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It didn’t have Tom Cruise dangling from an airplane — it didn’t even have Peter Graves thumbing through IMF dossiers in his apartment — but the Mission: Impossible TV pilot still managed to light the fuse on one of Hollywood’s biggest action franchises. The brainchild of Rawhide alum Bruce Geller, the 1966–73 CBS series blended two of the era’s favorite movie genres — spy thrillers and heist dramas — into a precisely executed hour of espionage, complete with self-destructing tape recorders, necktie cameras and rubber masks that somehow made Martin Landau look like whichever fictional Eastern European despot needed toppling that week. Each Impossible Mission Force member brought a specific expertise and just enough cool to leave a mark: Landau’s chameleonic Rollin Hand (replaced by Leonard Nimoy in season four), Greg Morris as gadget genius Barney Collier, Peter Lupus as strongman Willy Armitage...

The Match Factory has closed more international distribution deals for the Cannes Competition title Sirat by Oliver Laxe not already picked up by Neon and Mubi. The Jury Prize winner has also been acquired by Altitude for UK and Ireland, Cine Video y TV for Latin America, Cineart for the Benelux, while Germany and Austria goes to Pandora Film and Switzerland goes to Filmcoopi. Sirat centers on a father and son joining a group of itinerant ravers in the deserts of Morocco in search for one last party. The Hollywood Reporter’s review called it a “techno-infused meditation on death and grief.” Other deals include Japan (Transformer), South Korea (Challan), Taiwan (Andrews Film), Australia and New Zealand (Madman Entertainment), Poland (New Horizons), Sweden (TriArt Film) and Norway (Fidalgo). Sirat, which also earned the Cannes Soundtrack Award in Cannes, earlier went to Neon for North America and Mubi took the film...

If “Gael Garcia Bernal as Magellan” sounds to you like a pretty cool Netflix series, you have never seen a film by Filipino auteur and slow-cinema master Lav Diaz. Known on the international festival circuit for his epically minimalist features with bladder-busting running times, his movies are challenging, high-art dramas made for a very select few — the opposite of the flashy, ADHD-friendly content found on streamers. Premiering in Cannes, where Diaz’s most awarded film, Norte, the End of History, played in Un Certain Regard back in 2013, Magellan (Magalhães) is not for the impatient viewer who likes their explorer stories action-packed and easy to digest. Magellan The Bottom LineA stunning time capsule that’s easier to admire than watch. Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Premiere) Cast: Gael García Bernal, Ângela Azevedo, Amado Arjay Babon, Ronnie Lazaro Director, screenwriter: Lav Diaz 2 hours 40 minutes And yet this exquisitely crafted feature may...

Following Succession, which ended two years ago, the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, said he wasn’t sure he wanted to make his follow-up project — and directorial debut — be another story about the wealthy. “It kind of wasn’t. I was trying to do other things,” Armstrong told The Hollywood Reporter on the carpet for the Mountainhead premiere in New York City Thursday night about working on the film after the Emmy-winning series. “Especially, I thought, maybe something that wasn’t in the world of rich people.” But he explains what changed his mind — and it had a lot to do with the tech bro billionaires that the movie is inspired by. “I ended up doing a bunch of research in this area for a piece I wrote, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the way that these guys spoke in public,” he said....

Mandy Walker has been elected the 48th president of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), making her the first woman to hold the prestigious position. The cinematographer notably made history with Elvis in 2023 when she became the society’s first woman to receive an ASC Award for feature film cinematography. Baz Luhrmann’s Austin Butler-led film about the King of Rock and Roll, too, earned Walker an Oscar nomination for best achievement in cinematography. “It is a great honor to be the president of the ASC, and an even bigger privilege to be the first woman to hold the position,” Walker said. “I am so humbled to take on the responsibility of representing a society that has carved out an inspiring, inclusive space to meet and support other cinematographers. I am proud of our century-old legacy to advance the art and science of cinematography, and...

Tom Cruise wasn’t the only impressive stuntman on the set of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Hayley Atwell revealed that she was almost nine months pregnant while shooting one of the film’s fight scenes. “During this fight sequence, we came back to it a few times to add a few elements to it, and in this clip, I’m actually eight and a half months pregnant,” Atwell told Fallon before the clip was aired on the show. “I’m serious, yes!” The Agent Carter star said that “everyone was so supportive” and they offered to have a stunt double step in for her to finish out the scene. Nonetheless, Atwell was eager to perform the stunt on her own. “I have to say, I was taken such good care of, everyone was so supportive,” she said....