their rent. I mean, that's a real thing,...

It can be brutal trying to make a living as an indie filmmaker, according to Brady Corbet.

The “Brutalist” writer/director said during the “Wtf with Marc Maron” podcast that he made “zero dollars” from “The Brutalist.” The indie notably had a budget of less than $10 million. The sprawling 215-minute drama spans 30 years in the life of Adrien Brody’s lead character, fictional architect László Tóth.

To financially sustain himself, Corbet directed three advertisements in Portugal. “This is the first time I’ve made any money in years,” Corbet said of the ads.

It was the same story with 2018’s “Vox Lux.” “Both my partner [Mona Fastvold] and I made zero dollars on the last two films we made. Yes, actually zero. So we had to just live off of a paycheck from three years ago,” Corbet said, “And obviously, the timing during an awards campaign and travel every two...

Brady Corbet is opening up about The Brutalist.

The 36-year-old director who helmed the film, which has received 10 nominations at the 2025 Oscars, says he made “zero dollars” from the acclaimed drama.

“I just directed three advertisements in Portugal… it’s the first time that I had made any money really in years,“ he admitted on the Wtf With Marc Maron podcast on Monday (February 17).

Keep reading to find out more…

He then said he “made zero dollars on the last two films we made.”

“Yes, actually zero,” he went on. “So we had to just live off of a paycheck from three years ago.”

His past directorial works include 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader and 2018’s Vox Lux.

The Brutalist recently won four awards at the 2025 BAFTAs and three awards at the 2025 Golden Globes, and he won Best Director prizes at both ceremonies.

“I’ve spoken to many filmmakers...

Brady Corbet, the BAFTA-winning filmmaker behind “The Brutalist,” has revealed that he and his wife and creative partner Mona Fastvold made “zero dollars” from their last two films, despite being a major Oscar contender this year. Speaking on “Wtf With Marc Maron,” Corbet described the financial strain that came with making the ambitious epic.

“This is the first time I’ve made any money in years,” Corbet said, explaining that his first real paycheck in a long time came from directing three advertisements in Portugal. “Both my partner and I made zero dollars on the last two films we made. Yes, actually zero. So we had to just live off of a paycheck from three years ago and and obviously, the timing during an awards campaign and travel every two or three days was less than ideal, but it was an opportunity that landed in my lap, and I jumped at it.

Brady Corbet has made "zero" money from 'The Brutalist'.The 36-year-old director has won widespread critical acclaim and a string of awards for his movie - which is up for 10 Academy Awards - but he admitted there has been no financial benefit to the project so far.Speaking to Marc Maron on his 'Wtf' podcast, Brady said: “I just directed three advertisements in Portugal. It's the first time that I had made any money in years.” He insisted he and partner Mona Fastvold, his co-writer, “made zero dollars on the last two films that we made.”When the surprised host clarified Brady's award-winning picture had brought him no income, he replied: "Yes. Actually, zero. We had to just sort of live off of a paycheque from three years ago.”The director noted filmmakers are "not paid to be promoting" their work but end up so busy doing so, they can't take on any paying jobs.

The Brutalist director Brady Corbet said this week he “made zero dollars” on his Oscar-nominated film.

“I just directed three advertisements in Portugal,” Corbet said during an appearance on Wtf With Marc Maron. “It’s the first time that I had made any money in years.”

Corbet went on to elaborate that he and his wife (and creative partner) Mona Fastvold, “made zero dollars on the last two films that we made.”

Before The Brutalist, Corbet and Fastvold made 2018’s Vox Lux. The Brutalist earned 10 nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, including best actor for Adrien Brody, best supporting actress for Felicity Jones, best director for Corbet and best picture.

When Maron asked Corbet to clarify his comments about payment, the director said, “Yes. Actually, zero. We had to just sort of live off of a paycheck from three years ago.”

The financial toll is not exclusive to Corbet,...

Despite being among the favorites this awards season, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist did not net the indie filmmaker a single dollar.

The Vox Lux helmer appeared on Marc Maron’s Wtf podcast yesterday to discuss the 10-time Oscar-nominated sweeping American immigrant epic, having just come off a string of advertising gigs in Portugal that proved to be “the first time that I had made any money in years.”

Corbet, who directed The Brutalist off of a script penned by himself and partner Mona Fastvold, his wife and collaborator, said the two “made zero dollars on the last two films that we made.” When Maron was surprised at the statement, he reiterated: “Yes. Actually, zero. We had to just sort of live off of a paycheck from three years ago.”

He continued, “I’ve spoken to many filmmakers that have films that are nominated this year that can’t pay their rent.

Editor’s note: Natalie Portman previously worked with Brady Corbet in his 2018 drama Vox Lux, in which she played Celeste, the survivor of a high school shooting who is ultimately transformed into a tough-talking pop star. Corbet shot his 3x Golden Globe winning and 10x Oscar nominated The Brutalist in 33 days, clocking in at 3 hours and 34 minutes. For Portman, Corbet excels in delivering stories that follow lone pioneers who are crusading against the corruption of society and those who wield power.

Portman in Corbet’s ‘Vox Lux’

I first saw Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist in a theater in Paris a few months ago. Having worked with Brady on Vox Lux, I thought I was prepared for the scale of his storytelling, but this film surpasses expectations.

Adrien Brody in ‘The Brutalist’

In all three of his features, including The Childhood of a Leader, the story of a petulant child...

In the Split Decision series, two of our writers face off on an Oscar-nominated movie one loves and the other doesn't. Today, Nick Taylor and Abe Friedtanzer discuss The Brutalist...

Nick Taylor: Hi Abe! I hope the cinematic year of 2024 and the numerical year of 2025 have been treating you well! Today we’re here to talk about The Brutalist, which is one of my favorite films from 2024 and one of the most nominated films at this year’s Oscars. Because this is the Split Decision series, I’m gonna guess you are not a fan of this film, or you’re at least more ambivalent about it than I am. But an object this self-consciously huge deserves to be argued about, and I would love for you to start us off by sharing what you think of The Brutalist.

Abe Friedtanzer: Hey Nick! I will say that I didn’t hate this film,...

Alexa, play “Greatest Day,” because Anora had one on Saturday. The Neon film regained pole position in the Best Picture Oscar race after taking both the Directors Guild of America Award for Sean Baker and the Producers Guild of America Award. The latter wasn’t a big surprise in an ostensibly splintered Best Picture race, but the former was a huge one. The Brutalist‘s Brady Corbet was the overwhelming favorite in the odds (and was dethroned from No. 1 by Baker in the Oscar odds on Monday), and not a single expert or editor foresaw Baker’s DGA upset coming. So how did he win?

Corbet was not as strong as he seemed to be

Even though Anora won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and held the No. 1 spot in the Best Picture Oscar odds throughout Phase 1, Baker was seen as a default Best Director pick...

International rights to Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ thriller “Diamond Shitter,” which stars Raffey Cassidy, Eva Green, Ben Whishaw and Alessandro Nivola, have been picked up by Beta Cinema. The sales company will launch pre-sales at the European Film Market, with UTA Independent Film Group repping North American rights.

The film’s story unfolds against the backdrop of the affluent ex-pat community in Geneva. Young intern Nollaig ignites a darkly visceral shift within the privileged home of her host family when she steals their precious diamonds – absorbing them into her body – in the process unmasking the deeper truths beneath their glittering privilege.

Campbell-Hughes, who made her directorial debut with “It Is in Us All,” said, “In a time of emotional fatigue, we crave the beauty of justice. This film is a primal howl, a white-knuckle ride that explores the devastating fragility of the human condition. I wish to reinstate hope, to reassess what...

Exclusive: Eva Green, Ben Whishaw and Alessandro Nivola are set to join Raffey Cassidy in the cast of Antonia Campbell-Hughes upcoming thriller Diamond Shitter.

Beta Cinema unveiled the casting additions as it boarded the feature, for a pre-sales launch at the EFM.

Produced by London and Dublin-based Sleeper Films, Diamond Shitter is filmmaker and actor Campbell-Hughes’ second feature after her directorial debut It Is In Us All, which premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW in 2022. Campbell-Hughes will also take a supporting role.

Diamond Shitter unfolds against the backdrop of the affluent expat community in Geneva. Cassidy will star as young intern Nollaig who ignites a darkly visceral shift within the privileged home of her host family when she steals their precious diamonds, absorbing them into her body. In the process, she unmasks the deeper truths beneath their glittering privilege.

“In a time of emotional fatigue, we crave the beauty of justice.

Here’s the latest episode of The Filmmakers Podcast, part of the podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on the official podcast site, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

For those unfamiliar with the series, The Filmmakers Podcast is a podcast about how to make films from micro-budget indie films to bigger-budget studio films and everything in between. Our hosts Giles Alderson, Dom Lenoir, Dan Richardson, Andrew Rodger and Cristian James talk about how to get films made, how to actually make them and how to try not to f… it up in their very humble opinion. Guests will come on and chat about their filmmaking experiences from directors, writers, producers and screenwriters, to actors, cinematographers and distributors.

The Filmmaker’s Podcast #437: The Brutalist writer-director Brady Corbet & production designer...

2024 was a great year for cinema that saw the release of many films that are guaranteed to become future classics, but none have been instantly heralded as an all-time masterpiece in the same way as “The Brutalist.” Brady Corbet’s epic character study of a Hungarian-Jewish architect who immigrated to America is both a shocking examination of the cruelty of capitalism and an astounding examination of what the artistic process looks like. While “The Brutalist” will certainly be analyzed for years based on the density of its social and political commentary, it’s also a film that deserves to be celebrated for what an outstanding achievement it is for independent cinema.

Among the joys of “The Brutalist” is that it feels like an homage to a more classical form of storytelling that has become increasingly rare in modern Hollywood. In an era in which the industry has become even more...

Brady Corbet wants audiences to have strong opinions about 'The Brutalist'.The 36-year-old filmmaker has helmed the acclaimed new movie – which stars Adrien Brody as Hungarian-Jewish architect Laszlo Toth as he moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust – and is happy for those watching to have views either way on the flick.Corbet told Dazed: "We don't want to scare artists off from saying anything. "If we're dealing with a culture where you cannot investigate history for contemporary, political reasons, that's very dangerous. I think we want to promote everyone contributing their perspective: Chinese, Taiwanese, the Gaza Strip, Israel."Right now, it's a time for communicating. It's not a time to stop listening to one another. Cinema is a great space to explore ideas."The director has promised that his next movie will be just as "radical" as 'The Brutalist', which has been tipped for Academy Award success.

RankFilm (origin)DistributorJan 24-26 grossTotalWeek 1 A Complete Unknown(US) Disney £1.7m £5.9m 2 2 Mufasa: The Lion King (US) Disney £1.4m £27.9m 6 3 Sonic The Hedgehog 3(US) Paramount £872,000 £23.3m 5 4 Flight Risk(US) Lionsgate £810,244 £810,244 1 5 The Brutalist(US-uk) Universal £703,617 £753,400 1

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.25

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist made a muscular start at the UK-Ireland box office with £703,617 from just 170 cinemas; as Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown wore the crown for a second weekend.

Disney’s A Complete Unknown added £1.7m – a fall of just 35%. James Mangold’s film now has £5.9m; a strong tail, boosted by awards attention, could see it chase...

The director’s Adrien Brody-starring tale of a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor building a new future in the US moves him into the big league

Bold, confrontational and oversized in every way imaginable, Brady Corbet’s wildly ambitious three-and-a-half-hour-plus epic The Brutalist represents a near-perfect symbiosis of subject with film-making style. It’s a huge, uncompromising cinematic statement about the creation of a huge, uncompromising architectural statement. It’s a paean to purity of creative vision in the face of petty ignorance and tightened purse strings, of noble personal sacrifice in the name of art. The kinship between the misunderstood modernist architect who finds worlds of both opportunity and pain courtesy of the fickle whims of wealthy American philistines and Corbet, a former US child actor turned independent film-maker, is there for all who choose to see it.

The uncharitable may suggest that there’s a degree of...

Citizen Kane. The Godfather. Once Upon A Time In America. There Will Be Blood. Towering monuments of moviemaking, all — and all namechecked in notices when Brady Corbet’s third picture, The Brutalist, won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival. Is it possible for any modern movie, even an American epic of these proportions (and we don’t just mean the 215-minute running time), to stand firm in the shadows of such superstructures?

The Brutalist gives it a damn good go. An austere, novelistic, self-consciously important film that unfurls in a measured sprawl, it nonetheless exerts an iron grip. Yes, it’s shot in luxurious VistaVision and divided into chapters and features a 15-minute intermission. And sure, it mulls on the weighty themes of Jewish identity, immigration, privilege, culture-versus-commerce and the thin lines between inspiration and insanity, ambition and crushing egotism. But homework it ain’t.

Adrien Brody cried for the victims of the L.A. fires while accepting the best actor prize at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards Wednesday night at Tao Downtown in New York City.

“My heart goes out to all the families and the animals and our colleagues,” Brody said, who took home the award for his performance as László Tóth in director Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” “Most of the homes on the west side, the beach side of the [Pacific Coast Highway] are gone. From the Palisades on, this is our community. So I just want to thank and commend the bravery of the first responders, and their sacrifices and their meaningful work that deserves our recognition tonight.”

Although Brody had the most emotional response to the fires, host David Sims and Sean Baker, who took home the best screenplay award for “Anora,” also acknowledged their thoughts were with the people of Los Angeles.

Brady Corbet's historical epic, The Brutalist, earned rave reviews in 2024, and recently won some key Golden Globe Awards, leaving many to wonder what kind of movie The Brutalist is, and what to watch like it. Premiering at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, The Brutalist follows László Tóth, an architect and Jewish immigrant from Hungary who moves to America, hoping to find success after the devastation of World War II. After a chance meeting with a wealthy businessman, Tóth's luck begins to change. The Brutalist is rising in popularity due to its amazing reviews, but also its shocking runtime.

There are many aspects of watching The Brutalist that make it different from an average blockbuster. First, the movie is 215 minutes long, which is more than 3 1/2 hours. Movies of that length typically boast epic stories that take place over many years, and The Brutalist is no different. Furthermore, this movie...

With a sprawling 215 minutes and VistaVision footage, not to mention a variety of other formats––including 8mm, 16mm, Super 16mm, 35mm, Betacam, even an Arri Alexa shot––constructing Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist took editor Dávid Jancsó two years. The result is an intoxicating tapestry of epic proportions and one of 2024’s most accomplished feats of editing.

As the film continues its run in limited release, I spoke with Jancsó about that unforgettable opening sequence, planting seeds in the first half that sprout in the second, how much was left on the cutting-room floor, how budget constraints affected the edit, and the overwhelming emotional experience of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The Film Stage: I know you worked on Childhood of a Leader, and then not on Vox Lux, but got back together for The Brutalist. Can you talk about your initial discussions with Brady and how you came aboard?...

Last Updated on January 2, 2025

The Brutalist is the new and very ambitious feature from actor-turned-director Brady Corbet. It brings to life the story of an immigrant arriving in America in 1947. And speaking honestly, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about an over three-and-a-half-hour fictional tale about an architect. Especially since his Natalie Portman feature Vox Lux did not work for me. Yet stepping into The Brutalist in 70mm with a buddy of mine, we both were completely engaged in this stunning new work. Adrien Brody is exceptional once again, as is Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, and more. Brady’s latest is a bold interpretation of history, and an exceptional cinematic world if you are willing to take the journey.

I’ve spoken with Adrien Brody twice: once for Predators and once for Splice. Both are very different films from his latest. Yet when I mentioned Splice before the interview,...

“Spectacular size and complete focus across the screen,” announced a promotional advertisement in 1954. “The ultimate in film presentation that will thrill all your senses and touch all your emotions. VistaVision!”

Developed by Paramount Pictures 70 years ago, the cinematic format tempted

audiences to experience bolder, higher-resolution images in the movie theater. The process was invented by changing how the negative was fed through the camera. Instead of the celluloid strip running vertically – think of a film still with four sprocket holes on each side – the negative was fed horizontally, with eight sprocket holes on the top and bottom. Such as this:

The larger format yielded a richer, more detailed image. Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” and “Vertigo” were among the movies filmed in VistaVision before it lost popularity due to the advance of film stock technology.

“It was one of those formats, like CinemaScope, that was almost designed to draw...

Any independent filmmaker will tell you that getting a movie financed, produced and released is akin to summiting a mountain. Rockslides, however, are less common.

Brady Corbet had to brace for one nonetheless, to complete his ambitious and impressively inexpensive “The Brutalist” — a three-hour-and-change epic made for a measly $10 million. The expansive story of a Hungarian architect and his haughty patron required Corbet and team to shoot in the marble quarries of northern Tuscany — where rockslides constantly shift the landscape.

“Mother Nature is pissed,” Corbet exclaims to his friend Sean Baker, the writer-director of this year’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora.” Baker is used to outsmarting forces of nature to deliver his microbudget indies to the world. For “Anora,” the tale of a hopeful sex worker’s unhinged affair with the son of a Russian oligarch, he found himself “making, borrowing and stealing” whatever he could to get the project across the finish line.

The method dressing trend took a Wicked turn over these past few months as stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo delivered a high-profile parade of pink and green ensembles that went viral on Instagram or TikTok with every appearance. After those eye-catching looks, you would be forgiven for not clocking Felicity Jones’ recent appearance at the Los Angeles premiere of The Brutalist as being the newest example of the red carpet craze.

“This look is inspired by brutalist architecture,” Jones explained to The Hollywood Reporter of her black Proenza Schouler dress from the house’s Spring 2025 collection. The dress features a cut-out design up top and a car-wash-style skirt on the bottom with grommet details. “That was the idea with the dress, which has very strict rectangular forms and quite blunt cuts. It’s a dress that felt like it was an appropriate look for the film.”

Felicity Jones attends...

There was a moment when “The Brutalist” could have gone into theaters unrated. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before this year — thank you, “Terrifier 3,” for opening in more than 2,500 theaters unrated and ultimately grossing over $53 million stateside — and the choice only would have fueled the publicity around the Brady Corbet-directed movie, were it to enter theaters sans the MPA imprimatur. Or, the theatrical kiss of death, an Nc-17, eliminating play from most major exhibition chains.

An unrated release looked possible, at least, when the full trailer premiered online December 10, less than two weeks out from opening, without the MPA seal. Sources told IndieWire that A24 was prepared to release the film unrated, while another said that the MPA just hadn’t screened the film until late last week. “The Brutalist,” IndieWire can confirm, ultimately received an R rating this week for “strong sexual content, graphic nudity,...

A three-and-a-half-hour run time didn’t change the way The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley worked. The low budget (under $10 million), the fact that he had worked with director Brady Corbet before (on 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader and 2018’s Vox Lux) and Corbet’s directorial approach all contributed to a concise way of shooting the film.

“I think filmmakers are like, ‘I didn’t know you could do that anymore: shoot on 35mm, have this thematically epic film — but also scale and length of run time with an intermission — for less than $10 million,” Crawley tells The Hollywood Reporter of the A24 release. “It didn’t feel dissimilar to the way that I have worked with Brady in the past, and there was never a discussion about the run time.”

The Brutalist — about Hungarian Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who escapes the Holocaust and moves to the U.S.

Jude Law, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is an Englishman who has been one of the world’s finest screen actors for some 30 years.

Twice Oscar-nominated before he was even 30, first for his breakout supporting turn in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and then for his first major leading role in 2003’s Cold Mountain, both of which were directed by Anthony Minghella, he has also been directed by Clint Eastwood, David Cronenberg, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, David O. Russell, Kenneth Branagh, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Joe Wright, Steven Soderbergh, Wes Anderson, Paolo Sorrentino and Brady Corbet, among others.

And now, at the age of 51, he is starring on the well-received Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and has given what many regard as his finest performance yet as an FBI agent on the hunt for white nationalists in 1980s Idaho in Justin Kurzel...

We must be careful how we throw around the word "masterpiece," and yet it seems entirely appropriately for Brady Corbet's towering achievement "The Brutalist." Years in the making, Corbert's sprawling, nearly four-hour epic is cut from the same cloth (or perhaps I should say chiseled from the same stone) as great masterpieces like "Citizen Kane," "The Godfather," and more recently, "There Will Be Blood." And like those three movies, "The Brutalist" is a distinctly American masterpiece; a story that reflects the triumphs and horrors of the ethereal thing we call "The American Experience." These are stories of great men bursting with wild, potentially dangerous ambition and how they found a way to encase that ambition in the still-developing America of the past, an ever-changing, ever-growing thing impossible to pin down. 

All of Corbert's films are like mock history lessons; biopics for people who never existed, but feel real. His feature debut,...

It’s pretty crazy to think that “The Brutalist” marks just the third film in the filmography of director Brady Corbet. The growth he’s shown from “The Childhood of a Leader” to “Vox Lux” to this year’s “The Brutalist” is quite amazing. It makes you wonder what he might have up his sleeve next.

Read More: The 20 Best Films Of 2024

According to a new profile of Brady Corbet in The New Yorker, what the filmmaker has next is apparently a period film that draws from horror and Western genres.

Continue reading ‘The Brutalist’ Filmmaker Brady Corbet’s Next Film Is Another Immigration Story With Horror & Western Moods at The Playlist.

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A24 will release “The Brutalist” in select theaters on Friday, December 20.

It might seem too easy to observe that Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” — a 215-minute slab of a film that spans 30 years in the life of Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who flees to America in the hopes of building a better future — has been constructed to embody the aesthetics of its title character. Shot in VistaVision and projected on 300lbs.’ worth of 70mm film stock, Corbet’s epic draws a perfectly self-evident connection between the weight of its raw material and that of the concrete monolith Tóth creates over the course of the story, and the same could be said of its minimalistic framing, its bone-deep aversion to nostalgia, and, most of all, the movie’s efforts to reveal the soul...

Update: “The Brutalist” is coming to Imax. Tickets for early-access screenings in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 18 are available for purchase. The film will then expand to Imax screens across the U.S. throughout January.

Previously: A24 has announced the first 70mm screenings of “The Brutalist,” which launches in the specialty format on Dec. 19 in New York City and Los Angeles.

Tickets are available for purchase for the Village East Cinemas in New York and the Vista Theatre in L.A. Additional cities and dates will be announced soon.

“The Brutalist,” a three-plus-hour epic directed by Brady Corbet and starring Adrien Brody, was filmed in VistaVision, a high-resolution format with a wider field of view, allowing for enhanced clarity when projected in 70mm. The movie carries four miles of celluloid film, which weighs a whopping 259 pounds.

Attendees of the 70mm engagements will receive a collectible brochure and postcard...

Jonathan Frakes' 2004 kid-friendly sci-fi flick "Thunderbirds" had everything going for it. It was based on the cult Supermarionation series "Thunderbirds," created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in 1964, a puppet-based adventure show that had a notable cult following among Gen-x TV addicts. The movie also leaned really hard into the show's colorful vehicle fetish, spending a lot of time looking at the five giant Thunderbirds rescue craft, all but assuring little kids would want toy versions of each. "Thunderbirds" also sported a notable cast, with Bill Paxton as the patriarch of the Tracy family, Anthony Edwards as the bookish tech guru Brain, and Ben Kingsley as dark-eyed villain Hood. Then-teen-star Vanessa Hudgens had a bit part as the girl Alan Tracy (Brady Corbet) had a crush on. 

The premise of "Thunderbirds" is pure Saturday morning: on a remote Tropical island, the Tracy family operates a freelance rescue organization called International Rescue.

Guy Pearce is having a moment — not that he ever left. “It feels funny when people kind of go: ‘Wow, so you’re back,'” he tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast. “And I’m like ‘Where did I go? I didn’t go anywhere?”

With a career spanning three decades, Pearce has always been a highly respected character actor, equally convincing as the clean-cut, ambitious detective in “L.A. Confidential” (1997) or the amnesiac unraveling his own mystery in “Memento” (2001). Now, he’s drawing attention once again with a complex and haunting performance in Brady Corbet’s period epic, “The Brutalist.”

But for Pearce, success has always hinged on the material. “I always find the best work I do usually comes when the writing’s really good,” Pearce says during our conversation. “You feel inspired, and you just dance on top of what the writer has created. When the script is there,...

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Gladiator II.

Ridley Scott's latest film Gladiator II features strong main performances from its exceptional ensemble cast led by Paul Mescal as Lucius. Following the highly anticipated release of Gladiator II on November 22, 2024, the epic blockbuster sequel has received mostly positive reviews and a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 71%. Mescal leads the cast of Gladiator II alongside Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, and Connie Nielsen, who reprises her role as Lucilla, the mother of Mescal's Lucius. Gladiator II's box office earned an impressive $50 million in its opening weekend, setting it up to become one of Ridley Scott's highest-grossing films.

While early audience consensus isn't exactly giving Gladiator II the same Oscar buzz as its predecessor, it is still in the running for several categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor for Denzel Washington. Reviews for Gladiator II have placed it...

There’s a new frontrunner in Gold Derby’s Oscar odds for Best Director: Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist.”

The American filmmaker has broken his tie with Sean Baker (“Anora”) to claim the No. 1 position on our chart for the upcoming 2025 Oscars. Note that it’s still quite early in this awards season, and things could keep changing as our experts, editors, and users continue to update their predictions.

The A24 fictional drama centers around Adrien Brody‘s character László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States in the 1940s in the hopes of achieving the American Dream. While László is waiting for his wife (Felicity Jones) to join him, he starts working with his cousin (Alessandro Nivola) at a furniture store, and he eventually comes into contact with a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce).

This would be Corbet’s first career Oscar nomination, after...

Lol Crawley, Dp on Brady Corbet’s acclaimed Oscar contender The Brutalist, will receive the 2025 Robby Müller Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in January.

The honor, named for the late legendary Dutch cinematographer of Paris, Texas, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Mystery Train, is presented annually to an “an image maker who has created an authentic, credible and emotionally striking visual language.”

Crawley will attend IFFR in January to give a talk on his work as well as present a screening of The Brutalist, which will celebrate its Dutch premiere at the festival.

Crawley, a BAFTA and Independent Spirt Award nominee, lensed Corbet’s previous features, Vox Lux (2018) and The Childhood of a Leader (2015), and is known for his work on such features as Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years (2015), Antonio Campos’ The Devil All The Time (2020), and Noah Baumbach’s White Noise (2022).

The Brutalist...

M. Night Shyamalan has had one of the most fascinating careers in Hollywood history. Since falling from grace in the late 2000s, he's gone back to smaller budgets and more contained movies, in the process delivering one banger after another. From the critical and financial success of "Split," to the absolutely wild concept of "Old," Shyamalan has been on a roll in recent years. His latest film, "Trap," is a messy tale of two movies, as /Film's own Jeremy Mathai wrote in his review. One half is a nail-biting, tense thriller about a serial killer trapped at a concert with some rather catchy songs. The other is an increasingly silly, yet still thrilling cat-and-mouse game that changes the protagonist from Josh Hartnett's killer to Saleka Shyamalan's world-famous pop star, Lady Raven.

While "Trap" was only a modest box office success — mostly due to "Deadpool & Wolverine" being the...

In this line of work (writing about movies), hyperbole and festival hype can be a real problem. Sometimes, a film will play a festival to rapturous acclaim, only to then finally be released with a shrug. It's not even that these sorts of films end up being bad, it's just that it's very hard to live up to all that hype. I try very hard to tread carefully with these sorts of things — I don't want to oversell something. But let me tell you this: when it comes to Brady Corbet's "The Brutalist," believe the hype. Corbet's latest movie premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it was met with almost universal acclaim. It's played other festivals since then, and again and again, viewers are blown away. Having seen the film for myself, I can attest to its strengths: this movie is the real deal, folks. In fact,...

Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” has already stunned at Venice. Now, the epic drama is unfurling its awards campaign with the first trailer.

“The Brutalist” stars Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a fictional Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect who arrives in America to build a massive modern community center. The film spans 30 years in the life of Brody’s László, ranging from his project with his employer (Guy Pearce) to his rocky marriage with his wife (Felicity Jones).

The cast also includes Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin.

“The Brutalist” is writer/director Corbet’s third film after “The Childhood of a Leader” (2015) and “Vox Lux” (2018); he has also acted in films such as “Melancholia,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Thirteen.” Mona Fastvold co-wrote the script for “The Brutalist,” with Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera comparing the feature to King Vidor’s 1949 adaptation of “The Fountainhead.

This article contains spoilers for "Vox Lux," "Trap," "Smile 2," and "The Substance."

The marriage of popular music and subversive cinema is hardly new. Whether it's peppy musical numbers in "After the Thin Man," the music of Miles Davis in "Elevator to the Gallows," or the needle drops in many of the films of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, the combination of catchy melodies and infections rhythms with harrowing drama and the onset of violence has been a cinematic peanut butter and jelly for a long time now, almost as long as the dawn of movies themselves. Yet something very intriguing has been happening in American culture ever since the turn of the century. Where cinema has taken advantage of its malleability of genre and tone to explore the well-rounded totality of the human condition, pop music has undergone a curious shift.

The frivolity, ennui and devil-may-care attitude that so...

Smile 2 picks up right where Smile left off. Well, "six days later," as onscreen text tells us. It's a bold move from writer/director Parker Finn that combines with a bravura long-take opening sequence to announce that Smile 2 is going to be a lot. The movie pulls from a variety of sources, from the gaudy pop pageantry of Vox Lux to the sometimes shocking gore of Hollywood's flirtation with extremity in the 2000s, to deliver an often effective horror film that bites off more than it can chew. Or perhaps it just chews too long? The narrative moves smoothly enough from the first movie to the second, as we follow the trail of the communicable entity at the center of the Smile universe in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Portraying the life of a diva pop star — or, at least, doing it convincingly — isn’t the easiest thing for a movie to bring off. There are too many real-life counterparts. The director Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”), teaming up with Natalie Portman, got about halfway there in “Vox Lux.” Lady Gaga, drawing on elements of her own legend but shrewd enough to play the heroine of “A Star Is Born” as not a version of herself, created a character for the ages. More recently, M. Night Shyamalan seemed to make “Trap” mostly to let his budding musician daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, embody a pop singer — which she did with aplomb in concert, less convincingly in the backstage scenes. So when you hear that “Smile 2,” Parker Finn’s sequel to his effective if overloaded creep-out horror film of two years ago, is centered around a pop star, you may not exactly...

A brutal Oscar season is ahead…in a good way.

As the Oscar race heats up, Hollywood is bracing for an intense, wide-open awards season. After its whirlwind tour through the Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, A24’s newly acquired historical epic “The Brutalist” has emerged as a potential heavyweight in this year’s Academy Awards lineup. Starring Adrien Brody in a career-redefining role as a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and journeys to the U.S., the film screened in front of an influential audience at CAA on Sunday night. The room was filled with industry professionals, journalists, and Oscar winners like Cord Jefferson (“American Fiction”). After the screening, the film’s director, Brady Corbet, and co-writer Mona Fastvold participated in a post-screening Q&a session, giving the audience insight into the seven-year odyssey to bring this project to life.

“The Brutalist” follows 30 years in...

Writer-director Brady Corbet doesn’t see much difference between constructing a skyscraper and making a movie.

“There are so many similarities,” says Corbet, whose new film “The Brutalist,” which dramatizes the concessions architects are forced to accept, is also an allegory of Hollywood. “We’re usually working for a client. The infrastructure involved is enormous. The number of people required to run these operations is immense, and there are so many compromises you have to make. There aren’t many art forms with so many cooks in the kitchen.”

“The Brutalist” is more concerned with constructing monuments than making movies, but its story seems to be informed by Corbet’s personal experiences with art and commerce. It centers on László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian Jewish architect, who arrives in America after being interned at Buchenwald. His path intersects with that of a preening industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce...

“The Brutalist” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, and ever since it has been flying high in our Oscar odds based on the combined predictions of Gold Derby users. The film now ranks among the top 10 likely contenders for Best Picture, and it looks like more nominations than that could be in the offing. Make or update your Oscar predictions here.

See‘The Room Next Door’: From Golden Lion at Venice to golden Oscars?

The epic film chronicles the life of a Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor, László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who travels to America for a better life. The film earned raves, with critics describing the film as “monumental,” “classic” and “a major work of art.” Coming off that successful debut, the film ranks ninth on our Best Picture chart with 18/1 odds as of September 9. That’s up from a week earlier, September...

The Brutalist, Adrien Brody's latest drama venture and a film that's already making heads turn in the industry, has been snatched by independent distributor A24. What could be categorized as Brody's grand return to the Hollywood spotlight has been one of the most talked about films at this year's Venice International Film Festival. A24's decision to acquire the film for domestic distribution came right after director Brady Corbet won the Silver Lion award for Best Director at the prestigious festival. (The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodvar won the most important award this year.)

The Brutalist, directed by Corbet from a script co-written with Mona Fastvold, is a historical drama featuring Brody in the lead as Laszlo Toth, a Holocaust survivor given the chance to start over again in the United States with his wife Erzsbet. After they arrive in America, Toth, a very talented architect, faces...