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While the British coming-of-age story “Rocks” hasn’t been a part of the Oscar season conversation, the BAFTAs are a different story. The movie is nominated for eight awards at this Sunday’s ceremony, and has been available on Netflix since earlier this year. Although directed by Sarah Gavron (“Suffragette”), the key figures behind this acclaimed project is British-Nigerian playwright and screenwriter Theresa Ikoko. Ikoko co-wrote the script, her first, with seasoned scribe Claire Wilson...

Amid backlash to Georgia’s new voting law last week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy saw an opportunity: On April 1, he sent a letter to studio heads trying to woo production out of Georgia and into the Garden State. New Jersey has a better record on voting rights, he said, adding that the two states offer a similar 30 percent tax credit and New Jersey offers a 40 percent credit on studio construction projects. What Gov. Murphy declined to address is that Georgia has an uncapped incentive...

At the heart of every filmmaking decision is one question: Where is the audience in relationship to what is happening on screen? One of the most common approaches to answering this question is through subjectivity; by putting the viewer into a character’s point of view (often, quite literally), a filmmaker can shape how we emotionally absorb and viscerally react to the story unfolding on screen. When it came time to tell the story in “Sound of Metal,” in which hardcore drummer Ruben (Riz...

All products and services featured by IndieWire are independently selected by IndieWire editors. However, IndieWire may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. When it comes to capturing the essence of ’90s arcade games, retro video game machines are the way to go. You may not realize it, but playing an arcade game can transport you right back to the good old days of hitting up your local...

Bill Maher took aim at what he perceives to be the work of cancel culture during his usual Friday night “Real Time with Bill Maher” slot, sending up potentially problematic classic movies that could warrant a more contemporary content warning. Maher is riffing off Turner Classic Movies’ recent series “Reframed: Classic Films in the Rearview Mirror,” which reconsiders old movies due for a new cultural context. “Of course in this new era, they had to reframe the classics. So they have to have...

All products and services featured by IndieWire are independently selected by IndieWire editors. However, IndieWire may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. With so many laptops on the market, filmmakers and film students might find themselves confused about which brand or model to purchase. Thankfully, there are a lot of high-quality laptops available that are great for film editing and...

In watching “THEM: Covenant,” the new anthology series from Amazon Prime Video, I couldn’t help but be reminded of what the gifted young actress Marsai Martin recently said during an interview about her goals as a producer. “I don’t do no Black pain,” the “Black-ish” actress said. “If it’s Black pain I don’t go for it because there’s so many films and projects about that.” While pain and trauma are assuredly part of the Black experience, there’s only so much a viewer can take of “THEM”...

Oliver Sacks is the kind of subject for whom any portrait has an extremely high floor. There’s a patience and an accessibility in his written work that, if mirrored in the approach of any kind of biography, offers a welcome kind of clarity. “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” uses conversations with Sacks himself as a kind of rudder, a personal guide through the many of the chapters of his own story. Beginning with an overview of Sacks’ early years spent adrift and following through to an...

“The World Ends with You” was one of the best video games on the Nintendo DS and boasted a stellar cast of characters that helps the title retain a large fan base nearly 14 years after its release. Now, with a sequel on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch set for release in July, Funimation’s “The World Ends with You The Animation” is here to get newcomers up to speed and tickle the nostalgia buttons of the original game’s fans. Interested parties will be pleased to know that the...

Phoebe Waller-Bridge will star alongside Harrison Ford, who is returning to the role of the titular adventurous archaeologist, in the fifth installment of “Indiana Jones.” This is not the first time the “Fleabag” and “Killing Eve” creator will leave her mark on an iconic franchise, having voiced a droid in “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” Only this time, she’s a co-lead and we’ll be able to see her face. James Mangold is taking over the reins from Steven Spielberg, who directed all four previous...

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” Episode 4, “The Whole World Is Watching.”] A specter is haunting “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and based on “The Whole World Is Watching” there’s no exorcising it. The ghost of Steve Rogers’ Captain America was inescapable during the fourth episode, which saw a new entrant (however unlikely) in the Captain America sweepstakes and witnessed the probable destruction of the current...

“Thunder Force” is nearly half over before the action-comedy lands on a real joke: the introduction of co-star Jason Bateman as a half-superhero mutant with crab arms instead of human appendages. Jokes aside, Bateman’s “The Crab” also makes for a good foil to the eponymous Thunder Force, a pair of unexpected crime fighters who have emerged to battle the supervillain crime wave that has consumed the world since their childhood. They need all the help (or hurt) they can get. Melissa McCarthy...

When you read a lot of television writing, you start to realize that many critics have pet peeves or tropes that can make them a little dispirited about the medium as a whole. One such stumbling block is the reliance on in medias res in stories that don’t necessarily warrant them. For the unfamiliar, in medias res is a latin term which translates to “in the middle of things.” On TV, utilization of the concept will often see an episode begin “in the middle of” an action-packed sequence, in...