movie review for the impossible

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The impossible, common sense media reviewers.

Very intense story of family's survival against the odds.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Ultimately, The Impossible is a story of a mother

Maria and Lucas do everything they can to help eac

The devastation the tsunami causes is catastrophic

Adults at the resort kiss and dance and embrace. T

Strong language includes a tween swearing. Words i

Grown-ups drink at the hotel bar and a dinner part

Parents need to know that The Impossible is an intense family drama set against the 2004 Asian tsunami. Because of the subject matter, there are many upsetting sequences, particularly in the first half hour after the tsunami hits. People are shown swept away and presumably killed by the rushing wall of water,…

Positive Messages

Ultimately, The Impossible is a story of a mother and son's devotion to each other after the unthinkable has happened. The movie reinforces the random way that natural disasters cause destruction. There's no reason some people survive and others perish; it's a terrible tragedy with unthinkable consequences. But throughout the calamity, people show each other extraordinary kindness and generosity, sending the message that even in times of despair, there are moments of hope and small miracles to celebrate.

Positive Role Models

Maria and Lucas do everything they can to help each other survive. There are several times when Lucas must act like the parent and take care of his mother. He even has to literally carry and hoist her up a tree. Although it's a burden, Maria convinces Lucas to save a little toddler boy they find.

Violence & Scariness

The devastation the tsunami causes is catastrophic. People are swept away in a wall of water, drowned or impaled or crushed by debris. Maria is seriously injured as her body makes impact in the rush of water. At one point, she's incredibly bloody and has a large flap of skin hanging off of her leg. People taken to the hospital are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Kids and teens will especially feel for Lucas, who at one point believes his mother is dead. Both Maria and Henry think the other has died. A tween yells at his mother a few times.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Adults at the resort kiss and dance and embrace. There's nudity, but in a completely asexual way. The mom, who was wearing a bathing suit when the tsunami struck, doesn't realize her breast is exposed until her son mentions it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes a tween swearing. Words include "hell" and "goddamn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Grown-ups drink at the hotel bar and a dinner party.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Impossible is an intense family drama set against the 2004 Asian tsunami. Because of the subject matter, there are many upsetting sequences, particularly in the first half hour after the tsunami hits. People are shown swept away and presumably killed by the rushing wall of water, and a mother is so severely injured that a part of her skin is no longer attached to her body. Parents, please know that you, too, will be affected by the horrors depicted in the film -- none greater than when a boy believes he's all that's left of his immediate family. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (20)
• Kids say (108)

Based on 20 parent reviews

So well done, but disappointed with the nudity(non-sexual)

Frighteningly realistic and sobering, yet uplifting, what's the story.

Based on the true story of a Spanish family that survived the 2004 Asian tsunami, THE IMPOSSIBLE follows Henry ( Ewan McGregor ) and Maria ( Naomi Watts ), a British couple who travels to a luxury resort in Thailand for a Christmas holiday. They have three kids: tween Lucas ( Tom Holland ) and two younger boys. On Dec. 26, 2004, as the family is playing poolside, the massive tsunami hits the area, sweeping thousands into the ocean. Maria survives the worst but is gravely injured. She finds her oldest, and together she and Lucas attempt to overcome each devastating moment.

Is It Any Good?

Movies about a massively destructive event, whether it's a war or 9/11, can be difficult to watch and even more difficult to make well. By focusing on one family, director Juan Antonio Bayona wisely distills the tsunami tragedy down to the myopic perspective of one distraught woman and her mature-beyond-his-years son. Watts and Holland's interactions beautifully capture the bond between mother and child.

Watts is terrific, and Holland is remarkable -- reminiscent of young Hunter McCracken in The Tree of Life . No longer a little boy but far from a man, Holland's Lucas is fiercely determined to survive and help his mother secure medical attention. Once they safely land at a Thai hospital, the story loses some of its immediacy, but then we find out what happened to the father and brothers thought lost. The Impossible isn't an easy viewing experience, but it reminds us all that even in times of despair, there are moments of hope and small miracles to celebrate.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether The Impossible is a disaster movie or not. How does the depiction of the tsunami compare to other films about catastrophes? Critics have said the movie's ending takes away from its powerful beginning. Do you agree?

What feelings do you have while watching this movie? Is it OK to feel happy for the main characters amid so much devastation?

Are cinematic deaths resulting from disasters or accidents different than those due to war or other forms of violence ?

The Impossible is based on a real family's true story. How accurate do you think it is? Why might filmmakers decide to change some details/facts? How could you find out more?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 21, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : April 23, 2013
• Cast : Ewan McGregor , Naomi Watts , Tom Holland
• Director : Juan Antonio Bayona
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Summit Entertainment
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Run time : 114 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity
• Last updated : May 11, 2024

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The Impossible Review

A character-driven drama, with surprising visual scope..

At times, The Impossible can feel emotionally draining and even exceedingly romantic, but the film more than makes up for it in mesmerizing imagery and ambitious performances. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

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Movie Review

Swept Away and Torn Apart in a Sea of Despair

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By A.O. Scott

• Dec. 20, 2012

The Asian tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, killed almost a quarter-million people in 14 countries. The scale and speed of the devastation defy comprehension, and no movie could be expected to convey the full measure of the horror. But disaster, real and imagined, is a staple of the modern cinematic imagination, and an event like the tsunami presents itself to an ambitious filmmaker as both a technical challenge and a moral risk.

“The Impossible,” the second feature from the Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona, uses digital imagery, meticulous sound design and tried-and-true editing techniques to recreate both the violence of unleashed waters and the desolation that followed their assault on southern Thailand. Much more than Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter,” which used the tsunami as a framing device for one of its tales of supernatural obsession, “The Impossible” plunges the audience into the catastrophe and then immerses us in the panic, grief and disorientation of the aftermath.

Mr. Bayona’s first film, “The Orphanage,” was a horror movie, a ghost story whose unusual emotional intensity was grounded in the anxious, desperate bond between mother and child. “The Impossible” is also, in its way, a horror film, with nature as the malevolent force threatening innocent lives. The dramatic emphasis is on the anguish of a mother and her son, who survive the waves and are separated from the rest of their family.

As the movie opens, Maria (Naomi Watts) and Henry (Ewan McGregor), an English couple living in Japan, are flying to Thailand with their three sons for a Christmas vacation at a luxurious beach resort. (The real people whose experiences inform “The Impossible” were a Spanish family of five on a similar trip.) They are troubled by the usual stresses — Henry worries about his job; Maria, a doctor who stopped practicing when they moved to Japan, wonders if she should go back to work; the boys bicker and whine — but they seem to be very nice people having a very good time.

Mr. Bayona and the screenwriter, Sergio G. Sánchez, do not spend much time filling in nuances of character. That job is left to the actors, who rise brilliantly to the task of showing the reactions of ordinary people to extreme circumstances. Maria is washed inland along with her oldest son, Lucas (Tom Holland), and is badly injured by the time they reach relatively dry land. Her fear, exhaustion and ferocious maternal determination dominate the first half of the movie, and Ms. Watts moves through these emotional states with instinctive grace and an intensity that is never showy. Mr. Holland, meanwhile, matures before our eyes, navigating the passage from adolescent self-absorption to profound and terrible responsibility. He is a terrific young actor.

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Movie Reviews

Reliving an 'impossible' catastrophe.

Jeannette Catsoulis

The Impossible is based on the true story of a family's brush with disaster while vacationing in the Pacific. Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment hide caption

The Impossible

• Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
• Genre: Drama
• Running time: 114 minutes

Rated PG-13 for intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity

With: Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts

Watch A Clip

'Swept Everyone Away'

Credit: Summit Entertainment

Starring flying debris and surging walls of water, The Impossible takes the template of the old-timey disaster movie, strips it to the bone and pumps what's left up to 11.

Decades ago, perched in front of Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno , audiences were rewarded with thrills that depended on fleshed-out characters ( Steve McQueen as a fire chief!) and multiple interconnected storylines. How pampered we were.

Because this based-on-true-life tale of a Spanish family trapped in Thailand by the 2004 tsunami is much worse than a disaster: It's an ordeal. As punishing to watch as it must have been to film — especially for Naomi Watts, who absorbs most of the abuse — this sledgehammer of a picture never lets up. From start to finish, Watts' pale, slender body is pummeled, gored, pierced and raked over what looks like acres of saw grass and jagged detritus. Like James Franco in 127 Hours (an ordeal movie if ever there was one), Watts isn't so much battling the elements as battling the frailties of her own flesh.

Cycling through the late-night talk shows, Watts and her co-star, Ewan McGregor, have been extolling a slavish devotion to accuracy on the part of the film's Spanish director, Juan Antonio Bayona, and his screenwriter, Sergio G. Sanchez. It bears mentioning, however, that this precision has a very narrow focus, encouraging us to care only about a single (white, wealthy) family among the hundreds of thousands of (mostly poor, mostly brown) locals killed and maimed. For all the energy and ingenuity lavished on the project — the first to revolve around this century's greatest natural tragedy — you'd think there would have been room to explore the wider suffering.

Maria (Naomi Watts) and Lucas (Tom Holland) are ripped from their family by a tsunami. Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment hide caption

Maria (Naomi Watts) and Lucas (Tom Holland) are ripped from their family by a tsunami.

This microscopic approach may be economical, but it casts a pall of selfishness over events that might have read differently had the filmmakers exhibited a more universal compassion. (Those early disaster movies knew it was more humane, not just smarter filmmaking, to offer us a variety of victims.) So when businessman Henry Bennett (McGregor) dumps his two youngest sons with strangers while he hunts for his wife, Maria (Watts), and their oldest son, Lucas (a remarkable Tom Holland), he seems less the worried patriarch than a man accustomed to offloading inconveniences.

As it turns out, Henry is pretty much peripheral to the action anyway. From the moment the family, hours after arriving at a luxury beach resort, is separated by the mountainous tidal wave, he barely registers. Stuck on the fringes of the movie and squinting through a bad case of pinkeye, Henry and his quest are completely obliterated by the mother-son drama unfolding at its center.

And as Maria and Lucas make their slow, bloody way across a devastated landscape, her wide-open wounds are captured with almost sickening authenticity. Audience members have reportedly fainted during screenings, and it's not hard to see why; this isn't a film you want to experience after a heavy lunch.

Visually stunning but manipulative in the extreme — try not to roll your eyes as the various family members miss one another by inches — The Impossible nevertheless contains two of the year's best performances. Though presented as nothing more than a survival machine, Watts snags our sympathy through subtle shifts in expression and tone.

And young Holland (just 13 when he joined the production in 2009) is a marvel: When Lucas, after losing his mother in the chaos of a crowded hospital, finds her being prepped for emergency surgery, his angry relief is the film's most touching moment.

Unfortunately it's followed by one of the funniest. "Think of something nice," advises a nurse as she places an anesthesia mask over Maria's face. Like maybe a beach vacation?

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• DVD & Streaming

The Impossible

Content caution.

In Theaters

• December 21, 2012
• Naomi Watts as Maria Bennett; Ewan McGregor as Henry Bennett; Tom Holland as Lucas Bennett; Samuel Joslin as Thomas Bennett; Oaklee Pendergast as Simon Bennett

Home Release Date

• April 23, 2013
• Juan Antonio Bayona

Distributor

• Summit Entertainment

Movie Review

The Bennetts need a vacation. And while you may not think of a beach getaway in Thailand as the perfect setting for Christmas break, Henry is hoping it’ll prove to be a good choice.

He, his wife, Maria, and their three boys have been living in Japan for a while now, thanks to his job. But with a shake-up looming at the office, things could be changing in not-so-great ways. And eldest son Lucas has been going through that early teen angst period. So getting away and frolicking in the sun and surf for a week might just let them all unwind a little.

The first two days are great. The Khao Lak resort is brand-new and spotless. They spend Christmas Eve on the beach. They share great food that night. They launch floating lanterns into the evening breeze.

Christmas Day, just fabulous. Gifts. Laughter. More sunshine.

The 26th of December, however, starts off with a little something odd. A strange rumbling sound. The wind changes suddenly. The island birds start going crazy. What’s this all about? From their spots around the hotel pool everything looks fine.

But why are the palm trees shaking like that? Henry and the little ones stop their splashing in the wading pool and look up. Is that tree tumbling over sideways? Is the—

A 90-foot wave roars in from the ocean. It crests the pool area wall. And Henry and Maria both start screaming for the boys … just before everything is obliterated.

Positive Elements

The Bennetts are washed away, along with thousands of others on the island. They’re left battered and bloodied by the raging waters. The first of the clan we see pop up from the murky depths is Maria … and she immediately throws herself into danger to rescue Lucas, who she sees floating by on the surging tide. Then the two of them struggle to keep each other alive as they tumble and bob.

When they finally make it out of the debris-choked flow, Maria has sustained some pretty severe wounds. But despite her condition, she urges her son to help a young boy they hear crying from under some wreckage. Lucas refuses at first to risk being out in the open in case another wave hits. But Maria tells him that they must, “Even if it’s the last thing we do.”

Those panicked moments set up the story’s central self-sacrificial theme. We see scores of complete strangers doing whatever they can to help and comfort those in need. And the young boy’s rescue ultimately teaches Lucas a vital lesson about the value of life and sacrifice that impacts him deeply.

At one point in an overcrowded hospital, a suffering Maria urges Lucas to go out and help others rather than just sitting by her side. So he sets out to try to reconnect kids and their parents. Henry applies that same forward-driving self-sacrificial attitude in trying to find his lost family members. He refuses to stop looking even though it means putting himself in difficult and dangerous situations. He tells his young son, “The most scary bit for me was when I came up and I was all alone. And then I saw the two of you, I didn’t feel so scared anymore.”

Even before the incredibly destructive natural disaster hits, it’s evident that Henry and Maria love their boys dearly. Henry is always ready to roughhouse and play at a moment’s notice. And after the tsunami it’s clear that both parents would readily die to save their kids or each other. Their love and devotion is fully reciprocated: When Maria is hampered by her wounds, young Lucas strains to help her climb to safety. Even 7-year-old Thomas steps up to protect and comfort his younger sibling when they’re by themselves.

Spiritual Elements

The Bennetts enjoy Christmas morning together, though there’s no apparent connection to the spiritual side of the holiday.

Sexual Content

Always in nonsexual contexts we several times see Maria’s bare breasts. First it’s a brief side view as she’s dressing. Then, after the flood, she and Lucas are climbing out of the water and her tank top has been tattered by the buffeting debris, exposing her chest. Lucas quickly turns away, saying, “I can’t see you like this.” (The camera sees and then pulls away too.) A terribly embarrassed Maria ties her shirt together as best she can, and some women later offer her better covering. When they make it to the hospital a doctor starts cutting her clothing away to repair the massive wound on her chest, and again Lucas must turn away from his mother’s nakedness that moviegoers also see.

Lucas spots a fully nude man walking beside the road as the truck he’s riding in buzzes quickly by. (We can tell he’s naked, but the bouncing camera obscures the details.)

Before and after the tsunami, men and women wear various pieces of swimwear; some of the women have on bikinis. A stray joke alludes to hippies all sleeping in the same bed … “just like your old college days.”

Violent Content

The tsunami’s impact on the island is truly devastating, and the movie depicts it very realistically. People are tossed about and slammed into solid objects by the churning waters. Scores of dead bodies float underwater. More corpses lay facedown in the mud or along the side of the road. We see a pickup truck packed with corpses stacked like cord wood. Henry searches through body bag after body bag for his family.

In the hospital we’re shown hundreds of injured people. Some sport badly broken, torn and twisted limbs. The rooms are crammed full, many with the floors and walls splattered with blood and filth. A female patient vomits blood. And Maria gags on a long stringy object that she pulls from her throat.

That’s the least of Maria’s worries, though; her wounds are the most gruesome we see up close. When she finally rises out of the water with Lucas we can see a large gouge in her upper torso, along with numerous bloody scrapes and slashes over most of her body and face. One of her eyes is badly bruised and bloodied, and it nearly swells shut. A ripped open cut in her upper thigh shows that a slab of skin and muscle has been cut out and left dangling from the profusely bleeding wound. She wraps this injury with a dirty cloth and trails blood until she can no longer carry her own weight.

Later, in a flashback, we see how Maria received all that terrible damage as we watch the flood waters smash her through a glass wall and then tumble her savagely over and through flesh-tearing branches, broken masonry and other underwater debris.

Henry has quite a few scrapes, cuts and bruises as well, including a hemorrhaged pupil. We don’t see him get hurt, except for when he takes a crashing fall while searching for his wife. He then drags himself up from the offending hole, covered in blood. Henry and Maria both cry out in agony at times.

A car floats by, and we hear a screaming baby’s cry echo out from the vehicle’s interior. Long aerial camera shots reveal just how demolished the populated parts of the island are.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear “h-ll” three times in an emotionally overwhelming sequence when mother and son are reunited.

Drug and Alcohol Content

The Bennetts’ hotel room refrigerator is stocked with soda and beer. Henry and Maria talk of sharing a glass of wine after the kids go to bed.

What do you do when all the little expected things of life are ripped away from you? When the laptops and expensive shoes, sibling squabbles and job worries are all crushed beneath a tidal wave and your life is left hanging by a thread? What’s really important then? What do you reach for?

Those are the questions The Impossible —a movie based on a real family’s impossible struggles during the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004—asks and answers. And it does so quite powerfully.

It talks of an undying human spirit, showing us the fiece protectiveness complete strangers can muster for one another. The illustrates the unyielding care and loyalty a parent bestows upon a child, a husband upon a wife. It speaks of the purity of self-sacrifice, the anguish of loss and the strength of love.

The film’s raging tsunami special effects are flat-out stunning. The acting is utterly convincing. And the tense tale of scattered family members fighting to stay alive while desperately searching for nothing more than a reassuring touch of a loved one’s hand or a tearful comforting embrace, is immersive and very, very moving.

It’s also quite terrifying and wrenching. The realistic death, devastation, excruciating pain, bloody filth, and visceral glimpses of torn, naked flesh are difficult images to see—as they impart a life-affirming tale unlike so many others that surround it.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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What it's about.

A heart-wrenching tribute to victims of natural disasters that is one of despair, suffering, and hope. And it wouldn’t be so damning if it weren’t based off a true story surrounding the tragedy that killed more than 230,000 people. Boxing Day 2004 was one of the most memorable dates for wedded couple, Henry (Ewan McGregor) and Maria (Naomi Watts, for an Oscar nominated performance). Just two days prior, they arrived at Orchid Beach Resort in Thailand to celebrate the Christmas holidays together with their three children. After a squabble with the crew regarding their room reservations, they are granted the privilege of staying in a peaceful villa and all seems to be well. Nature had other plans in mind, though, and facing it head-on is the bittersweet reality.

I’ve seen this movie too many times. Love it. It’s not for the faint hearted. You will feel as if you yourself are experiencing the tsunami. You’ll cringe in pain when the characters do and feel their relief too.

katmarharr17

I notice something new every time. It’s not a light, ‘make you-feel-better’ kind of movies. It’s an in your face, ‘this is life’, emotional, and raw kind of films.

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Movie review: ‘The Impossible’ has the right touch with real horror

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So terrifying is the 2004 tsunami as imagined in “The Impossible,” its destructive force engulfing the screen with such violent menace, that the imagery alone elicits a rising dread so intense you may feel yourself gasping for breath.

Spanish-born director J.A. Bayona must have been tempted to let the monstrous waves triggered by the Indian Ocean earthquake that devastated South East Asia and left hundreds of thousands dead overwhelm the dramatic story he tells.

That never happens in this profoundly moving film inspired by the real-life experience of the Alvarez Belon family on that fateful December day. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star as Maria and Henry, on holiday with their three boys at a Thailand beach resort, and the film introduces gifted young Tom Holland as the couple’s oldest son Lucas.

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Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family’s survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title. Their situation was heartbreaking, their courage in the face of it humbling. It is the kind of ode to the human spirit that you hope comes along, and not just during the holiday season.

One surprise is that it took a horror auteur to pull off such a grounded film without letting the tsunami, or the sentiment, get out of control, although he had an abundance of both in Sergio G. Sanchez’s screenplay. You could argue that “The Impossible” could have benefited from more nuance in the dialogue, but that flaw only slightly dims the power of the film.

As the movie opens, Maria and Henry are on a turbulent flight with their boys, Lucas, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). A smooth landing and 24 hours later, the Christmas presents dispensed and wrapping paper crumpled on the floor, they head to the pool. Bayona uses that brief calm before the tsunami to do more than introduce us to the people whose journey we will follow.

In a handful of scenes, the director lays the framework for the way in which he will use sight and sound to define their experience. The deafening roar of the jet engines, the glassy ocean underneath it, the eerie silence that thickens in the moments before the tsunami hits, and the muffled screams of Maria when it does, are beyond even what Bayona achieved in his petrifying Cannes Film Festival debut a few years ago. “The Orphanage,” also written by Sanchez, was a far more traditional genre film, though the director’s understanding of the fear that comes with the loss of control — those moments when forces beyond you take over your fate — very much infiltrated that film too.

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For his second feature film, Bayona has significantly refined the sensory sensibilities, working once again with cinematographer Oscar Faura, whose impressive background includes other unsparing examinations of the human condition, notably 2010’s “Biutiful,” with Javier Bardem, and 2004’s “The Machinist,” with Christian Bale. You believe it when the filmmakers say the eight or so minutes of the tidal wave that we see on screen was a year in preparation and a month in shooting the special and visual effects veterans Felix Berges and Pau Costa created.

Like the experience of the family separated by the tsunami, the narrative is split between Maria and Lucas’ journey and Henry’s with the two younger boys, though the mother and son arc dominates. In the panic that overtakes Maria when she surfaces to a vast churn of water and debris, alone, no sight of her family or anyone else, the odds of survival are laid out. When she spots Lucas struggling in the current, the clash between incredible hope and absolute fear surfaces. Both those emotions carry the film.

Soon it becomes clear that coming out alive is no guarantee of survival. Maria’s injuries are grave and in that moment when Lucas sees a gaping wound and whispers “Mama,” the boy becomes a man. The many ways in which Lucas is forced to grow up in just a matter of days, and Maria’s instinctive understanding that to come out of this intact she must find a way to guide her son’s choices even as she lies near death, is the real heart of the movie. Holland and Watts’ onscreen bond is one of the most poignant aspects of the film.

As is always the case in disasters like these, the road to help is paved by the care and generosity of strangers, and the movie is filled with the many small acts of kindness extended to the family along the way. The villagers who rip off a door to carry Maria, the man who lends Henry his cell phone despite the precious minutes of battery life he will lose.

Henry spends the hours after the tsunami walking through the devastation screaming Maria and Lucas’ names, McGregor channeling such grief in every labored step. Soon he is forced to trust his 5- and 7-year-old boys to others so they can go to the safety of the hills as his search for the rest of the family continues.

Miles away in an over-crowded hospital, Maria faces multiple surgeries in the crudest of circumstances. The scope of the damage and the difficult realities are woven in. Pick-up trucks carrying bodies, the makeshift message boards with names of the missing, aid workers trying to keep up with the unending string of injuries, the parentless children, the childless parents, random family photos covered in mud, final notes left behind, houses reduced to matchstick heaps, and the growing field of bodies in bags become the backdrop. It was a fine line to walk to show the extent of the disaster and its human cost without making the moments feel like exploitation. The filmmakers have handled it with a sensitivity that is respectful of the loss.

Though many people will know the ending before they walk into the theater, that doesn’t make “The Impossible” any less affecting. For it is in the details — the many ways in which fate and circumstance intervened, and what survival required of each member of the Alvarez Belon family — that you find the far better story.

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Former Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey is an award-winning entertainment journalist and bestselling author. She left the newsroom in 2015. In addition to her critical essays and reviews of about 200 films a year for The Times, Sharkey’s weekly movie reviews appeared in newspapers nationally and internationally. Her books include collaborations with Oscar-winning actresses Faye Dunaway on “Looking for Gatsby” and Marlee Matlin on “I’ll Scream Later.” Sharkey holds a degree in journalism and a master’s in communications theory from Texas Christian University.

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The Impossible : Naomi Watts Keeps This Disaster Film Afloat

The technical and emotional marvel from the Spanish filmmaking team of Juan Antonio Bayona and Sergio G. Sanchez hits you like a tidal wave

The Impossible, a feature film based on the true account of a Spanish family’s experiences during Indonesia ’s devastating 2004 tsunami, opens in darkness, with a dull roar. A calm blue ocean appears on the screen, then a plane screams into the frame as if catapulted from the projection booth. The start-stop motion jolts you into the churning, turbulent reality of The Impossible : in this cinematically recreated hell you’re going to see, feel and practically taste everything. The Impossible is technologically a marvel—the tsunami experience is harrowingly believable—but also emotionally rich. I hesitate to use this term, since it is so often equated with hokey, but The Impossible is life-affirming.

The noisy plane swooping over the ocean brings the Belon family to Thailand to spend the Christmas holiday on the beach. Henry Belon (Ewan McGregor) has a big job in Japan while Maria (Naomi Watts), trained as a doctor, stays home with their three young sons. Obviously, the Belons are no longer Spanish. Maybe Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz weren’t available? Or maybe if you can get Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in your movie, you just make accommodations to the narrative. But it’s worth noting that of the estimated 282,000 people who died or disappeared in the tsunami, only about 1,000 were European, so the filmmakers were already starting from a point that could be contentious—what about all those dark skinned residents of the Third World who died or lost everything? Turning the Spaniards into blue-eyed blonde Brits only exacerbates the sense that this is a story about a very small, well-to-do segment of the victim pool.

( READ: Time’s list of 12 disaster movies that top Titanic )

However, The Impossible moves so fast that there’s scarcely any time to catch your breath, let alone dwell on such matters. Director Juan Antonio Bayona and writer Sergio G. Sanchez made a name for themselves with 2007’s elegant, slow-simmering horror film The Orphanage, but this time, they skip the tantalizing buildup. A typical Hollywood production would require someone to have an argument or misunderstanding prior to the wave hitting, just to heighten regrets and increase the sense of calamity. But the loving Belon family celebrates Christmas at their paradisiacal hotel, snorkel and dine by candlelight. Then in the morning, they hit the pool with books and balls.

The first warning they get of the oncoming wave is the clamor of departing birds. Maria is farthest back, and so endures the horror of watching her eldest, most independent son, Lucas (the fiercely good Tom Holland) struck first, then her husband and the two younger boys, 5 and 7. Watts’ primal screams as she clings to a tree are eloquent; how could anyone so small survive something so big? When Lucas is swept past her, alive, she lets go and follows him. It’s both a remarkable decision and completely understandable, not so much bravery as maternal necessity. When the waves finally subside, mother and son are battered and bloody but together. As they wade waist deep through an apocalyptic landscape, you feel them forming their own fierce little unit, one where all bets are off. “Is it over?” Lucas asks her. It’s clear that Maria has always had the answers, but she responds with terrifying uncertainty, “I don’t know.”

( READ: Remember how the world was supposed to end in 2012? TIME’s Richard Corliss on 2012 )

There are saving graces, a can of Coke plucked intact from the wreckage (it’s always Coke, right? Remember The Road ?), and the affections of a blonde boy the pair rescues, but Maria is badly wounded—Lucas nearly retches when he sees the flap of flesh hanging off her leg—and the movie doesn’t get any easier when the kindness of native strangers deposits them at a hospital. The wounded are zombies, coughing up unrecognizable, black objects, bleeding on the floor, too stunned to care. Maria could die of infection, or from whatever it was that punched a hole in her chest underwater. “You see that boy,” Maria tells the doctor attending her. “I’m all he’s got in the world.” If you’ve seen the too-revealing trailer for The Impossible , you know this isn’t true, and may think, as I did, that you know the whole story already. I was happy to be proved wrong; the entire family’s survival—Henry and the boys have their own heartwrenching challenges—provides its fair share of suspense.

Tsunamis are so unimaginable that the desire to see, to experience a Biblical wall of water for oneself, can run very deep (my own was the only reason to see Clint Eastwood’s off-key, Hereafter ). The Impossible slapped some sense into my lust for disaster porn by enlightening me, from this safe but still palpable distance, on what it’s like to be keelhauled through populated areas. It left me shaken.

But also strangely bolstered, ready to go out there and be fiercely strong, like Maria. The Impossible’s lessons about disorientation and adapting to disaster—it’s hard not to love Maria when she binds her wound with tree branches—can be applied well beyond the tsunami scenario. As to the question everyone asks—how would I cope?—Watt’s Maria gives you something to aspire to. Even flat on a cot with an oxygen mask on her face, Watts is constantly connecting, with Lucas, with the injured around her and with the audience. As an actress she gave greatly in Michael Haneke’s 2007 Funny Games and in 2009’s Mother and Child , but in the former her performance was limited by the film’s single key of sadism and few saw the latter. She’s always superlative, but The Impossible is Watts’ best performance in years. The Impossible is full of great special effects, and I’m enough of a natural disaster junkie that I’d have seen the movie just for them, but in the end what I’ll remember is Maria’s face, her cries and her determination.

READ: TIME’s Mary Pols on Naomi Watts in 2009’s Mother and Child SEE: Where Naomi Watt’s landed on Richard Corliss’s list of best performances in 2004

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The Impossible – review

D espair, pain, panic and hope fight for supremacy in this outstandingly made and heartwrenching film, based on the true-life story of a Spanish family who went on a Christmas holiday in Thailand in 2004 and were caught up in the tsunami that hit south-east Asia, killing 230,000 people. With simplicity and conviction, it manages to be something other than a conventional disaster movie. The tsunami sequence itself is a masterly piece of film-making – and as for what follows, I have to admit to being blindsided by its real emotional power. This film is of course vulnerable to charges of manipulation, and of magnifying the western-tourist experience at the expense of the indigenous communities who lost everything. But in the end I found honesty and compassion in The Impossible. It could well be Ewan McGregor's finest hour, and there were long sections that I had to watch through a wobbly blur of tears.

It is directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and written by Sergio Sánchez, who collaborated on the excellent ghost story The Orphanage in 2007. The Spanish family has been turned into well-off Brits: Maria (Naomi Watts) and Henry (McGregor) and their three boys, Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Prendergast). They are a little stressed, a little smug, blandly accepting the luxury of their Thai holiday complex after a mild squabble over whether they would get exactly the beachside villa they had booked. Henry then broods over work emails on his smartphone, and Bayona and Sánchez plant a seed of doubt by making Maria's poolside reading a novel by Joseph Conrad. We don't see which, but it could be Typhoon.

Fans of The Orphanage will be on the lookout for touches of the unearthly or uncanny in the way premonitions of disaster are offered. Apart from Conrad, I could see only one: a strange, brief sequence in which we view the beach resort from the sea, as if from the point of view of that malign force about to destroy it.

The deluge itself is viscerally real and almost unwatchable. Clint Eastwood's 2010 movie Hereafter began with a similar scene, a reconstruction of the tsunami that was well made and certainly far superior to the rest of his film, on a similar subject. But Bayona's version is markedly better, created with colossal technical flair.

What The Impossible brings home is the simple agony and terror of being separated, a void which is worse than physical injury. In the chaos and devastation, the parents and children find themselves, variously, in different parts of this post-apocalyptic landscape. They wonder if their loved ones are dead, or about to be dead; they wonder if they themselves are going to die, if they would be better off dead, and if being dead is in fact what they will come to want more than anything.

Out of nowhere, McGregor delivers a performance with a sledgehammer emotional punch. Until the disaster struck, his Henry had been an identikit nice guy, a bland, somewhat self-satisfied tourist who fulfilled his parenting duties a little self-consciously. But at the low point of his despair, Henry has to borrow someone else's mobile phone and call his wife's father to tell him the situation. Simply having to enunciate what has happened overwhelms him with grief and fear, and he sounds just as much a scared little boy as any of his sons.

Watts's Maria is suffering her own torment in hospital, almost unconscious with a badly injured leg: Lucas – in a very decent performance from Holland – is anxiously watching over his mother, terrified that he will be separated from her, but at last takes a break and wanders around the hospital on a self-imposed mission to re-unite strangers with their lost children or partners. His altruism is rewarded with success, but then punished by a horribly ironic twist of fate.

And so The Impossible carries on, with some uncompromisingly big lachrymose moments and near-miss suspense scenes. The overhead shot showing dead bodies laid out with military organisation and precision nowhere visible in the shattered world of the living is a shock. This film is not especially complex, and not subtle, but there is judgment and intelligence in the simple idea of survival being the most agonising thing, and making survivor guilt the psychological aftershock of a shattering and irreparable blow.

• Drama films
• World cinema
• Ewan McGregor

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The Impossible submerges the true impact of the tsunami

Attempting the Impossible: why does western cinema whitewash Asian stories?

The Impossible stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts - video interview

The Guardian Film Show: Life of Pi, The Impossible and Jack Reacher - video reviews

Ewan McGregor: 'The Impossible is my first film about being a parent'

The Impossible – review

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‘The Impossible’ (2012) Movie Review

By Brad Brevet

After 20 minutes, the emotional leash on The Impossible is at its limit. After 40 minutes we’ve heard enough screaming and pained exasperations to last a lifetime. The final hour is sopping with melodrama so contrived I’d love to see someone try and convince me I was watching a story that’s supposedly true.

We’re told this is the story of a family separated during the 2004 tsunami that hit the coast of Thailand on December 26, 2004. As the text fades away, two solitary words remain emblazoned on screen… “true story”. I saw this and believed the emphasis remained not only for added dramatic effect, but because I was about to see the most honest account of the story director Juan Antonio Bayona ( The Orphanage ) could provide. Yeah right!

The film begins by introducing us to Maria ( Naomi Watts ), Henry ( Ewan McGregor ), Lucas ( Tom Holland ), Simon ( Oaklee Pendergast ) and Thomas ( Samuel Joslin ). They settle in to their resort bungalow, let loose some Chinese lanterns on Christmas Eve, open presents and capture family movies on Christmas Day and settle in poolside a day later. Henry is playing with the boys in the pool while Maria reads a book in the sun when a massive wave rises from the sea, sweeping away everything in its path.

Maria and Lucas are separated from Henry, Simon and Thomas as the massive current takes them deeper inland. The effects during the scene are astonishing. Palm trees bend and give way under the pressure of the water, cars are floating by and Maria and Lucas are pummeled by floating debris, sustaining injuries that will make the journey to safety much more difficult.

It’s a harrowing and effective sequence. A mother’s desire to protect her son and a son unable to see his mother in pain works to great dramatic effect. With the destroyed landscape surrounding them and their injuries taken into account, they have a long and arduous road ahead of them and they are only half of the story. Henry and the boys have their own journey to make and you better believe tough times are ahead.

All things considered, one problem the movie faces is the fact there isn’t enough story to tell. Dramatic license was clearly taken as the story progresses and once the tsunami has passed not enough is left to sustain any kind of feature running time, even at only 98 minutes long. The only way it can attempt to keep you invested is through the characters’ constant pain and suffering as they try to reunite with one another. If it isn’t physical pain, it’s emotional loss or the recounting the story to loved ones over the phone.

It’s easy to feel compassion for their plight and the screenplay goes to great, melodramatic lengths to make sure the human spirit is just as much the highlight of the film as is a family’s love for one another. But it is presented in such a heavy-handed, obvious manner with one of the worst narrative devices used late in the film to bring tension to the picture that you end up losing interest altogether.

The most surprising thing is that it was written by Sergio G. Sanchez who wrote The Orphanage for Bayona, a film so subtle and delicate in narrative it practically hums its dramatic beats while The Impossible screams at the top of its lungs. The story consistently beats you over the head to the point you’re numb to the characters’ struggle and resorts to terribly dismissive dialogue in the latter moments that all you can do is begin to chuckle at the contrivances.

It’s really too bad it all had to end so poorly because the first 20 minutes are quite strong with Watts working her ass off in what looked like a tough role to begin with and Holland is also quite strong as much of the heavy lifting is placed on the young actor’s (who looks a lot like Jamie Bell) shoulders.

Overall, it’s a film that hits hard in its opening and hopes it has softened you up enough along the way to tug at your heartstrings in the end. I’m sure it will end up working for some, but for me I got to the point where I’d just had enough.

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'The Impossible': A Tsunami Gone Bad

Here we have two halves of a half-true story: moving scenes of a family facing disaster, stuffed up against a mini-thriller of doom and a goopy feel-good drama. Is this a real-life fable of survival, or a sober look at an unimaginable catastrophe?

The Impossible , Juan Antonio Bayona's new tsunami flick, begins with a title card informing us that what we are about to witness is a true story of a family's experience during the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. Everything but "true story" then fades away, and the words linger there — "true story... true story..." — as if to hypnotize us and inoculate the film against any claims of sensationalism. There is then a rumble, a churning sound, something growing louder and louder. Is it the tsunami coming, an early aural glimpse of the movie's grim and terrifying set piece? Well, no, as it turns out; it's an airplane engine, which Bayona reveals to us with a jolt. It's a strange fake-out in a movie like this — we know what we're here to watch, and, given the subject matter, there's no need to thrill us or trick us with whiz-bang flourishes. Same goes for the make-you-jump turbulence we experience once inside the airplane, where we first meet our noble family. Parents Maria (Naomi Watts) and Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons (Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, and Oaklee Pendergast) are traveling from Japan, where they live because of Henry's job, to a tony resort in Thailand, where they will spend Christmas. Maria is afraid of flying, their older son Lucas (the remarkable Billy Elliot vet Holland) is petulantly ignoring his brothers, and Henry keeps wondering if he remembered to set the alarm back at the house. (This scene is so familiar that I half expected Watts to sit up with a fright and yell "Kevin!!") It's all meant to be rambling and naturalistic, but it quickly struck me as oddly contrived and generic instead. This is a real family we're talking about, so where is the idiosyncrasy, the specificity?

The scenes leading up to the big wave are charming enough — the three English lads opening presents on Christmas morning, Watts and McGregor smiling prettily at each other over a pleasant Christmas Eve dinner — but we learn very little about who these people are. They are simply totems of doomed, ignorant touristic bliss, wealthy and comfortable enough to be among the most unsuspecting of the catastrophe's victims. There is also something unsettling in the casting of Watts and McGregor, and the three boys by extension. The original family is Spanish, and this is a Spanish production directed by a Spanish director. And yet we've got these two pale, cup-of-tea folks as our leads. I'm glumly convinced that marketing concerns played a factor here, but by altering these real-life people like this — not only making them proper and fair-haired and English, but also removing any messy particulars from the characters — it's hard to have anything to grab on to once disaster strikes. Sure, it's sad and scary in a general way, a family in peril bravely trying to survive in a brutal situation. But why then linger so bluntly on the "true story" if one large identifier has been changed and everything else muted down to what amount to rough outlines? I feel like we would be even more transported and horrified by what happens next if, during this gauzy but tension-freighted pre-nightmare stretch, we got to know the people — the real people — we were about to watch get tossed around. As it is, though, we're just seeing pretty, golden nonentities thrashing toward salvation. It's moving enough, but it could have been heart-stopping.

Still, the initial tsunami scenes are a triumph of chaos and panic. As happened in the real deal, we've little time to prepare. The wall of brown, debris-filled water is soon upon our heroes and the camera stays with Watts and she's tossed end over end and comes up gasping for air, gripping a palm tree, alone in a racing tide of water. It's here that Watts truly begins her deeply committed performance; Maria is about to suffer, a lot . At first screaming out of sheer animal terror, Maria eventually hones her vocal energy upon seeing her oldest son Lucas flailing in the water. What ensues is the film's strongest — and scariest — sequence, in which mother and son try to reach each other, find something to hold onto, and avoid any dangerous debris. They succeed at two out of the three. Meaning, Maria is pretty badly hurt, her chest punctured and leg torn up in gruesome fashion. After clinging desperately to debris for a while, mother and son find safety on dry-enough land, though Maria's condition is worsening by the minute. Eventually they receive help, and Maria is taken to a hospital, weak and sick with infection, neither she nor Lucas quite ready to fully comprehend what they know must be true: that Henry and the other two boys are gone. Maria's dreadful condition serves as something of a distraction, and thus we begin the third and final phase of the movie, the recovery and reunion.

It's here where Sergio G. Sánchez's weak screenplay truly begins to break down, as we're forced to endure weary cliché after weary cliché, followed by a series of near misses that's awfully stage-y for a film trying so hard to be real and affecting. Lucas is dispatched by his bed-ridden mother to help in any way he can, and we follow the boy as he explores the sprawling, jam-packed hospital and begins trying to reconnect scared and confused survivors with their family members. Meanwhile! Oh, meanwhile, dear reader, Henry is alive and well and so are the two little ones -- they've barely got a scratch on them. Henry is convinced that he will find Maria and Lucas — so convinced, in fact, that he lets his two sons, who couldn't be more than three and six years old, get carted off to "the mountains" while he stays to look for the rest of his family. Who knows if this is what happened in real life, but it's a decision that frustrated even this non-parent. Maybe he thought there might be another wave? Whatever the reasoning, watching him send his kids off with strangers to destination unknown in a tsunami-ravaged developing country is exhaustingly aggravating, even if that is what happened in real life. They changed the names and nationality already, couldn't they change this part, too? Must we have more unnecessary hardship?

Throughout all this, Bayona films with crisp if flat efficiency, going for digital veracity with a dash of dreaminess. He's helped none, though, by Sánchez's increasingly hokey script and Fernando Velázquez's too-loud score. The music is a really big problem here; indicating and intrusive, the alternately screaming and keening strings do nothing for a story that is mostly aiming for frantic realism. Bayona and company seem to be confused about what kind of movie they're trying to make. Is this a swirling, artsy, albeit real-life fable of survival, or is it a sober look at a historic catastrophe? In practice it's sort of both and sort of neither. It's sweet to watch Lucas do well by his mom and others. It's bracing to watch Naomi Watts waste away under a pile of hideously realistic makeup. And I guess it's sad to see Ewan McGregor break down in howling sobs when he makes a phone call home to say that he can't find his wife and son. But what is the point of any of it, really?

The point is that in the end (and spoiler alert if you're not familiar with the real story) everyone's OK. It looks touch-and-go for Maria, but she eventually pulls through — only after we've seen her burst like a watery phoenix out of the wave once more. Henry eventually finds his boys, all three of his boys, at the hospital. The reunion between the sons is undeniably tear-inducing — something about siblings hugging each other instead of kicking shins? — and Watts whispers and near-weeps touchingly when the boys are brought to her bedside. Then everyone gets on a plane and flies away, leaving this ravaged land behind and heading to the best hospital in Singapore. Music crescendos, Lucas and Maria hug, Watts cries, movie ends. Oh. OK. And about those 250,000 people dead on the ground beneath this planeload of rescued blond folks? They're barely glimpsed, only ever hinted at briefly. Ah, well. They got that HBO movie a few years ago, right?

Bayona has made an excellent, truly fearsome scene of a mother and her son surviving a tsunami, and then stuffed it in between an insisting mini-thriller of doom and a goopy uplifting drama that features the anonymous kindness of ethnic strangers and, in one groaner of a scene, Geraldine Chaplin whispering about the mystery of the stars. (Yes.) I'm not saying that Bayona should have spent his two hours shooting tight closeups of dead Thai and Indonesian people and figured that was the only way to cover this story. It's just that to tell a redemptive tale of an impossibly real event — this family did, in fact, all get through this thing intact — he needed to rely more heavily on the truth of the matter and less on his florid movie tricks and the script's ham-handedly easy gut-punches. As is, by the time the plane glides up into the sunlight, these teary people simply function as angels of deliverance. You see, it's really us that are being lifted up out of all this horror, whisked off to somewhere safe where we only have to consider it from afar.

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Movie Review: The Impossible (2012)

• Aaron Leggo
• Movie Reviews
• 4 responses
• --> January 23, 2013

Surviving the impact.

Cinematic sentimental gestures don’t come much more desperately inspirational than the slow motion shot of a person reaching skyward with a swelling score accompanying their ascent. In his syrupy drama The Impossible , director J.A. Bayona reserves this moment for the third act, but it’s not like the sentimentality sneaks up on us. This kind of exaggerated emotion is in the movie’s DNA right from the start, when some onscreen text reminding us of the 2004 tsunami lingers on the words “true story,” guaranteeing that we can’t ignore the dramatic importance of the impending narrative. Before we see a single frame of footage, the movie already hits a suggestively syrupy chord.

Introducing us to Maria (Naomi Watts), Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) in a stilted scene of worried banter aboard a plane doesn’t help secure that sense of realism that Bayona desires, but before long, we’re on the ground and Bayona is fully invested in foreshadowing. The vacationing family are shown around the Thai resort that they’re staying at and the tour of the place is solely focused on how amazing and new and wonderful and lovely and relaxing this place is. Hmm . . . I think I hear a wave coming to prove you wrong, bellhop.

Even after they settle in, Maria, Henry, and the kids share a few moments together, but Bayona’s camera keeps drifting off to solemnly stare out at the ocean. Building suspense is one thing, but constantly reminding us of the imminent disaster that we know is on its way just feels obnoxious. At the very least, it’s dramatically inert. It seems as though Bayona doesn’t want to miss a clichéd beat, so eager is he to lend every scene, every moment a touch of gooey resonance. But when he gets to the tsunami sequence quite early on, he manages to mix surging horror with the sentimental flourishes that he seemingly can’t resist.

This particular sequence still takes stops along the way to get in touch with its sappy side (close-ups of hands reaching for each other, the nearly muted soundtrack that depicts a character’s disorienting experience), but the overall effect is undeniably frightening and intense. We see the water topple tall palm trees before it smashes into the resort, engulfing everything. Bayona hurls us into the powerful pull of the water with Maria, who clings to a tree in a claustrophobically tight shot that soon switches to a higher, wider angle to reveal the sheer immensity of the surging water and the emptiness of its surface.

This pair of juxtaposed shots, the individual in close-up and then the individual as a small piece in a vast wasteland, is a favorite visual motif of Bayona’s. It soon becomes tired and obvious, but he does manage to conjure some impactful moments during the disaster sequence. Convincingly capturing the hellish horror of underwater obstacles that threaten to impale at a moment’s notice, Bayona, cinematographer Óscar Faura and the astonishing effects team turn the roiling, muddy sea into a treacherous enigma that maliciously hides its greatest threats just below the surface. The nightmare of the wave eventually subsides, but it’s left many a mark on Maria, her body badly torn up from her nasty journey.

Along the way, Maria soon reconnects with Lucas, while we later catch up with Henry and their other two boys. With the water no longer flowing, Bayona turns to sap and quickly embraces his freedom to explore the story’s sentimentality with an arsenal of weepy clichés. A phone call home isn’t just about the emotion of the onscreen caller, but also the looks on the faces of other sad survivors and the encouragement to revisit the phone call for maximum dramatic effect. Meanwhile, Lucas’s search for something to do in a crowded Thai hospital leads to him running around and recording the names of missing loved ones currently sought by ailing patients. He then runs around some more while yelling out their names, hoping to reconnect two separated souls. In Bayona’s hands, this act of good samaritanism is wringed of its dramatic potential and reduced to one more shamelessly sentimental distractions.

The perfect vacation.

Such is the case with most of The Impossible , post-tsunami landfall. This is a supposedly impossible tale of a severed family finding each other again across a greatly devastated divide, so the potential for sappiness is clearly high. But the potential for quiet, contemplative drama is also present. Bayona simply seems so enamored with the cinematic familiarity of recycled sentimentality that he’s willing to settle for empty emotions. When it comes time for a metaphor about the “beautiful mystery” of dead or dying stars to rear its ugly head, it’s clear that the movie has crossed the syrupy point of no return.

Oddly enough, while the performances are all compliant with the sentimentality, each actor feeding it in their own way, the acting itself is more of a highlight than a detriment. Watts is quite good in a demanding and punishing role that leaves her either floating through debris or clinging to life in a hospital bed. The sudden change from a physically active role to an inactive one gives her interestingly opposing shades of experience to work with. The kids are all pretty decent, with each of them managing to be relatively believable in the context of a harrowing journey. McGregor is the weakest link and the most susceptible to the sap, but for all the bad scenes he has, he still convinces as a downtrodden dad.

None of the performances are able to elevate the material of The Impossible above the syrupy space where Bayona has anchored it and that is the insurmountable problem. For everything the movie gets right, either in relatively commendable performances or absolutely phenomenal makeup effects, it can’t rise up from its modest ambitions to tackle the truth of its story with dramatically fortified focus. The movie is seemingly always searching for a cliché it hasn’t already dragged through the mud. And while he does the dragging with gusto, Bayona seems only capable of cheapening the drama. After all, he’s clearly just waiting to reveal that skyward thrust he practically promises the whole way through. The force with which he tugs at our heartstrings rivals that of the tsunami. This is a tidal wave of treacle, eager to unleash a flood of tears. Well, will you settle for an eyeroll?

Tagged: disaster , Thailand , tsunami , vacation

You and I both know the truth. You just don't admit it.

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'Movie Review: The Impossible (2012)' have 4 comments

January 23, 2013 @ 9:40 am ivan

this movie sucked

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January 23, 2013 @ 12:23 pm DroneStrike

Not my kind of movie..

January 23, 2013 @ 1:03 pm BovineMagus

Water ain’t no joke. Force feeding drama unecessarily is.

January 23, 2013 @ 6:29 pm Tigress

If there is an award for the most intense natural disaster recreated for film, it would go to “The Impossible”.

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The Impossible Parent Guide

Adults and the oldest of teens will likely be inspired by the tenacity of the human spirit that still surfaces in the face of unimaginable calamity..

A vacationing family is torn apart when the floodwaters of the 2004 Tsunami crash over their Thailand hotel. Facing impossible odds, the father (Ewan McGregor) and two of his sons (Oaklee Pendergast and Samuel Joslin) set out to find his wife (Naomi Watts) and other missing child (Tom Holland).

Release date December 20, 2012

Run Time: 107 minutes

Official Movie Site

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kerry bennett.

On December 26, 2004 an earthquake in the Indian Ocean spawned a tsunami that struck South Asian coastlines with an incredible wall of water, leaving over 200,000 people dead in its wake. Around the world, people watched the news reports with a sense of dismay. But for those at the center of the disaster, the horrors only grew after the water receded. The Impossible , directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona and based on the real life experiences of Maria Belon and her husband Henry. It tells the story of just one of the thousands of families swept up in the events of that day.

Henry and Maria (played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts) arrive at an idyllic shoreline resort in Thailand for a relaxing Christmas vacation with their boys Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). Then, without warning, a tidal wave of churning, dirty, debris-filled water crashes down on the resort battering the guests and employees as it plunges over them. When she finally fights her way to the surface, Maria is cut, bruised and partially unclothed from the force of the water. In the distance she catches sight of Lucas rushing along in the current. Finally, the two of them latch on to the trunk of a floating tree. But the rest of their family is nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, a shoeless and blood-covered Henry, still in a state of shock, leaves Thomas and Simon in the care of a stranger (Nicola Harrison) and begins searching for his missing wife and son. But in the confusion, the two younger boys are whisked away with a truckload of orphans.

Because many of the extras in the film are actual survivors of the tsunami, there is a sense of authenticity to the emotional shock that follows the watery event. Yet the film focuses almost exclusively on “white” victims with little acknowledgement of the thousands of locals who lost not only their lives or loved ones, but their homes and livelihoods as well. (Even Henry and Maria’s family is depicted as being British although the actual family is from Spain.) The film also understates the loss of life. Rows and rows of body bags lined up on an airport tarmac and a few injured individuals lying on the side of the road don’t come close to representing the magnitude of human lives lost in this natural disaster. Although filmmakers censored the portrayal of death in this film, they didn’t edit out several scenes of female frontal nudity. While some of the scenes make sense in the context of the story, others don’t.

Still in the middle of unbelievable devastation and mayhem are incredible moments of courage and compassion. After Maria and Lucas are rescued from a tree and brought to a local village, a gray-haired woman not only tends Maria’s wounds but comforts the injured woman who can’t speak the local language. Later a group of survivors huddles together at a bus shelter, many of them protectively hoarding the last precious bits of battery life on their cell phones. But others (Sönke Möhring), in the midst of their own tragedy and pain, graciously offer their phones to strangers.

These heroic moments become the redeeming elements in this story of incredible survival. While the terrifying depiction of the tidal wave and the resulting devastation make this movie inappropriate for young viewers, adults and the oldest of teens will likely be inspired by the tenacity of the human spirit that still surfaces in the face of unimaginable calamity.

Release Date: 21 December 2012 (limited) Opens wider in 2013

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Kerry Bennett

The impossible rating & content info.

Why is The Impossible rated PG-13? The Impossible is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity.

Violence: A dirty, churning wave of water engulfs the guests and employees of a resort. Debris in the water causes serious injuries. Numerous bloody wounds, bruises, gashes and cuts are depicted. A screaming woman clings to a tree in the middle of torrent before being pulled under water. A desperate mother calls for her son. A crying child is found under debris. Dead bodies and large-scale destruction caused by a tsunami are shown. An injured woman is dragged through debris by her rescuers. Injured people are seen along the roadside. A hospital is flooded with patients. Women choke, coughing up blood and refuse from their lungs. A woman grows increasingly sick from her wounds. A man searches through rows and rows of dead bodies lying on an airport tarmac. Bloody or injured characters search for their missing loved ones. Children are rounded up and shipped away in trucks. Other scenes of death and devastation are portrayed.

Sexual Content: A woman’s breast and nipple are exposed as she changes clothes. Later her breast is exposed when her shirt is torn off during her struggle in the water and when her clothes are cut off in the hospital. Some buttock nudity is briefly seen.

Language: The script contains only a handful of mild profanities and terms of Deity.

Alcohol / Drug Use: Social drinking is shown with dinner.

Page last updated July 17, 2017

The Impossible Parents' Guide

Why does Maria want to help a little lost child even if it puts their lives in danger? How do others risk their own safety or comfort to help strangers? Why does Maria encourage Lucas to help at the hospital? How does that change his attitude? How do people assist others in spite of the language barriers?

What are some of the realities of dealing with a disaster of this magnitude? What are the immediate needs of survivors? How easy would it be to reunite families—especially children? What kinds of long-term aid would be needed in a disaster area? Is it easy to forget about those needs once the television cameras leave an area and move on to the next big news story?

To learn more about the 2004 Tsunami and the earthquake that started it, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami

The most recent home video release of The Impossible movie is April 23, 2013. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: The Impossible

Release date: 23 April 2013

The Impossible releases to home video (Blu-ray-DVD Combo Pack) with the following extras:

-Audio commentary with director J.A. Bayona, writer Sergio G. Sánchez and producer Belén Atienza and María Belón

- Two featurettes

- Deleted scenes

Related home video titles:

Another parent searches for her child in the aftermath of a subway bombing in London River. The whole world also witnessed the triumph of the human spirit over impossible odds in the events recounted in Apollo 13 . Naomi Watts plays a character in fictional peril in King Kong . And Ewan McGregor tries to keep the whole universe together as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Where to watch.

Watch Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One with a subscription on Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

With world-threatening stakes and epic set pieces to match that massive title, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One proves this is still a franchise you should choose to accept.

With a terrific cast and some beautifully shot stunts, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One might be the best action movie of the year.

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'I Don't Want a Bigger Trailer:' Mission: Impossible Star Reveals What He Asked for on Dead Reckoning Set

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Many actors have difficult requests on set, and the bigger the actor, the more likely it is to have it granted. Shea Whigham didn't want big things on Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning , but his request was very relatable.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote his upcoming comedic neo-noir film Lake George with Carrie Coon, Shea Whigham also addressed his request on Mission: Impossible . The actor had joined the franchise with 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One as Briggs. He shot the seventh and the upcoming installment back to back, amid several setbacks, including the pandemic or the SAG-AFTRA strikes.

'You're Not Going to Do Me Wrong': Jeremy Renner Explains Leaving Mission: Impossible Franchise

Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner sheds light on why he left the Mission: Impossible franchise, citing issues with his character, William Brandt.

However, his experience on set paid off, and the actor revealed what he asked writer-director Christopher McQuarrie for while filming Dead Reckoning . “I said to Christopher McQuarrie on [ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning ]: ‘I don’t want a bigger trailer. I don’t want more money. I don’t want better catering. I just want one scene between Tom and I , where you, McQ, write it like The Usual Suspects , and we get a chance to get in there.’ And he delivered ,” Whigham teased.

While Whigham could appreciate Tom Cruise's impressive condition, he admitted that he thought his new co-star could give him a run for his money. Carrie Coon was previously a soccer and track star at University of Mount. “Tom [Cruise] is fast, but I don’t know that Tom could outrun Carrie, to be honest with you,” Whigham admitted. Coon also admitted that she was currently watching the film series and the next one she had to see was Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol .

Mission: Impossible 8 Gets Positive Update From Star Hannah Waddingham

Mission: Impossible 8 star Hannah Waddingham offers an exciting update on the forthcoming sequel to Dead Reckoning Part One.

Shea Whigham Revealed Exciting Production Update on Mission: Impossible 8

The upcoming installment in the successful spy franchise, tentatively called Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II , is set to premiere less than a year from now. The film has undergone multiple hardships, but Shea Whigham has just revealed an exciting update . After he got his scene with Cruise, the leading man took Whigham out for dinner.

“We did this scene between Tom and myself, and then Tom said, ‘We’re going to go out to dinner.’ So we went out to dinner when I was done, and then Tom said, ‘Do you realize that we come out one year from today? And it’s going to be a sprint to finish the fucking thing,’” Whigham recalls. “What he’s doing now, people are going to be floored . He wants to make this one like an adventure film , and he and McQuarrie have an idea of what they want to do with it. So it’s going to be amazing .”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II comes out in theaters on May 23, 2025.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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If you're lucky enough to attend an early screening of John Krasinski's new film, "IF," you may be greeted with a short introduction by the writer/director, asserting that the film is expressly for all the "girl dads" out there. Having now seen it, that much is true: despite its family-friendly brief, "IF" is less for kids than for the adults of kids -- the girl dads, if you will -- who want something that  feels a little more mature than " Minions " but doesn't scare the kids away. Far from it; it might just bore them to tears.

It's a bold shift for Krasinski, who's already transitioned from sitcom lead to successful director with the "Quiet Place" series, and yet, looking at the man himself, it makes perfect sense. This is the guy who started a little feel-good news show from his house during the pandemic (that he then sold to ViacomCBS for a presumed truckload of money), after all. He's the kind of all-American aw-shucks new dad who dipped his toe into the horror genre, and now wants to make a fun movie that his children can watch. 

The results, such as they are, play out like a half-baked live-action adaptation of a Pixar picture, from the "Monsters, Inc"-like structure of the IF world and the dramedic coming-of-age tales of " Inside Out " and " Up ." The opening credits even evoke "Up," playing gauzy home movies of the rhythms of a playful, happy family—with Krasinski as the patriarch—ostensibly shot by a DV camera but which looks suspiciously like grainy, professional-grade film stock. When films use this kind of device, only one thing can come -- death. Not just once but twice: When we catch up with Krasinski's daughter, Bea ( Cailey Fleming ), she's still in mourning over the offscreen death of her mother some time ago, which is now compounded by her father staying at the hospital awaiting heart surgery. (We're never privy to the details: he just says he has a "broken heart," which is a nifty case study for the film's simple, cloying nature.) The trauma clearly eats away at her, despite Krasinski's quirked-up, obnoxious attempts to cheer her up in the hospital room. 

In the meantime, Bea stays with her equally effervescent grandmother ( Fiona Shaw , one of the film's highlights) at her old, creaky apartment building. It's while there that she suddenly develops the ability to see people's imaginary friends (or IFs, as the film so proudly dubs them), and gets looped into an adventure involving her grandmother's downstairs neighbor, the cynical IF whisperer Calvin ( Ryan Reynolds ). You see, he's been running a kind of matchmaking service for IFs whose kids have stopped believing in them; once they do, you usually get put out to pasture in a kind of pastel retirement home. Bea, eager for something to do (and believe in), sets herself to the task of helping Calvin save the IFs by giving them someone to believe in them.

That's the loose framework upon which Krasinski's paper-thin script rests, one that gestures broadly at a kind of mechanical worldbuilding but soon throws its hands up in the air and greedily chases one heartstring after another. For a kid's adventure, it's surprisingly dour and sentimental, chucking laugh-out-loud jokes for a patient sense of melancholy. That may work well for the young dads in the audience, but it's gotta bore kids to tears. 

Its early stretches see Krasinski using the suspenseful eye he developed during " A Quiet Place " to fascinating kid-horror effect: Janusz Kaminski shoots the winding staircase of grandma's apartment like it's the Overlook Hotel, and one early spooky moment shows us a kid's-eye view of how creepy a strange old woman leering at you in the hallway can be. There's something of Guillermo del Toro's more sentimental work in some of these moments, building a world where imagination can be just as much a threat as comfort. 

But then we get to the IFs and their dilemma, where most of "IF" loses its steam. The creatures themselves are hardly much to write home about: they take whatever form their kids conceived, from fire-breathing dragons to walking, talking, self-roasting marshmallows, all voiced by a murderer's row of "that guy" guest voices that'll leave you reaching for your phone to pull up IMDb right after. 

Sure, they're technically impressive to look at, but they're bereft of character or whimsy. That's especially true for the film's central IF, Blue ( Steve Carell ), a purple, snaggle-toothed furball resembling the Grimace as subjected to years of British dentistry. Rather than play him with any kind of arched eyebrow, Carell gives a surprisingly workmanlike performance, a right shame given the verbal dexterity that lets him own wild animated characters like Gru. 

The human cast fares little better, especially Reynolds, who coasts through this thing with the half-hearted zeal of someone sick of repeating the same Deadpool schtick. It almost feels redundant to cast him here since he functions as a kind of stand-in for Krasinski as the "fun dad" he's always wanted to be; instead, Calvin exists primarily as a smarmy sidekick, a fellow cynic who nonetheless helps the IFs on their mission. Then there's Fleming herself, a waifish young girl who rises to the occasion in a few Big Moments near the end but who largely gets little to do besides pout and absorb information. 

The mechanics of the IFs also beggar belief and change on a dime depending on which lazy heartstring Krasinski wants to pull next. The script can't seem to decide how they really work: Do they disappear once forgotten about, or are they put in a home? Is the plan to rehome them to new kids, or get their now-grown adult companions to believe in them again? What's the plan from there? All immaterial questions for the presumed kiddie audience, but it's easy to get lost in the shoddy mechanics of the thing when the product as is is this listless and humorless. By the end, you get the distinct feeling that all of this sturm und drang is in service to stakes that, all told, are exceedingly minimal. 

Occasionally, Krasinski lands on a neat idea or a perfect scene: A kaleidoscopic chase through an IF retirement home that Bea is changing with her imagination (complete with Busby Berkeley riffs and Reynolds climbing through an oil painting); Shaw's character remembering her love of ballet while her former IF ( Phoebe Waller-Bridge ) dances alongside just out of sight. But for every one of these, we get another tired scene with half-hearted performers rotely asserting the plot, or trotting out cloying platitudes like "The most important stories we tell are the ones we tell ourselves." That's to say nothing of the film's musical choices, the last of which is so on-the-nose, so egregious, that Wes Anderson should sue for plagiarism. 

"IF" is a well-intentioned misfire—a kid's movie without laughs and a parent's movie without purpose. I sure hope Krasinski had a ball making it; it seemed like a welcome balm after the stressors of doing two horror pictures. But now, it's time to put away childish things.

Clint Worthington

Clint Worthington is a Chicago-based film/TV critic and podcaster. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of  The Spool , as well as a Senior Staff Writer for  Consequence . He is also a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and Critics Choice Association. You can also find his byline at RogerEbert.com, Vulture, The Companion, FOX Digital, and elsewhere. 

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The Impossible

• The story of a tourist family in Thailand caught in the destruction and chaotic aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
• A regular family - Maria ( Naomi Watts ), Henry ( Ewan McGregor ) and their three kids - travel to Thailand to spend Christmas. They get an upgrade to a villa on the coastline. After settling in and exchanging gifts, they go to the pool, like so many other tourists. A perfect paradise vacation until a distant noise becomes a roar. There is no time to escape from the tsunami; Maria and her eldest are swept one way, Henry and the youngest another. Who will survive, and what will become of them? — Ronaldo Ferreira
• A British family on Christmas holiday at a beach resort in Thailand is torn apart when a deadly tsunami devastates the area. The film follows the seriously wounded Maria and her eldest son Lucas as they struggle to safety, not knowing whether Maria's husband and their two younger sons are dead or alive. — Peter Brandt Nielsen
• Christmas Eve 2004. The Japan residing Brits, the Bennetts - husband and wife Henry and Maria, and their three sons Lucas, Thomas and Simon - have just arrived at the Orchid Beach Resort in Khao Lak, Thailand, for their Christmas vacation. They are all at the resort's pool area - Henry with the two youngest in the pool, while Maria and Lucas are off doing other things on their own - when, without warning, a massive tsunami hits. In the tsunami's aftermath which results in a landscape full of carnage and destruction, the surviving family members, some with serious injuries, are separated from each other. The first priority for each is to find at least one other family member so that he/she is not alone in dealing with the uncertainty of the situation. Once he/she is able to do so, they have to decide if finding the other family members, not knowing if they are dead or alive, should still remain the only priority, especially as some things become better known and as other things are still unknown, such as if another tsunami will hit which makes heading to higher ground a sound move for one's own safety. Along the way, each person will have to decide whether to help others, and conversely if others are willing to help them, most of who are facing the same situation of being injured and requiring medical assistance and/or are looking for missing loved ones, not knowing if they are dead or alive. — Huggo
• Inspired by actual events, The Impossible finds Henry (Ewan McGregor), his wife Maria (Naomi Watts), and their three sons lounging poolside at a scenic Thailand resort following an eventful Christmas. But just as the family begins to forget their troubles and settle in for a relaxing tropical getaway, one of the worst natural disasters in modern history changes their lives in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, as shock gives way to abject horror, the devoted parents fight to protect their children, encountering scenes of heart-wrenching tragedy and experiencing acts of incredible compassion as the entire country is engulfed in chaos.
• Maria Bennett (Naomi Watts), her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Tomas and Simon are on holiday over Christmas at a tropical paradise resort in Khao Lak, Thailand. However, the devastating 2004 tsunami, which occurred on 26 December 2004, destroys the coastal zone, and they are swept up in the flood - a flood which captures Maria searching for a lost page of a book against a glass window while the rest of the family is near the pool. Maria and Lucas are separated from the others and Maria's leg is badly injured. At Maria's insistence, they rescue a small boy called Daniel who has also been separated from his family. The three climb a tree in case a new wave approaches. They are found by locals and taken to a hospital - Maria on a door used as a stretcher. Maria, who is a doctor, is concerned about her leg, and asks Lucas to tell her if it turns black. She encourages Lucas to see if he can provide any help to the others. Lucas takes names from patients and searches for their relatives. When he returns to Maria's bed she is not there, and due to a mix-up, the hospital staff believes she has died and take Lucas to a tent where other children without families are being held; a phone call can be made, but Lucas does not remember the number of his grandpa. Maria has surgery on her torn chest and is later reunited with Lucas. Elsewhere Henry, Tomas, and Simon are together and safe. Henry asks Tomas to look after his little brother then places the children into a vehicle full of tourists who are being taken to a safe place in the mountains, while he keeps searching for Maria and Lucas. Later, Henry arrives in the mountains and finds Tomas and Simon have been sent elsewhere. Communication facilities are scarce, but another man, German tourist Karl, allows Henry to make a phone call to his father-in-law Brian in the UK. Henry uses the phone only to break down in the midst of the call. Maria and Lucas have not contacted the family, so Henry doesn't know they have survived. Karl then volunteers to accompany Henry to look for his wife and son. Henry and Karl search for their missing families in various shelters and hospitals before they arrive at the hospital where Maria and Lucas are. Unbeknownst to all, the entire family is miraculously in the same place. Henry walks past Maria's ward, and she appears to recognize his shadow against the curtain of her ward, but is too weak to call out. Lucas spots his father (recognizing his shorts and bloody legs) in the distance, but immediately loses sight of him, and gives chase. Simon recognizes Lucas's voice when he shouts for his father. Tomas and Simon leap off a truck transporting lost children just in time to reunite with Lucas, and at the same moment Henry stumbles across all three of his sons and Lucas tells him their mother is in the hospital. They find Maria, who appears to be on the verge of death and needs immediate surgery. She survives the surgery, and the following day a representative of their insurance company arrives to fly them to a hospital in Singapore in a small plane. Lucas tells Maria that the boy they rescued, Daniel, has been reunited with his father. As they take off, Maria is shown viewing the devastation of the tsunami from the plane window, and she begins to weep.

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Carrie coon and shea whigham talk their ‘fargo’ reunion in ‘lake george’ and ‘mission: impossible 8’.

The duo discuss their comedic neo-noir, which bows at Tribeca, and drop some tidbits about upcoming projects ranging from 'Mission 8' to 'White Lotus.'

By Brian Davids

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The result is Jeffrey Reiner’s comedic neo-noir Lake George , which premieres tonight at New York City’s Tribeca Festival . The writer-director — who previously worked with Whigham and his daughter Giorgia on a 2018 episode of Dirty John — sent the Lake George script to the Florida native nearly a year before the July ‘23 strike accelerated the matter. And right when Whigham was about to make his frequent recommendation of Coon for the female lead role, Reiner beat him to the punch.

“When Jeffrey and I were sitting together one day, he went, ‘I want this actress that I’ve been thinking about while writing.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, who?’ And he said, ‘Carrie Coon,’” Whigham tells The Hollywood Reporter prior to Lake George ’s world premiere in Tribeca’s Spotlight Narrative category.

Whigham plays Don, a white-collar criminal who’s just completed a 10-year prison sentence, and when he goes to retrieve a past debt from the mobster (Glenn Fleshler’s Armen) who had a hand in his downfall, he’s instead coerced into killing Armen’s girlfriend and criminal associate, Phyllis (Coon). But Don, being a former insurance adjuster who simply got in over his head, doesn’t have it in him to pull the trigger, and Phyllis, through her power of persuasion, offers Don a chance to get even with Armen. So the unlikely allies take their show on the California road, as they attempt to strike a balance between revenge and redemption, if there is such a thing. And as it turns out, the two outcasts are exactly what each other needed at this crossroads in their lives. 

Before they get on the same page, Don pulls his newly acquired gun on Phyllis inside a parking garage, and she quickly gives him the slip by weaponizing her purse. Whigham, as Don, then chases after Coon’s character, and the scene naturally harks back to Whigham’s famous foot pursuits with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in Joker (2019) and Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023). However, Coon — long before she became an Emmy nominated actor for her Fargo performance as Gloria Burgle — was once a soccer and track star at University of Mount Union in Ohio. (Oddly enough, in Coon’s film Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), there’s an emotional scene that involves a photo collage , some of which involve her real-life athletic exploits.) All of this is to say that Whigham thinks Coon could give Cruise a serious run for his money if they were to face off in a race.

“Tom [Cruise] is fast, but I don’t know that Tom could outrun Carrie, to be honest with you,” Whigham admits, at the risk of losing annual Cruise Cake privileges. 

“I said to Christopher McQuarrie on [ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning ]: ‘I don’t want a bigger trailer. I don’t want more money. I don’t want better catering. I just want one scene between Tom and I, where you, McQ, write it like The Usual Suspects , and we get a chance to get in there.’ And he delivered,” Whigham shares.

And to top it all off, Cruise invited Whigham to dinner after their big scene, and the Mission: Impossible leading man made it known that production is far from over.

“We did this scene between Tom and myself, and then Tom said, ‘We’re going to go out to dinner.’ So we went out to dinner when I was done, and then Tom said, ‘Do you realize that we come out one year from today? And it’s going to be a sprint to finish the fucking thing,’” Whigham recalls. “What he’s doing now, people are going to be floored. He wants to make this one like an adventure film, and he and McQuarrie have an idea of what they want to do with it. So it’s going to be amazing.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR , Coon and Whigham discuss the similarities between Lake George and Fargo ’s tone, before Coon sets the record straight regarding her fictitious Red Lobster commercial that went viral recently.

Shea Whigham: Get out!

Carrie Coon: Oh my God, it’s like an algorithm! 

Was this intended to be a Fargo season three reunion between the two of you?

Coon: I think it was designed to put Shea Whigham in a leading man part.

Whigham: ( Laughs .) No, it wasn’t designed. Jeffrey [Reiner] passed me this script probably 10 months before I read it, and you think nothing is ever going to come together, but this came together really quick with the strike and the interim agreement. I’m not embellishing or making this up, but every time I go to do something like this, I’m like, “We’ve got to go to Carrie Coon and see if she’ll do it.” So, when Jeffrey and I were sitting together one day, he went, “I want this actress that I’ve been thinking about while writing.” And I was like, “Okay, who?” And he said, “Carrie Coon.” And I said, “Well, it’s going to be hard to go get her. She’s busy.” But she read it, and I think she said yes hours later.

The tone is somewhat reminiscent of Breaking Bad and Fargo , fusing dark comedy with drama and violence. Jeffrey Reiner is Fargo alum as well, having directed a season two episode, but for two people who actually worked within Fargo season three’s tone, is Lake George actually similar underneath it all?

Coon: I’m flattered by that comparison. 

Whigham: Yeah. ( Whigham nods in agreement .)

Coon: Lake George is a comedic noir, and that also characterizes what Fargo is up to, somewhat. I know that the way that it’s shot is very reminiscent of those ‘90s noir films, but with a little bit more of a comic bent. So, yes, I think your comparison is not unfounded. What do you think, Shea? What do your talking points say, Shea?

Coon & Whigham: ( Laugh .)

Whigham: You see how I get treated by her? 

Coon: ( Laughs .)

Whigham: It’s a very personal film for Jeffrey.

Coon: Definitely. 

Whigham: I also said to Carrie: “When you come out, you’re going to experience a different California.” We are going to take it from Pasadena and Glendale — all the way through the valley — and then to Santa Barbara and all the way up to Mammoth. So that’s one of the things that I most loved about it.

Coon: I had never been to any of those places. I’ve barely been to Glendale, but they have delicious empanadas, by the way.

Coon: It’s the best! You work every day, and you work so hard and so fast. And you never get everything you want, which is actually its own exercise. I had never seen those parts of California. I’ve never done a road movie like this, especially in a matter of 21 days. Jeffrey gave us a couple of things to watch in particular. There’s a great movie from the ‘70s called The Late Show with Lily Tomlin. I would never compare myself to Lily Tomlin, but [ Lake George ] is actually about relationships. It’s couched in noir, but it’s actually a redemption story and it’s about two people finding each other at a time in their lives when they’re really going through a transition. And like Shea said, it’s really personal for Jeffrey. So these small pictures are the best. You’re working with a small crew, and you have to be really mobile. We’re changing locations all the time, and they’re just the most fun. They feel like the good old days. Am I wrong, Shea? 

Whigham : No.

Coon: Maybe you love those big blockbusters, but I find that you’re not working in the same [way]. I don’t work all the time on Ghostbusters . There’s a lot of sitting around and waiting, and there’s no waiting on an indie film. You are working every day.

Don and Phyllis both fell in with this mobster (Glenn Fleshler’s Armen), and they’ve each suffered for it to varying degrees. And when I think about their unexpected team-up as a whole, I sum it up as she needed to meet someone with inherent decency, while he needed a reminder that he is inherently decent. Do you see it similarly? 

Coon: Yeah, that’s a beautiful way to put it. 

Whigham: Yeah.

Coon: Guilt is a really powerful and, ultimately, really useless emotion that deserves to be expunged. So it’s really satisfying when you see two people serve each other in that capacity and illuminate something so that they can move forward. Ultimately, it’s about people being able to move on from a place in which they’re stuck, and that’s really hard to do.

Shea, you’ve had foot chases with the likes of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), but could anything have prepared you for your parking garage pursuit of former collegiate soccer and track superstar Carrie Coon? 

Whigham: Let me tell you, on that day, there was a lot of stretching prior to that.

Coon: You were also bleeding by the time we did that, because I had assaulted you so soundly.

Coon: With the chain on the purse.

Whigham: Yeah, the chain on the purse got me, and that’s as it should be, because, then, you’re in it. But she is fast. She’s like that little bunny that the dogs chase at the dog track. So I couldn’t catch her. She’s too fast.

Coon: I used to be a lot faster, but Shea is one of those “hit me” actors. Those guys are fun.

Whigham: Tom [Cruise] is fast, but I don’t know that Tom could outrun Carrie, to be honest with you.

Coon: I think Tom Cruise and I should have a foot race. Do you think he’d be open to that?

Whigham : I think he’s very competitive, as are you.

Coon: But he has all the money in the world for training. I don’t have that kind of support system. We’ll talk.

Whigham: You hear things like an alligator can outrun a horse within 30 yards or something like that, so after it gets past 30 with Tom, I’m not really sure.

Coon: We’d have to find an optimal distance. 

It should be a pay-per-view event for $49.95. 

Coon: It should open the [Paris 2024] Olympics. 

An argument could be made that this movie is partially about the downside of method acting or the creation of a faux reality to achieve one’s desired objective. Is that too far of a reach? 

I love finding connections on projects, and Shea, Lake George ’s DP, Tod Campbell, was also your DP on Homecoming . You’ve worked with Glenn Fleshler a bunch as well. Carrie, the music supervisor, Liza Richardson, worked on our beloved The Leftovers , but are there any others I’m overlooking?

Coon: Cleta Elaine Ellington! She’s a great first AD, and she’s also a producer on Lake George . I worked with Cleta down in Texas [on The Leftovers season two]. I also accidentally walked into her mom’s house in Jackson to find some jewelry, and I found out that it was her mother. So it’s quite lovely the way this business operates. People come in and out of our lives, especially the ones you like. Shea and I did Fargo at least seven years ago, and that kind of symmetry is one of the beautiful things about this business. We had some lovely nights with everybody on [ Lake George ]. So often, the cast and the crew are separate on those big projects; you don’t really hang out. But, man, we were all stuck in these motels in Lone Pine, and we got to really sit around and get to know everybody. It was really charming.

Coon: You don’t have control over how a project gets received in the world or if it gets distributed or if anybody likes it. All you can control is your life, and your life is happening when we make the thing. The rest of it happens on the Internet.

Carrie, since we’re sitting here with one of the stars of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Mission: Impossible 8 , have you informed Shea that you’re currently making your way through that film series? 

Coon: I don’t know if Shea is a fan of [the social media platform formerly known as Twitter] where I post all of my movie watches, but it’s true. I’m actually gearing up for [ Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol ] this week. Perhaps Thursday. I’ll let you know. [Writer’s Note: She did indeed let us know , but she opted for Wednesday.]

To follow up on our most recent Ghostbusters chat, did you appreciate Mission: Impossible III more than Mission: Impossible 2 ? 

Coon: Well, three is kind of notorious, isn’t it?

Mission: Impossible 2 is generally considered to be the notorious one. You referred to it as “cheesy.” 

Coon: Two is pretty cheesy, yeah.

The consensus is that Mission: Impossible III was a course correction, especially because of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance. 

Shea, just to confirm once more, you’ve now wrapped the four-year saga of shooting two Mission: Impossible movies “back to back”? 

Whigham: I wrapped [ Mission: Impossible 8 ] ten days ago. [Writer’s Note: This conversation took place on 6/6.]

Coon : Wow! Are your knees intact? 

Whigham: Barely! It took four years. We made Lake George in 21 days, but they don’t mean any less to me, if that makes sense. I count myself as lucky with the stuff I’ve been working on lately, but yes, we’re done. Tom’s not done, and [ Mission: Impossible 8 ] comes out next May. I said to Christopher McQuarrie on [ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning ]: “I don’t want a bigger trailer. I don’t want more money. I don’t want better catering. I just want one scene between Tom and I, where you, McQ, write it like The Usual Suspects , and we get a chance to get in there.” And he delivered. We did this scene between Tom and myself, and then Tom said, “We’re going to go out to dinner.” So we went out to dinner when I was done, and then Tom said, “Do you realize that we come out one year from today? And it’s going to be a sprint to finish the fucking thing.”

Carrie, you’ve gone viral for a great many things, but perhaps the strangest example occurred recently via your fictitious Red Lobster commercial in a 2017 short film, co-starring your Gilded Age husband, Morgan Spector. Was Great Choice going viral on your 2024 bingo card?

Coon: ( Laughs .) I can’t say it was, but I did feel that I needed to correct the record in that I was not in a Red Lobster commercial in the ‘90s. That would put me much older than my actual age. So, as an actress, I felt responsible for making sure people knew that I’m not 70 or however old I would’ve been. They were also making fun of our styling, but they needed to understand that we were copying a commercial from the ‘90s. So I did not expect it to get picked up and disseminated by major publications, but I’m thrilled because I love exposing people to Robin Comisar, who’s a really talented filmmaker. He did all of the supportive video in Christine (2016), which is a great film with Rebecca Hall and [Coon’s husband] Tracy [Letts]. She gave a beautiful performance that should have been recognized more that year. So Robin did all of the news commercials from the 1970s, which were so brilliant. And so, if nothing else, I hope some work comes out of this for Robin Comisar. And, of course, the other thing that came out of it was my great and notorious friendship with Morgan Spector.

Coon: ( Laughs .) “Here’s a video of me cutting out his tongue. Will that help?”

Whigham: ( Unaware of the Great Choice phenomenon. ) I don’t know what’s going on here. What’s happening?

Coon: Well, you should look up Great Choice on the interwebs, Shea.

Whigham: Yeah, I’m pretty behind on that one. Hey, have we talked about White Lotus yet? Can we get something out of you, Carrie?

Coon: No! I’m not allowed to talk about White Lotus , Shea.

Shea needs to be on the next season of White Lotus .

Coon: Shea is definitely a White Lotus actor. 

Mike White brings back at least one previous character each season, so Steve Zahn should return next season and Shea should play his brother. There’s always been a resemblance between you guys.

Whigham: He’s a great actor.

Coon: Look, I’ll see what I can do. [Steve Zahn] is great, and he was wonderful in season one. Shea, if you want to slip me a résumé, I can take it with me when I head back to Thailand.

Whigham: How many times have you gone back and forth to Thailand?

Coon: Oh my god, like 17 times.

Whigham: Do you have stock in that airline now?

Coon:  I’ve flown Singapore [Airlines] a few times, and it’s a marvelous airline. But stocks in airlines are falling a little bit. That turbulence is no joke. And sorry, everybody, I hate to break it to you, but climate change is going to make that a much more frequent occurrence. So buckle your safety belts.

Coon: Thank you. Clearly, we made it just for you, and we’re glad you enjoyed it.

*** Lake George is now playing the Tribeca Festival through June 13.

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Mission: Impossible

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Hit Man does the impossible: Makes navel-gazing philosophical conversations wildly entertaining

Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Someone more charming, more confident, happier? How far would you be willing to go to keep being the better version of yourself? Those are the questions asked in Richard Linklater's new off-beat rom-com Hit Man.

And while Linklater (Boyhood; Dazed and Confused; the Before trilogy) is in the director's seat, the film belongs to star and co-writer Glen Powell. The human capybara might be on more people's radar since rom-com Anyone But You stole the December box office, but Powell has been grinding since his early teens (he was in Spy Kids: 3D for heck's sake !).

Linklater and Powell have been circling each other since the actor had a bit part in the director's environmental dark comedy Fast Food Nation (which came out in 2006, for every journo putting Powell on ' hot new actors ' lists), so it makes sense they would excel as co-writers.

In Hit Man, Powell plays college psychology professor Gary Johnson (loosely based on a real person from a 2001 Texas Monthly profile ) who moonlights for the New Orleans Police Department as tech support. Despite his steady job and Glen Powell good looks, Gary is loser-coded.

He's timid with his cop crew (which includes a delightful Retta, people need to put Retta in more things) and is still friends with his ex-wife, who encourages him to embody the change that he wishes to see in himself.

How to get away with (fake) murder

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Just as the higher ups are praising Gary for his fake hit-man work, a spanner in the works comes in the form of Maddy (Adria Arjona), a doe-eyed wife who's desperate to be rid of her controlling husband. For Maddy, Gary creates Ron — a character confident, cool, in control and immediately head over heels with her.

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Every David Lynch Movie, Ranked (and Where To Watch Them)

Although it has been nearly two decades since David Lynch’s last feature film, many viewers remain hopeful that the legendary filmmaker will one day direct another movie. Given the experimental, mystifying, absurd, and surreal nature of many of his works, he is often considered one of Hollywood's most intriguing and important contemporary directors. Although it’s unknown if he will ever direct another feature film, there are plenty of existing Lynch masterpieces to delve into. This guide will rank all of David Lynch’s feature films as well as reveal where to watch them using popular streaming services like Netflix , Prime Video , Max and more!

One of David Lynch’s most notable films is the one that kickstarted his career: Eraserhead . The low-budget surrealist body horror movie follows Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), a young man who finds himself raising a baby with deformities. Its experimental nature, sexual undertones, and body horror initially horrified and disturbed viewers. However, the film picked up popularity as a midnight film and is now considered a masterpiece, given its surrealist nature, highlighting of human anxiety, and the numerous ways it can be interpreted.

Lynch’s next movie, The Elephant Man , was less experimental and, thus, less divisive than his feature film debut. Starring John Hurt and Sir Anthony Hopkins, the film is inspired by the true story of Joseph Merrick, a man with deformities who lived in London in the late 19th century. It received high critical acclaim for its beautiful black-and-white cinematography and heartbreaking, moving exploration of humanity.

Although his biographical film The Elephant Man was a hit, David Lynch returned to his surrealist and experimental films many times in his career. Blue Velvet and Inland Empire are among his best works in these areas. Blue Velvet achieved cult status and is considered one of the best mystery movies ever for spinning a dark, ambiguous tale from a severed ear. Although Inland Empire earned less fanfare than most Lynch movies, the Laura Dern -led psychological thriller is notable for being one of his most abstract, surreal, and dream-like films yet.

David Lynch has also proven his versatility as a filmmaker, surprising viewers with his family-friendly The Straight Story , a hyperrealistic but beautifully crafted movie that couldn’t be further from surrealism. Meanwhile, even his less successful films, including his take on the Dune franchise and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me , have stirred lively debates among viewers and earned re-evaluations.

Where can I watch the best David Lynch movies online?

For those interested in exploring David Lynch’s filmography further, we have ranked all of his feature films from best to worst based on their critical reception, groundbreaking nature, and legacy. Read on to find out where to stream every title in the United States!

Where To Watch Every Film in The Conjuring Universe in Order

The Conjuring Universe is the most successful horror franchise of all time, and its story isn’t over yet. Creator James Wan has confirmed the main series will soon conclude with The Conjuring: Last Rites , although the franchise will continue to live on in the form of a spinoff TV series and potential spinoff movies. For those who want to delve into the franchise before the next movie premieres, this guide will explain where and how to watch The Conjuring Universe in order using streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Max and more.

In 2013, the franchise began with The Conjuring . Every movie in the franchise is inspired by the purportedly true haunting cases documented by real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The first movie sees Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed (Patrick Wilson) investigate the Perron family, who believe their new farmhouse in Rhode Island may be haunted. It proved a major success at the box office and earned high praise from critics for the performances of Farmiga and Wilson, the jump scares, and the tense atmosphere crafted by director Wan.

The first film’s success soon led to The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It , with Farmiga and Wilson reprising their roles as Ed and Lorraine. The Conjuring 2 adapts the Enfield poltergeist case, while the third movie tackles the Arne Cheyenne Johnson murder investigation, which marked the first murder trial in U.S. history where a defendant claimed innocence due to demonic possession.

Both movies were successful commercially, though the third film’s departure from its haunted house formula drew mixed reviews. Since viewers couldn’t get enough of the Warrens' terrifying and allegedly true cases, the franchise soon created the Annabelle and The Nun film series. Annabelle fashions a horror story from an allegedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll found in the Warrens’ Occult Museum. Meanwhile, The Nun and its sequel, The Nun II , were loosely inspired by the Warrens’ reports of meeting a ghostly nun.

All of the Annabelle and Nun movies were commercial hits, demonstrating the enduring appeal of The Conjuring Universe with its blend of alleged truth and fiction and return to classic horror with haunted houses, dolls, and jump scares. Meanwhile, the end of The Nun II features a cameo from Farmiga and Wilson, teasing the movie’s connection to The Conjuring: Last Rites.

How to watch The Conjuring Universe in order

Viewers can watch The Conjuring Universe in either release date or chronological order. Chronological order may be preferable because it ensures viewers have context for certain cases mentioned in The Conjuring movies. However, chronological order can be complex, given that films like Annabelle: Creation occur across multiple years.

For this article, we have listed the movies chronologically based on the most prominent year featured in each film. For example, although Annabelle: Creation starts in 1943, the majority of the movie takes place in 1955, resulting in the film coming after The Nun, which takes place in 1952. Here is the chronological order:

Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle Comes Home

The Conjuring 

The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Alternatively, one can also stream The Conjuring films in the release date order detailed below. Read on to find out where to watch every entry in this franchise online in the United States.

Every Neon Genesis Evangelion TV Show and Movie in Order (And Where To Watch Them)

Since its release in 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion has remained one of the most popular anime series of all time. It has grown into a sprawling media franchise that includes many films, books, manga series, and even amusement park attractions. Creator Hideaki Anno has also remained open to the idea of future TV shows and anime films under a new filmmaker. For those interested in delving into the franchise, this guide will demonstrate where to watch every Neon Genesis Evangelion film and TV show in order using streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Crunchyroll and more!

The franchise started in 1994 with a manga series of the same name to advertise the upcoming TV show. By 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion arrived and told the story of Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy recruited by his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, to pilot Evangelion bio-machines and fight mysterious beings known as Angels. The show went far beyond the typical mecha anime and impressed viewers with its religious motifs and philosophical themes. It has since been hailed as one of the most outstanding anime series of all time.

However, its somewhat ambiguous ending received mixed reviews from viewers. As a result, Anno decided to make two films, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion , to provide an alternate ending to the anime series. Following the critical acclaim of The End of Evangelion, Anno decided he wasn’t done with the franchise yet and became chief director of the Rebuild of Evangelion film series.

Similar to the previous two films, the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy served as yet another alternate telling of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance essentially reshot episodes 1 - 23 of the anime with minor changes, while Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo diverged into a new story, and Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time offered a new ending.

There is also an original net animation (ONA) series called Petit Eva: Evangelion@School , which parodies the original series, and the short film Evangelion: Another Impact—Confidential . Also, be aware of the numerous unification films, such as Revival of Evangelion, which, despite its new title, is simply a double feature of Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion.

Where can I watch Neon Genesis Evangelion online?

Given the many remakes and alternate endings, the only way to watch the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise is by the release date order below. Read on to find out where you can stream every entry in this popular franchise!

Where to Watch Every Entry in the PAW Patrol Franchise

In 2013, as superhero mania began to dominate Hollywood, another group of heroes emerged: the PAW Patrol. Led by the young boy Ryder, the team consisted of some unexpected members…puppies. There was Chase the police German Shepherd; Marshall, the firefighting dalmatian; and Skye, the piloting cockapoo, among others. But this kids’ show ended up taking the world by storm, eventually becoming a massive franchise. Use our guide below to find out where you can watch every entry in the PAW Patrol franchise in order using popular streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount+ and more!

The entire franchise began in 2013 with the original PAW Patrol series. The show is still airing, currently on its 10th season. So far, PAW Patrol has amassed over 250 episodes, and with its enduring popularity, season 11 is on the way. In each episode, the PAW Patrol must save someone and usually fight off some kind of “bad guy”. But being a kids show (mostly for very young kids) the series is often free of violence, with the action being more wholesome.

Starting in 2016, PAW Patrol began producing hour-long films. In North America, they were released as TV movies, but in other parts of the world, they actually went to theaters, sometimes grossing millions of dollars. Some of the most popular movie specials were Ready, Race, Rescue! and Jet to the Rescue .

But in 2021, PAW Patrol finally got their first official, big-screen debut with Paw Patrol: The Movie . In the film, the PAW Patrol discovers their arch-nemesis Mayor Humdinger has just been elected to lead the nearby Adventure City. Sensing the coming mischief, the team heads out to save the city. Once again, the conflict and action are all super family-friendly, with one of the disasters being that the mayor has constructed a roller coaster-style loop for the city’s subway (which to me sounds like a lot of fun).

In 2023, PAW Patrol returned with another major film, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie . In the film, a strange meteor crashes into Earth. Inside are several crystals, each giving the pups superpowers. But with their new abilities, the pups must face their biggest foe yet. The movie was a massive hit, grossing more than $202 million at the worldwide box office. That same year PAW Patrol also received the spinoff series Rubble & Crew , which has also been renewed for a new season.

PAW Patrol franchise in release order: 

• PAW Patrol (2013-Present)
• PAW Patrol: Mighty Pups (2018)
• Ready, Race, Rescue! (2019)
• Jet to the Rescue (2020)
• PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
• Rubble & Crew (2023-Present)
• PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023)

Where can I watch PAW Patrol online?

A third PAW Patrol movie is in the works and according to Variety, it’s set to hit theaters sometime in 2026. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where to watch the entire PAW Patrol franchise in order.

Every James Cameron Movie Ranked (and Where to Watch Them)

If you look at the five highest-grossing movies of all time, three of them have been directed by James Cameron. He knows how to strike the perfect balance between action, emotion, strong characters, and visual spectacle, creating an entire filmography of must-watch films. But what are Cameron’s best movies? Check out our guide below to find out where to watch every James Cameron movie (and discover which are his best).

There aren’t really any “bad” James Cameron movies. The director has somehow managed to create hit after hit, giving audiences four decades of masterpieces. But if someone had to choose, Cameron’s first film Piranha II: The Spawning could be considered his “worst”. The movie was a sequel to the schlocky 1978 horror hit Piranha , which was all about… killer piranhas. This time around, the piranhas are even more deadly and they can fly! Somehow, the movie is so bombastic and ridiculous that it’s actually hard to consider it a bad movie. It’s so insane that it becomes laugh-out-loud funny and is great to watch with friends.

On the other end of the Cameron spectrum, we have his best movies. Taking the #1 spot as the best James Cameron movie ever is Aliens . This sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic follows Ellen Ripley as she discovers that terraformers have attempted to colonize LV-426 – the same moon the xenomorph came from. Obviously, things don’t go well for the terraformers and it’s up to Ripley and her team to save them. Aliens swaps out some of the suspense from the original for more action and adventure, creating a unique action-horror movie that works flawlessly. Aliens isn’t just a great sequel, it also complements the original perfectly by shifting genres, making both films equally amazing for completely different reasons.

And of course, we can’t talk about James Cameron without talking about Titanic . The film takes the #2 spot on our list. For over a decade it was the highest-grossing movie ever and it was the first film to make over $1 billion at the box office. Staying true to Cameron’s genre-blending style, Titanic was loaded with romance, drama, and action. The movie tells a romantic love story between two passengers, Jack and Rose. But as the ship begins to sink, Titanic’s vibe completely changes, becoming a hardcore disaster film. Viewers who aren’t into romantic dramas will still be captivated by the unbelievably true disaster the doomed ocean liner experienced in the middle of the Atlantic.

Also ranking high on the list is Cameron’s often-overlooked hit The Abyss . Released in 1989 (just a few months before the Cold War ended), the movie imagines a near-future where Americans and Soviets are racing to retrieve a sunken submarine. Making everything worse is a looming hurricane that’s barreling toward both nations’ fleets. When America finally gets a dive team into the ocean, they begin experiencing strange phenomena and seeing unknown lifeforms. With claustrophobic conditions, a massive storm, and the excitement of unknown aliens, The Abyss is a fantastically captivating movie. It even won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 1990 ceremony.

Here’s the full ranking of James Cameron’s films: 

Aliens  

T2: Judgement Day

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Terminator 

Avatar 

Piranha II: The Spawning

Where can I watch James Cameron movies online?

Cameron fans have a lot to look forward to since the filmmaker currently has two more Avatar sequels in development, with the next one expected to hit theaters in late 2025. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream all of James Cameron’s movies on popular platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and more.

Every Deadpool Movie In Order (and Where to Watch Them)

The Deadpool movie series is set to expand with the release of Deadpool & Wolverine , featuring a crossover between Hugh Jackman’s Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine) and Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson (a.k.a. Deadpool) and marking Deadpool's first official entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe ( MCU ).

For those interested in catching up with all of the Deadpool movies, this guide shows you how and where to watch every movie in order. We'll also show you if you can watch them legally for free online.

Deadpool’s live-action career on the big screen had a shaky start with X-Men Origins: Wolverine . In the movie, he is introduced as Wilson, a katana-wielding mercenary who joins William Stryker’s (Danny Huston) Team X, along with Wolverine. However, Wilson becomes a victim of Stryker’s experiments and is transformed into Weapon XI. While Weapon XI had Deadpool’s incredible healing factor, he did not have his characteristic red suit. What’s even stranger is that he had his mouth sewn shut and was silent, even though he’s often referred to as the Merc with a Mouth. As a result, many criticized the movie’s non-traditional depiction of Deadpool.

Fortunately, when the timeline was reset in X-Men: Days of Future Past , it allowed 20th Century Fox to introduce an alternate version of the character in Deadpool . Reynolds reprised his role as Wilson, but viewers finally got a comic book-accurate version of the Merc with a Mouth. The R-rated movie captures Deadpool in all his vulgar, foul-mouthed glory, telling the tragic, bloody, and surprisingly humorous story of a man whose experimental cancer treatment leaves him mutilated and with an unparalleled healing factor.

It wasn’t long before Reynolds reprised his role as Deadpool in the short film Deadpool: No Good Deed to tease Deadpool 2 . The short film was played before Logan in some theaters, given that Deadpool has always tried to steal Wolverine’s glory. It was soon followed by the release of Deadpool 2, which introduced Josh Brolin’s Cable as he, Deadpool, and X-Force go on a zany time-traveling adventure to save humanity.

During the holidays, 20th Century Fox also released a PG-13 version of Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Deadpool , to allow a broader audience to see the film. After that, Deadpool’s fate was left uncertain as Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. Fortunately, the studio opted to bring Deadpool into the MCU, with Reynolds teasing the decision in the promotional short film Deadpool and Korg React. Disney celebrated its acquisition of the franchise by making Deadpool and Deadpool 2 the first R-rated movies available to stream on Disney+ and giving the greenlight to Deadpool & Wolverine.

Where can I watch Deadpool movies online?

There is only one order to watch the Deadpool films, as each movie was released in chronological order. Here you can find out where to stream every Deadpool movie in order, including every offer available to viewers in the United States.

Every Hannibal Lecter Movie and Series in Chronological Order (and Where to Watch Them)

Want to find out where you can watch every Hannibal Lecter movie (and series) in chronological order? Find out what order the series should be watched in, and find out where to watch each entry using our guide below.

In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs premiered and chilled audiences to their core. The film follows young FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as she works to stop a killer known as Buffalo Bill, who kidnaps women and skins them. To ensure her success, she seeks the help of renowned forensic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter. The problem is that Lecter is a serial killer himself and has his own nefarious intentions. Trapped between two killers, Starling must walk a tightrope to save Buffalo Bill’s victims, while also keeping herself alive.

But The Silence of the Lambs isn’t the original Hannibal Lecter story. The movie was actually adapted from a sequel novel written in 1988. The original Hannibal book came out in 1981 and was titled Red Dragon. The Silence of the Lambs also wasn’t the first Hannibal movie. It was actually 1986’s Manhunter that first brought the infamous cannibal to the big screen (though he was played by Brian Cox instead of Anthony Hopkins). The movie is based on the original Red Dragon novel and centers on a detective who is almost murdered by Lecter. But once a new serial killer called the Tooth Fairy begins murdering families, he’s forced to seek Lecter’s help to save lives. In 2002, another film adaptation of Red Dragon arrived, this time having Hopkins reprise his now-iconic role as Lecter.

In 2006 a prequel novel was released titled Hannibal Rising, which then became the earliest entry in the series chronologically. The following year, a film adaptation premiered, this time with Gaspard Ulliel portraying the younger Hannibal Lecter. The film shows how Lecter’s tortured childhood during World War II caused him to become desensitized to murder while also leaving him with long-lasting, unresolved trauma, thus explaining his descent into murder and cannibalism.

The final entry in the Hannibal series is 2001’s Hannibal . Based on the 1999 novel of the same name, the film takes place a decade after The Silence of the Lambs, and Clarice Starling is now played by Julianne Moore. The movie is far more outlandish than the previous entries and shows a strange bond develop between Starling and Lecter. The movie is also filled with way more gore than the previous films, including wild hog mutilations, eating human brains, and more. Still, Hannibal was a huge success at the box office.

Here’s how to watch the Hannibal Lecter movies both in order of release and chronologically.

By Order of Release: 

Manhunter (1986)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Hannibal (2001)

Red Dragon (2002)

Hannibal Rising (2007)

By Chronological Order:

Hannibal Rising

The Silence of the Lambs

Fans of the franchise should also check out the highly acclaimed series Hannibal . While it doesn’t fit perfectly into the timeline, it’s still a fantastic series that’s developed a devout cult following thanks to its complex characters and excellent suspense. Another series, Clarice , premiered in 2021. Unlike Hannibal, it is very much rooted within the official timeline, taking place shortly after the events of The Silence of the Lambs.

Find out where to watch every Hannibal movie and series using our streaming guide below.

From The Matrix to Her: Where To Watch the 25 Best Films About AI, Ranked

Humanity has always been interested in the concept of artificial intelligence (AI), which is why the film industry has been tackling it since the first AI movie, Metropolis , in 1927. For decades, filmmakers have hypothesized and even warned about what a world with near-sentient, intelligent machines would look like. Now that real-life technology, such as GPT-4o, is genuinely starting to resemble the AI seen in movies like Her , interest in these movies is only increasing.

For those interested in AI from a filmmaker’s perspective, this guide will explain where to watch the 25 best movies about AI.

Some of the best AI movies are also some of the best sci-fi movies ever made, including The Matrix , 2001: A Space Odyssey , and Blade Runner . The Matrix sees Neo ( Keanu Reeves ), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn), and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) seek the truth about the reality they live in. It warned of unchecked technological advancement, probing a dark world where AI enslaves humanity, trapping them in a virtual reality.

The idea of a dystopian world where AI takes over humanity has been explored in countless films, including  The Creator , Ex Machina , Westworld , and I Am Mother . In fact, even back in the 1970s, films like Colossus: The Forbin Project were already exploring malevolent intelligent machines, highlighting the long-standing anxiety over advanced technology.

Some movies, like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, explore AI exerting control in a smaller capacity. However, Kubrick’s film is one of the most chilling, given that the AI, depicted as a simple red light, resembles modern voice recognition technology like Siri and Alexa.

Then, movies like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner delve into other issues with AI, primarily the difficult question of what draws the line between humans and technology. As Rick Deckard ( Harrison Ford ) falls for a lifelike “Replicant,” it begs the question of what it will mean to be human once technology and humans become indistinguishable.

There are additional movies like Blade Runner where AI isn’t necessarily evil.

In films like Star Wars and Iron Man , AI machines like C-3PO and J.A.R.V.I.S. are friendly droids and AI assistants who help save the world. In the Joaquin Phoenix -led Her and Sam Rockwell-led Moon , the movies explore the concept of AI as a coping mechanism for human loneliness. Pixar’s 2008 animated hit WALL-E even delves into how AI may take charge simply because of sheer human laziness.

Where to watch the best movies about AI online

Whether it’s exploring dystopian worlds with evil AI, probing the concept of what it means to be human, delving into human-machine relationships, or exploring the potential of advanced technology, countless great movies have been made about AI.

Here is where to watch the 25 best AI movies ranked by quality, popularity, and how sophisticated their commentary on AI is.

100 Best Action Comedy Series of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Action comedy is one of the world's most popular TV genres, delivering heart-pounding action scenes and hilarious moments in equal measure. To help you find the best action comedy TV shows of all time, we've made a streaming guide with 100 must-see TV series to add to your watchlist. You can also use this guide to find out where you can watch them on streaming services such as  Netflix , Prime Video , Max , Disney+ and more.

In addition to featuring hilarious gags and heart-racing action sequences, the best action comedy series have some of TV's most beloved characters. You can watch many action comedy series with iconic characters such as the sinster 'superhero' Homelander ( The Boys ), the lovable yet immensely powerful Aang ( Avatar: The Last Airbender ) and the ever-determined Lucy MacLean ( Fallout ).

While there are plenty of amazing live action TV series to enjoy, some of the best action comedy series are animated. Some of the very best TV series to animate action comedy adventures include the spy-spoof Archer , the TV-MA DC Comics adaptation of Harley Quinn , and the intergalactic explorations of Rick and Morty .

If you are specifically looking for top-rated action comedy series that are suitable for kids, check out The Powerpuff Girls , Teen Titans  and Knuckles . You can also use JustWatch to filter by age rating to ensure you only see the kid-friendly titles on this list.

Where can I watch the best action comedy series?

Check out this JustWatch streaming guide, which features the best 100 action comedy series of all time and where to watch them on popular streaming services. This includes the latest streaming information for anybody streaming in the United States.

100 Best Superhero Series of All Time – A Streaming Guide

From animated classics like  Justice League and X-Men to modern hits like The Umbrella Academy and Peacemaker , superheroes have been saving the day on the small screen for decades. To help you find the greatest superhero series to add to your watchlist, here's a steaming guide to the 100 of the best superhero series of all time. You can also use this guide to find out where you can watch them on popular streaming platforms like  Netflix , Prime Video , Max and Disney+ .

There have been several  Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero series that have graced our screens over the years, including popular series such as Agent Carter and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As the universe grew in popularity throughout the 2010s, so did the number of TV shows to enjoy. This was accelerated by the launch of Disney+, which saw WandaVision become the first Marvel TV show to directly impacted the course of upcoming MCU movies. Other Disney+ MCU shows include The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , Loki and Ms. Marvel .

DC Comics also has a rich television history, with many adaptations of the company's most popular heroes in live action TV shows and animated cartoons. In addition to the many Batman and Superman produced over the years, the CW's Arrowverse kickstarted in 2012 with Arrow and continued until 2023. The interconnected titles featured in the Arrowverse included The Flash , Supergirl , Legends of Tomorrow , Black Lightning and Batwoman . With other titles like Superman & Lois , Doom Patrol , Peacemaker , Watchmen and Constantine , fans have a flurry of choice from either universe to binge-watch.

From 2015-2019, Netflix was home to more adult-oriented superhero series such as  Marvel’s Daredevil , one of the most beloved superhero series of all time. Jessica Jones , Luke Cage , Iron Fist , The Defenders and The Punisher rounded out Netflix's collection of Marvel superhero series.

When looking for the best superhero series of all time, fans can also consider non-Marvel/DC shows such as Prime Video’s  The Boys – an extremely successful TV series that combined superheroes, action, comedy and R-rated content. There are also many animated TV shows adored by fans of every age, such as Batman: The Animated Series , Spider-Man , Harley Quinn , Invincible and Young Justice .

Where can I watch the best superhero series?

Check out our complete list of the best 100 superhero series of all time below. Discover where to watch them on streaming services available in the United States.

100 Best Sitcoms of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Sitcoms have been a mainstay in television for generations. Beginning with the first ever TV sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny , leading up to modern classics like The Office and Parks and Recreation , there will always be at least one title every TV watcher can proudly proclaim to be the greatest sitcom of all time. In this streaming guide, you'll find the best TV sitcoms and where to watch them on popular streaming services like  Netflix , Prime Video , Max and Disney+ . We'll also let you know if there are any options to stream a sitcom online for free.

When discussing timeless sitcoms, one standout remains a fixture in television history: the iconic I Love Lucy . which aired from 1951 until 1957. Its enduring legacy, spearheaded by the performance of the titular Lucille Ball, continues to inspire serialized comedy and modern day sitcoms.

Throughout the 1950s and '60s, families eagerly awaited the latest episode of hit sitcoms like  Leave It to Beaver , The Honeymooners and Gilligan’s Island . By the 1970s, TV shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show , M*A*S*H , The Jeffersons and Happy Days featured memorable casts that kept viewers entertained season after season.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, there are several examples of sitcoms that showcase the daily challenges of American families and their familial bonds. Some of the best examples include Family Ties , Diff'rent Strokes , The Cosby Show , Full House , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Cheers , The Golden Girls , Seinfeld , Friends and Frasier . The 2000s saw an increase in popular workplace comedies, utilizing mockumentary-style filmmaking and uncomfortable cringe comedy. TV shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation are considered sitcom masterpieces, depicting hysterically awkward situations and occasionally warring (yet endearing) coworkers. Other great shows with a similar comedic style include  Abbott Elementary , Modern Family and  Arrested Development . For more adult comedy, sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm , Peep Show and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia never fail to deliver gut-busting laughs with their unique approaches to the sitcom genre.

Where can I watch the best sitcoms?

If you're looking for the best sitcom movies to add to your watchlist, you'll find plenty of amazing shows with this streaming guide. Here are the best 100 sitcoms of all time and where to watch them on streaming services in the United States.

100 Best Dark Fantasy Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

If you like your fantasy movies to be twisted, gruesome and ghastly – with stories of the dark arts and terrifying creatures – this guide to the 100 best dark fantasy movies of all time is perfect for you. In addition to a ranking of the top titles, we’ll show you where you can watch every movie on this list today on streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these iconic dark fantasy movies legally for free online.

The dark fantasy genre combines fantastical stories with themes of horror. Some of the most recognizable directors known for putting dark fantasy stories on the big screen include Guillermo del Toro ( Pan’s Labyrinth , Hellboy , The Shape of Water ), Tim Burton ( Coraline , Sleepy Hollow , Edward Scissorhands ) and Jim Henson ( The Dark Crystal , Labyrinth ).

Despite their themes of horror, there are plenty of dark fantasy movies that can be enjoyed by the whole family. A few examples include the animated adventure Don Bluth’s  The Secret of NIMH , Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal , and George Lucas/Ron Howard’s Willow . Families with older children may also enjoy slightly darker adventures such as Roald Dahl’s The Witches , The Addams Family and Spirited Away .

If you’re interested in exploring some of the best dark fantasy movies produced outside of the United States, must-see titles include  Onibaba (Japan), The City of Lost Children (France), Viy (Soviet Union) and In Fabric (United Kingdom). You can also enjoy dark fantasy anime movies such as Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust , Wicked City , Berserk: The Golden Age Arc trilogy and Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train .

Where can I watch the best dark fantasy movies?

Below you’ll find the latest streaming information for the 100 best dark fantasy movies. You can filter your results by release year, price, IMDb rating, age rating and run time.

100 Best Crime Detective Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

The crime detective genre puts thrilling criminal investigations on the big screen. These movies follow a detective – who could be a hired private investigator, a member of law enforcement, or a complete amateur – as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of a crime. The genre includes plenty of incredible noir ( The Lady from Shanghai , The Maltese Falcon ) and neo-noir ( Memories of Murder , Brick ) movies, as well as light-hearted parodies ( The Pink Panther ) and action comedies ( Rush Hour ). Whether you’re looking for cinema’s bleakest noir movies or something for the whole family, you’ll find something for you with our list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time.

Many of the best crime detective movies are adaptations of famous novels. Among the most famous detectives successfully adapted for the big screen include Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe ( The Big Sleep , Farewell, My Lovely , The Long Goodbye ), Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes ( The Hound of the Baskervilles , The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ) and Agatha Christie's Poirot ( Murder on the Orient Express , Death on the Nile ). These characters have inspired many other movies on this top 100 list, so their movies are a great starting point for anybody who is new to the genre.

There are also plenty of options if you’re looking for unconventional detective crime stories that also belong to another genre. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut is a neo-noir science fiction movie starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, who is tasked with hunting down a group of criminal replicants (androids). Another example is Matt Reeve’s The Batman , a superhero movie which tells the story of Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattison) as he searches for a dangerous criminal in Gotham City.

Where can I watch the best crime detective movies?

Below you can find our complete list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time. We’ll show you where you can watch every movie online on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these movies online for free, or if they are available to watch for free with ads.

100 Best Rom-Com Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide

Romantic comedies have provided audiences with love, laughter and heartbreak on the big screen for over a hundred years. Whether you’re looking for modern rom-coms such as Anyone But You and No Hard Feelings , or timeless classics like as Some Like it Hot and The Philadelphia Story , we’ve got you covered with this guide to the 100 best rom-coms of all time. We’ll show you where to watch every movie on this list, including the latest offers from streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We’ll also show you if there are options to watch great rom-coms for free online.

Romantic comedies explore the subject of love in a humorous way. While there are iconic rom-coms from every decade since the silent era, the genre reached the peak of its box office powers in the 1990s. The wit and charm of writers such as Nora Ephron ( When Harry Met Sally , You’ve Got Mail ) and Richard Curtis ( Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill ) led to a slew of hit movies that are still synonymous with the genre today. Going back further, the works of Ernst Lubitsch ( Ninotschka , Trouble in Paradise ), Billy Wilder ( The Apartment , The Seven Year Itch ) and Howard Hawks ( Bringing Up Baby , His Girl Friday ) have undeniably stood the test of time. All three directors have multiple movies in our top 100, and their work inspired many of the tropes audiences now expect from a great rom-com movie.

If you prefer unconventional love stories, there are still plenty of rom-coms to enjoy – including the video game inspired  Scott Pilgrim vs the World , the ABBA-inspired musical Mamma Mia! , or the time-traveling romance About Time . There are also many must-see rom-coms produced outside of the United States; Hit movies such as Amélie (France), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Italy) and Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan) are all among the best rom-coms of all time.

Where can I watch the best rom-com movies?

No matter what you’re looking for in your next rom-com movie night, you’ll find something for your watchlist with our best 100 rom-coms of all time. Here’s the complete list and where to watch them on streaming services in the United States.

15 of the Best Steven Spielberg Movies (and Where to Watch Them)

Steven Spielberg is one of (if not the) best directors in Hollywood history. He’s been nominated for a lofty 22 Oscars and has won three. On top of that, he’s directed some of the biggest blockbusters ever that have grossed billions upon billions of dollars and become cultural landmarks that have shaped not just entertainment, but our daily lives. So, what are the filmmaker’s best movies? Use our guide below to discover the best Steven Spielberg movies and where to stream them.

You can’t talk about Spielberg without talking about Jaws . Centered around a New England town that’s battling a man-eating shark, Jaws is so terrifying that many horror fans even consider it a horror movie. The shark animatronic was a modern marvel at the time and some scenes still look downright terrifying to this day. But what makes the movie even more impressive is that it was Spielberg’s first major film. He was just 26 years old when he directed the feature. The movie was so powerful that it actually fueled society’s paranoia about sharks and led to a massive increase in the killings of great whites . Spielberg regrets the impact his film had on wildlife, but creating such an evocative story is impressive nonetheless.

Spielberg is also credited with reinvigorating society’s interest in dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park . The movie centers around an island theme park where resurrected dinosaurs are the main attraction. Naturally, it all goes to hell and the dinos break out of their cages, causing absolute chaos. With great actors, a great story, and great special and practical effects, Jurassic Park continues to be a beloved movie that fans watch over and over again. A new film in the franchise is also currently in the pre-production stage, so more dino chaos is on the way!

On top of his blockbuster hits, Spielberg is also known for his award-winning masterpieces (many of which also became blockbuster hits). His first Oscar nomination came in 1978 for Close Encounters of the Third Kind . The film shows what humanity’s first encounter with extraterrestrials might be like, and it’s filled with a great sense of wonder… and suspense. That combination makes Close Encounters a unique entry in the alien genre because it isn’t about the horror of an alien takeover, but instead focuses on the mix of fear, curiosity, and excitement that people would likely have.

Spielberg’s most lauded film though is 1994’s Schindler’s List . The film tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who saved over a thousand Jewish people during the holocaust by bribing Nazi leaders to assure their safety. The movie was met with universal praise and received 12 Oscar nominations. Schindler’s List went on to win seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director - both for Spielberg since he directed and produced the film.

Where to watch the best Steven Spielberg movies

While almost every Steven Spielberg movie is fantastic in its own right, here are 15 you absolutely need to watch, from E.T. to Indiana Jones , and more. Find out where to watch Steven Spielberg’s best movies using our guide below.

Where To Watch Francis Ford Coppola’s 15 Best Movies, Ranked

After a 13-year hiatus from directing, legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola has returned with a new film, Megalopolis , which is already causing a stir following its Cannes premiere . A prominent figure in the New Hollywood film movement, Coppola is often hailed as one of the greatest directors of all time for his cinematic masterpieces with larger-than-life characters and rich stories. For those interested in delving into his work before Megalopolis, this guide will demonstrate where to watch his 15 best films.

Even those unfamiliar with Coppola will likely have heard of his best film, The Godfather , which is often hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made. The Godfather is credited with revolutionizing the gangster genre as it humanized the Corleones and their love of family. Additionally, the storytelling is rich, the criminals larger-than-life, and the performances of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone blew audiences away.

While the sequel, The Godfather II , couldn’t match the original's groundbreaking nature and historical significance, it is easily one of the greatest movie sequels ever made. The film arguably adds more depth and an even darker tone as it continues to delve into Michael’s deterioration intercut with masterfully crafted flashbacks of Vito’s ( Robert de Niro ) life.

Another movie that almost eclipsed The Godfather in quality and impact is Apocalypse Now . It is based on Joseph Conrad’s thought-provoking novel Heart of Darkness but switches the setting to the Vietnam War. Featuring the talents of Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, and Laurence Fishburne, Apocalypse Now is one of the most haunting, mesmerizing, and unforgettable war epics of all time.

Although often overshadowed by The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, The Conversation also warrants special mention in discussions of Coppola’s greatest works. The movie follows surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who faces an intense moral dilemma when he realizes the couple he has been tailing may be at the center of a murder plot. It’s a simple plot, but the layers to the story are numerous as viewers delve deep into the nightmarish sense of paranoia and probe questions of morals and power.

In addition to four of the greatest movies of all time, Coppola has made many more well-received hits ranging from the zany and amusing You’re a Big Boy Now to the experimental road trip drama The Rain People to the horror vampire film Bram Stoker’s Dracula .

If you’re looking for more of Coppola’s greatest works, see below for where to watch his 15 best films ranked by their quality, popularity, and historical significance.

Where To Watch Every Star Wars Live-Action and Animated TV Show in Order

The Star Wars franchise expanded in 2024 with the live-action TV series The Acolyte . Set 100 years before the events of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace , The Acolyte marks one of the shows to take advantage of the vast galaxy and timeline the franchise has to work with. For those interested in further exploring Star Wars’ TV show collection, this guide will demonstrate how and where to watch all the live-action and animated Star Wars TV shows in order.

While most are familiar with the Disney+ Star Wars shows, the franchise moved to the small screen long before Disney’s acquisition. By 1985, sister animated series Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids arrived on ABC and followed the adventures of the Ewoks, R2-D2, and C-3PO. However, it would be over two decades until the next TV show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars , arrived.

Fortunately, by 2003, George Lucas had established Lucasfilm Animation, which rang in a new era of Star Wars TV shows. Star Wars: The Clone Wars follows Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano between the events of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith . It went on to earn high critical acclaim for its groundbreaking visuals, voice performances, and story. Star Wars: The Clone Wars later received an equally well-received spinoff series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch .

Another prominent animated series is Star Wars Rebels , which follows Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Sabine Wren, and the rest of the Ghost Crew as they retaliate against the Galactic Empire’s oppressive rule following Order 66.

In 2019, the first live-action Star Wars series arrived with The Mandalorian . Set after the Galactic Empire's fall, The Mandalorian won fans over with its tale of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a bounty hunter entrusted with protecting a Force-sensitive youngling, Grogu, from the remnants of the Empire. The series also brought back Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) from the Star Wars movies and transitioned Ahsoka to live-action, portrayed by Rosario Dawson . Out of The Mandalorian’s success came the spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka .

The franchise has explored additional periods through its shows, too, such as the Rebellion with Star Wars: Andor or post-Order 66 in Obi-Wan Kenobi . 

How to watch all the Star Wars TV shows in order

Unlike Marvel or DC, Star Wars TV shows aren’t divided into different universes. Almost all the shows are largely considered canon except the early Ewoks and Droids series and the anthology series Star Wars: Visions . Meanwhile, every series fits somewhere within the overall Star Wars timeline, making it possible to watch them in chronological order. Star Wars: Visions is the only show that doesn’t fit in the chronological order since it spans multiple timelines.

Otherwise, here are all the Star Wars TV shows chronologically:

Young Jedi Adventures

The Acolyte

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: Droids

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Star Wars Rebels

Star Wars: Andor

The Mandalorian

The Book of Boba Fett

Star Wars Resistance

Where to watch all the Star Wars TV Shows online

There are a few problems with watching in chronological order: many TV shows take place over multiple years, they are difficult to place because they are anthologies, or, in the case of The Mandalorian season 3 and Ahsoka season 1, sometimes run concurrently with one another. Hence, another approach is simply to watch all the Star Wars TV shows by the release date order which is provided below:

Furiosa and 10 Other George Miller Movies You Need to Watch (and Where to Stream Them)

George Miller easily has one of the most unique directorial careers in Hollywood history. On one hand, he’s known for directing all the Mad Max movies , making him one of the most prolific action directors ever. But did you know that he’s also directed quite a few successful family films as well? Remember watching Happy Feet … that movie about the singing penguins? Yep, that’s George Miller too.

So, check out our guide below to find out where you can watch all of George Miller’s best movies, from action hits to kid’s favorites and more.

Miller is best known for creating, writing, and directing Mad Max . The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Australia where the overconsumption of fossil fuels has created so much pollution that ecocide has virtually destroyed all plant life on Earth, forcing humans to battle for the few precious resources that are left. Unlike many franchises, where the directors are constantly swapped out, Miller has had full control of Mad Max since the beginning and has stayed on as director for every film in the franchise, including Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga . He’ll also be directing the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road sequel, Mad Max: The Wasteland.

In 1998, Miller went in a completely different direction when he wrote and directed the children’s classic Babe: Pig in the City , which was a sequel to 1995’s Babe (a movie that he wrote). This time around, Babe finds himself lost in the big city and eventually goes on a whirlwind adventure with the help of some of his animal pals.

Miller’s newfound reputation as a family film director grew even bigger in 2006 when he released the hit film Happy Feet. The movie was a jukebox musical following the life of penguins… who happen to absolutely love singing and dancing. The movie had a huge cast of A-List talent like Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, and Hugh Jackman , and featured songs like ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ by Elvis and ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen. The movie became a huge hit, grossing more than $384 million at the box office. In 2011, Miller returned to write, produce, and direct its sequel, Happy Feet Two .

One often-overlooked project of Miller’s was his involvement in 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie . The film was an anthology feature with different directors creating vignettes, similar to the TV show. For the film, Miller remade the iconic 1963 episode ‘Nightmare at 20,000 ft.’ where William Shatner played an airplane passenger who sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane. In Miller’s remake, John Lithgow takes over Shatner’s role and thanks to newer practical effects, the gremlin looks much more realistic and terrifying.

Looking for more of George Miller’s best movies? Use our guide below to find out where you can watch all of his best films.

How to Watch Every Movie at Cannes Film Festival 2024

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 15, 2024 until May 25 2024. In addition to screening many of 2024's best movies, this is also where production companies can strike distribution deals for upcoming theatrical and streaming releases. In this guide, we'll show you where you can watch every feature-length movie and short film at Cannes Film Festival 2024. While it may be some time before these movies are available to the public, this guide is regularly updated so you'll be the first to know when a movie is available on streaming services such as  Prime Video , Netflix , Criterion , Apple TV+ and many more.

Which movies are screening at Cannes 2024?

In competition, this year’s lineup includes the latest movies from renowned directors such as Francis Ford Coppola ( Megalopolis ), Andrea Arnold (Bird), Yorgos Lanthimos ( Kinds of Kindness ), David Cronenberg ( The Shrouds ) and Paolo Sorrentino ( Parthenope ). The festival opener is Quentin Dupieux’s Second Act, while movies screening out of competition include George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kevin Costner’s Horizon, an American Saga .

Who is on the jury at Cannes 2024?

Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig presides over the 2024 Cannes film festival jury as president. Last year, the director’s Barbie became a worldwide hit, grossing more than $1.4 billion at the box office. Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is President of the Un Certain Regard jury. The director has previously won several awards at Cannes, including the Jury Prize for Mommy in 2014 and the Grand Prix (the second most prestigious Cannes award after the Palme D’or) for It's Only the End of the World in 2016. At the time of writing, the full list of judges has not been released. Check out the full lineup for the Cannes Film Festival 2024 here:

The Second Act - Quentin Dupieux

Competition

All We Imagine as Light - Payal Kapadia

Anora - Sean Baker

Bird - Andrea Arnold

Caught by the Tides (Feng Liu Yi Dai) - Jia Zhang-Ke

Emilia Perez - Jacques Audiard

Grand Tour - Miguel Gomes

Kinds of Kindness - Yorgos Lanthimos

L’Amour Ouf - Gilles Lellouche

Limonov: The Ballad - Kirill Serebrennikov

Marcello Mio - Christophe Honore

Megalopolis - Francis Ford Coppola

Motel Destino - Karim Ainouz

Oh Canada - Paul Schrader

Parthenope - Paolo Sorrentino

The Apprentice - Ali Abbasi

The Girl With the Needle - Magnus von Horn

The Shrouds - David Cronenberg

The Substance - Coralie Fargeat

Wild Diamond (Diamant Brut) - Agathe Riedinger

Un Certain Regard

Armand - Halfdan Ullman Tondel

Black Dog (Gou Zhen) - Guan Hu

The Damned” (Les Damnes) - Roberto Minervini

L’Histoire de Souleymane - Boris Lojkine

Le Royaume - Julien Colonna

My Sunshine (Boku No Ohisama) - Hiroshi Okuyama

Norah - Tawfik Alzaidi

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl - Rungano Nyoni

Santosh - Sandhya Suri

September Says - Ariane Labed

The Shameless - Konstantin Bojanov

Viet and Nam - Truong Minh Quy

The Village Next to Paradise - Mo Harawe

Vingt Dieux! - Louise Courvoisier

Who Let the Dog Bite? (Le Proces du Chien) - Laetitia Dosch

Cannes Premiere

C’est Pas Moi - Leos Carax

En Fanfare (The Matching Bang) - Emmanuel Courcol

Everybody Loves Touda - Nabil Ayouch

Le Roman de Jim - Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

Misericorde - Alain Guiraudie

Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot - Rithy Panh

Out of Competition

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - George Miller

Horizon, an American Saga - Kevin Costner

Rumours - Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

She’s Has No Name - Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

I, the Executioner - Seung Wan Ryoo

The Balconettes (Les Femmes au Balcon) - Noemie Merlant

The Surfer - Lorcan Finnegan

Twilight of the Warrior Walled In - Soi Cheang

Special Screenings

Apprendre - Claire Simon

The Beauty of Gaza (La Belle de Gaza) - Yolande Zauberman

Ernest Cole, Lost and Found - Raoul Peck

L’Invasion - Sergei Loznitsa

Le Fil - Daniel Auteuil

Where can I watch Cannes film festival 2024 movies?

While many of the movies showing at Cannes film festival 2024 won’t be available to watch in theaters or streaming online until after the festival has ended, we’ve already got you covered with a streaming guide. This includes the latest streaming details for every movie in all categories (in competition, out of competition, the opening act, Un Certain Regard, Cannes premieres, midnight screenings and special screenings).

Where To Watch Every Naruto Movie and TV Show in Order

Naruto is one of the longest-running and most popular anime of all time. Based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga of the same name, the series has captivated audiences with its story of one young ninja’s dream to become the Hokage of his village. However, with a two-part anime series, a spinoff series, and 11 anime movies , the Naruto franchise can be daunting to dive into. Hence, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch every Naruto show and film in order.

The TV series kicked off in 2002 with Naruto , which follows Naruto Uzumaki, an orphaned boy who is ostracized by his village for having the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in his body. Eager for acceptance, Uzumaki works to prove his skill as a ninja, eventually joining Kakashi Hatake’s Team 7 with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno to complete missions and protect the village.

After Naruto concluded in 2007 with 220 episodes, Naruto Shippūden was released that same year. Naruto Shippūden is considered Part 2 of the anime series, serving as a direct sequel to the original series and following Uzumaki during his teenage years. The series begins with a two-year time skip, during which Uzumaki was training with ninjutsu master Jiraiya. Upon returning, he resumes his ninja missions with Team 7 and seeks to bring Sasuke home after the boy leaves, seeking revenge on his brother.

Interspersed throughout both series are 11 films; three premiered during Naruto’s run, while the latter eight premiered during Naruto Shippūden. Of all the films, only the 2014 movie, The Last: Naruto the Movie , is a canon in the series. The 2014 film, along with Boruto: Naruto The Movie , is among the most well-received films, as it largely leads into the Naruto spinoff series. Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow and Road to Ninja: The Naruto Movie are also often heralded as fan favorites.

As mentioned above, the Naruto series received a spinoff series, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations , which focuses on the eponymous son of Naruto. The series’ first part concluded last year, while the second part, Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, is still awaiting a release date as the manga tries to get ahead of the show.

How to watch the Naruto franchise in chronological and release date order

Although the movies aren’t canon, they are meant to accompany the series and sometimes reference events from their complementary episodes. For those who don’t mind jumping between the shows and movies, the chronological order of the Naruto franchise is as follows:

Naruto Episodes 1 - 101

Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

Naruto Episodes 101 - 160

Naruto the Movie: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Naruto Episodes 161 - 196

Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom

Naruto Episodes 197 - 220

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 1 - 32

Naruto Shippūden the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 33 - 71

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Bonds

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 72 - 126

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Will of Fire

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 127 - 143

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Lost Tower

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 144 - 196

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Blood Prison

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 197 - 251

Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 252 - 493

The Last: Naruto the Movie

Naruto Shippūden Episodes 494 - 500

Boruto: Naruto the Movie

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episodes 1 - 293

However, since the movies aren’t canon to the series, another option is to watch each series in full, followed by their respective films in release date order, as seen below.

Furiosa: 10 Best Anya Taylor-Joy Movies and TV Shows (and Where to Stream Them)

In 2021, Anya Taylor-Joy arrived at the Golden Globes with two nominations: One for her film Emma and the other for her hit miniseries The Queen’s Gambit . Later that night she won the Globe for The Queen’s Gambit. That same year she also received a SAG award and an Emmy nomination. Since then, Taylor-Joy has become one of the biggest names in Hollywood. But did you know she’s been starring in fantastic movies and TV series for almost a decade?

Check out our guide below to discover Anya Taylor-Joy’s best movies and TV shows so far and where to stream them online right now. We'll let you know which of her performances can be enjoyed on streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We'll also show you if there are any Anya Taylor-Joy movies to watch online for free.

Anya Taylor-Joy had her first big breakout role in 2015’s The VVitch . The movie centers around a family in the 1600s who have been banished from a Puritan village. Now forced to live in a remote homestead, the family battles with famine and starvation, pushing them to madness. Making everything even more dire… there might be a witch secretly watching the family, relishing in their downfall. The movie was a hit and cemented the young studio A24 as a real power player in Hollywood.

No list of Taylor-Joy’s best roles would be complete without The Queen’s Gambit , which served as her most notable role to date, launching her onto Hollywood’s A-List. In the acclaimed miniseries, she plays a young orphan who becomes a chess prodigy. But she also battles with depression and drug addiction. As her chess fame grows, so do her problems. The series won a boatload of awards, including Best Limited Series at the Emmys.

A role that many fans often forget about is Taylor-Joy’s turn as Casey Cooke in M. Night Shyamalan ’s hit film Split , and its sequel Glass . In Split, Taylor-Joy is kidnapped by a man suffering from multiple-personality disorder. Some of his personalities seek to harm, while others want to help. She returns for the sequel Glass, which also brought back Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson from Unbreakable, bringing all three superhumans together and concluding the Unbreakable trilogy.

In 2023, Taylor-Joy also had a prominent voice role in The Super Mario Bros. Movie , where she portrayed the iconic Princess Peach. The movie brought tons of famous Nintendo characters to life, like Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and more. It was also a massive blockbuster hit, grossing $1.3 billion at the box office. Nintendo has also announced that the cast will return for a sequel in 2026, so Mario fans have a lot to look forward to.

Where can I watch Anya Taylor-Joy movies and TV shows online?

Looking for more of Anya Taylor-Joy’s best roles after watching  Furiosa ? Then check out our streaming guide below to find out where you can watch her best movies and TV shows. This includes all the latest streaming details for viewers in the United States.

Where To Watch the 10 Best Michael Bay Movies, Ranked

From Bad Boys to Transformers , Michael Bay is the director behind some of the most well-known action franchises and film series. While critics often erroneously reduce his work to little more than explosions and formulaic action heroes, Bay’s craftsmanship and technical filmmaking skills are paralleled by few in the industry. All of his films have a distinct style and demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of every aspect of filmmaking, from set scenery to camera speed and angles.

For those interested in the films that best illustrate Bay’s skill as a director, this guide will explore his 10 best movies and where to watch them.

In recent years, Bay has shifted more to producing. He is the producer behind two of the year's most-anticipated movies: A Quiet Place: Day One and Transformers One . For the purposes of this article, though, we’ll be focusing on the films that gained him prominence as a director.

One of Michael Bay’s most enduring films is the one that started his career: Bad Boys . The 1995 buddy cop comedy starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence earned praise for its frantic pace, the dynamic between Smith and Lawrence, the extended action sequences, and the hilarious tale of two reckless detectives searching for missing narcotics. It was a substantial enough commercial success to earn three sequels, although Bay only returned to direct Bad Boys II , which further ramped up the action, dark humor, and stunning visual effects.

After his directorial debut, Bay followed up with arguably the best film of his career, The Rock . Boasting a stacked cast including Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery, the film tells the thrilling story of an Alcatraz break-in. It boasts some of the most extravagant action sequences of any Bay movie and runs at a pace that keeps the adrenaline pumping for every minute of its runtime.

Meanwhile, Pain & Gain and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi are notable as Bay’s most mature and sophisticated movies. Pain & Gain, starring Mark Wahlberg , Anthony Mackie, and Dwayne Johnson , sees Bay expertly craft his filmmaking to convey the satirical and dark tone of the story, while 13 Hours thrillingly and heartbreakingly captures the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

Bay’s penchant for groundbreaking visual effects and larger-than-life action plots was also well-suited for the exhilarating and visually stunning Transformers. At the same time, his love of breakneck pacing elevated the Jake Gyllenhaal -led Ambulance to one unforgettable car chase thriller.

If you’re looking for more unforgettable action thrillers in Bay’s signature filmmaking style, read on for his ten best movies, ranked from the best.

Where to Watch Every Bad Boys Movies in Order

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence returned to their iconic roles as Mike and Marcus in 2024's Bad Boys: Ride or Die . It marked the fourth film in the franchise and latest entry in the series since the finale of the spin-off show  LA’s Finest in late 2020. If you want to find out where to watch every Bad Boys movie, check out our list below which provides information on where to stream the movies on platforms like Netflix , Max , Prime Video and more!

The first Bad Boys movie premiered in 1995, and on top of being a blockbuster hit for Smith and Lawrence, it also served as the breakout role for actress Téa Leoni. In the film, Smith and Lawrence play two police detectives in Miami who are trying to find a massive cache of heroin that’s been stolen from the department’s evidence locker. Things get even more complicated when they’re forced to provide protection for a woman who witnessed a mob hit. The movie grossed almost $66 million in North America alone, making it a bona fide hit.

Thanks to the home rental market, the film continued to be popular, and in 2003 it received a sequel: Bad Boys 2 . This time around, Smith and Lawrence were joined by more famous faces like Gabrielle Union and Michael Shannon. In the film, Mike and Marcus are investigating a drug trafficking ring and Mike is secretly seeing Marcus’ younger sister Syd (Union). But neither of the guys know that Syd is actually an undercover agent for the DEA. The dynamic between the three stars really helped keep the sequel feeling fresh and the movie became a smash hit, grossing more than $273 million at the box office.

The franchise then went dormant for almost 20 years, returning in 2019 with the spin-off series LA’s Finest . In the show, Union reprises her role as Syd and is joined by Jessica Alba who plays her partner at the LAPD. Sadly, the show premiered as a Spectrum Original back when the cable company was attempting to create original content. With hardly anyone knowing about the service or what Spectrum was, the show suffered from poor viewership. Just three years later, Spectrum announced it wouldn’t produce more shows after its handful of original series all performed poorly. The good news is that LA’s Finest has been given a second life on other streaming services.

In 2020, Bad Boys finally returned for a third film with Bad Boys for Life . Mike and Marcus return and encounter a vengeful enemy from their past who is hellbent on avenging his father (who was sent to prison after being caught by the duo). Released in January 2020, Bad Boys for Life was one of the only major blockbusters to be released in 2020 before the COVID pandemic shut down theaters around the world. The movie continued performing well in cinemas even through the weekend of March 7-8, just a few days before lockdown began. Still, despite COVID, Bad Boys for Life remains the highest-grossing film in the franchise, earning an impressive $426 million.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die found Miami's Finest turning into Miami's Most Wanted as the duo are on the run from the law after being accused of murdering their old Police Chief.

Where to watch all the Bad Boys movies online

The hilarious Bad Boys have been a beloved buddy cop duo for decades. Find out where you can stream the entire Bad Boys franchise in the United States using our guide below!

Where to Watch Guillermo del Toro’s Best Movies and TV Shows

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is known for many things – he’s noted for his unique style that often takes inspiration from dark fairytales. He’s also an integral figure in the horror genre thanks to his numerous horror films (plus, he often cites classic horror movies as his inspirations), and in more recent years, he’s become known as an award-winning director who isn’t just popular with genre fans, but who can hold his own against the Hollywood greats.

If you want to watch del Toro’s best movies and TV shows, use our guide below to find out where they are streaming.

Guillermo del Toro’s trademark film is easily Pan’s Labyrinth . While it wasn’t del Toro’s first movie, it was the first to earn him international acclaim. In the film, a young girl escapes her domineering stepfather by entering into a fairytale world…but not everything about the realm is good. She encounters both light and dark, good and bad, and friends and enemies. The movie was lauded for its gorgeous visuals and raw, emotional story. At the 79th Oscars, Pan’s Labyrinth received six nominations and won three awards, including for Best Cinematography.

But long before Pan’s Labyrinth, one of del Toro’s earliest hits was the sci-fi horror film Mimic . The movie takes place in New York City, where a deadly disease spread by cockroaches is killing hundreds of children. To stop the spread, scientists bioengineer a new bug that secretes a toxin that kills off the cockroaches. But some years later, the new bugs have continued to evolve and are now hunting humans. Though a moderate success in theaters, Mimic became a huge hit in the rental market and is now a cult classic among horror fans.

More recently, the film that most fans know del Toro for is The Shape of Water . At the 90th Oscars, the movie was nominated for a whopping 13 awards and won two major categories: Best Director for del Toro and Best Picture. The film centers around a lonely employee of a secret government facility during the Cold War. One day she discovers that the compound is hiding a dark secret… a mysterious sea creature that’s being kept trapped in a tank. Heavily inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, the movie took horror elements and blended them with a love story.

del Toro also used his love of monsters to create another hit movie: Pacific Rim . Heavily inspired by Godzilla and other Japanese monster movies, the film sees humanity fight off towering monsters known as kaijus using giant mechs called jaegers. Stylistically, it’s pretty different from most of del Toro’s films, but it very much plays into the filmmaker’s love of classic monster movies. For fans of the MonsterVerse , Pacific Rim is a must-watch.  

Looking for more great del Toro movies? Check out our guide below to find out where you can watch more of his best films (and even some hit TV shows).

Where To Watch Every DC Animated Movie in Order

Most viewers are familiar with the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). However, if one wants to dive even deeper into the world of DC Comics, consider exploring the enormous collection of DC animated movies. Animated film adaptations of DC Comics have been produced since 1993, with multiple cinematic universes and continuities being developed over the years. Delving into the vast collection may be daunting to newcomers, but this guide will break down where to watch every DC animated movie in order.

The oldest shared universe is the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), which kicked off in 1992 with the TV show Batman: The Animated Series . The series soon inspired the theatrical film Batman: Mask of Phantasm in 1993, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Bruce Wayne (a.k.a. Batman ) and The Joker, respectively. Ultimately, the DCAU continuity would consist of eight films, including the critically acclaimed Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker .

While the DCAU was the first continuity, another major universe that has sprung up is the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU). It is one of the largest continuities, consisting of 17 movies, beginning with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox . The film is a unique crossover film that sees the return of voice actors like Conroy’s Batman and Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern while introducing some new voice actors, including Michael B. Jordan as Victor Stone.

All 17 movies in the DCAMU are loosely based on the New 52 storylines from the comics, which explore the rebooted DC timeline following Flashpoint. It heavily focuses on the Justice League, Batman, and Batman’s son, Damian. Some of its most well-received films include  Batman vs. Robin , Batman: Bad Blood , The Death of Superman , and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War .

Another large universe is Origins, a group of movies that aren’t necessarily interconnected but are lumped together because, as the title suggests, they focus on DC heroes’ origin stories. Origins comprises 14 movies, including Batman: Year One and Wonder Woman (2009). Then, there are many standalone films that don’t belong to any specific universe but are based on DC Comics. These movies can be pretty fun, such as Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Batman vs. Dracula , since they’re not confined to any one continuity. Like Origins, these largely non-related standalone films are grouped into their own universe: Animated Elseworlds.

There are also two smaller universes known as the Tomorrowverse and Arkhamverse. Tomorrowverse is the successor to the DCAMU, while the Arhamverse consists of one movie and the Batman: Arkham video game series.

How to watch the DC Animated Movies in Order

You can either watch DC animated movies by universe or by release date. Given the multiple continuities, watching by universe is the closest one can get to chronological order. Meanwhile, there’s no set order to watch the universes in. However, it’s largely agreed upon Origins is the best to start with since it introduces so many DC heroes. Afterward, we recommend going with the more recent DCAMU before moving on to the three smaller universes and concluding with the standalone movies in Elseworlds.

Find out how to view the movies by universe below, followed by how to stream them in release date order.

• Batman: Year One
• Batman: Gotham Knight
• Wonder Woman (2009)
• Green Lantern: First Flight
• Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
• All-Star Superman
• DC Showcase: Superman / Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
• Superman / Batman: Public Enemies
• Superman / Batman: Apocalypse
• Superman: Unbound
• Batman: Under the Red Hood
• Batman: Death in the Family
• Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
• Justice League: Doom
• Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
• Justice League: War
• Son of Batman
• Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
• Batman vs. Robin
• Batman: Bad Blood
• Justice League vs. Teen Titans
• Justice League Dark
• Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
• Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
• The Death of Superman
• Constantine: City of Demons
• Reign of the Supermen
• Batman: Hush
• Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
• Justice League Dark: Apokolips War
• Constantine: House of Mystery
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
• The Batman / Superman Movie: World’s Finest
• Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero
• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
• Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
• Superman: Brainiac Attacks
• Batman and Harley Quinn
• Justice League vs. The Fatal Five

The Tomorrowverse

• Superman: Man of Tomorrow
• Justice Society: World War II
• Batman: The Long Halloween Part One
• Batman: The Long Halloween Part Two
• Green Lantern: Beware My Power
• Legion of Super-Heroes
• Justice League: Warworld
• Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part One
• Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two

The Arkhamverse

• Batman: Assault on Arkham

Animated Elseworlds

• The Batman vs. Dracula
• Superman: Doomsday  
• Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo  
• Justice League: The New Frontier  
• Superman vs. The Elite
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2  
• Justice League: Gods and Monsters  
• Batman: The Killing Joke
• Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders
• Batman vs Two-Face  
• Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
• Batman Ninja
• Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
• Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  
• Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
• Superman: Red Son
• Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons: The Movie
• Batman: Soul of the Dragon
• Catwoman: Hunted
• Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons
• Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

Where To Watch the Men in Black Movies in Order

Men in Black is over 25 years old yet still remains a sci-fi cult classic. The ‘90s movie kicked off a film series as well as a contemporary spinoff. For those interested in the memorable franchise, which still has the potential to expand, this guide will demonstrate where and how to stream the Men in Black franchise in order.

The franchise began as a comic book series from Aircel Comics, which is now owned by Marvel Comics . The comics were inspired by the Men in Black (MIB) conspiracy theory, which posits that secret government agents use tactics like memory-wiping to prevent knowledge of UFOs or other extraterrestrial occurrences from reaching the public. In 1997, director Barry Sonnenfeld and writer Ed Solomon put a comedic spin on the MIB theory.

Men in Black sees Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones take on the roles of Agent J and Agent K, respectively, as they navigate the extraterrestrial-investigating titular organization and form a close bond while saving the world. The movie was a major critical and commercial hit, with its witty script, palpable chemistry between Smith and Lee, and stunning blend of practical effects and CG elements.

By 2002, Men in Black II arrived on the big screen, with Smith and Jones reprising their iconic roles. Rosario Dawson , Johnny Knoxville, Rip Torn, and Michael Jackson also appeared in the film. Once again, it was a significant box office hit, though it suffered from mixed critical reviews for veering too close to the original story.

Fortunately, Men in Black 3 got the series back on track by introducing a time-traveling element. Agent J travels back in time to save Agent K’s life. In the process, he meets the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) from the 1960s. Although it was a well-made, refreshing, and humorous sci-fi movie, it didn’t quite eclipse the original. Still, the moderate critical and box office success should’ve been enough to move forward with Men in Black 4.

Instead, the franchise was rebooted in 2019 with the spinoff Men in Black: International . The film did not feature Smith or Jones; instead, it introduced two new agents, Agent H ( Chris Hemsworth ) and Agent M (Tessa Thompson), as they investigated a mole in the agency. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same without Smith and Jones, with many feeling the spinoff and reboot weren’t necessary, resulting in mostly negative reviews.

So far, no news has arisen of further movies in the franchise, although its success and enduring legacy mean the door is never wholly closed on Men in Black 4.

For those interested in diving into the memorable sci-fi series, here’s how to watch the Men in Black franchise in release date order, including the animated series (although it's not canon to the movies).

The Best Luca Guadagnino Movies to Watch After Challengers (And Where to Stream Them)

Challengers has become one of the hottest movies of the spring thanks to a great performance from Zendaya and the bubbling queer sexual tension that director Luca Guadagnino is so famous for. If you loved the pulpy, exciting melodrama of Challengers , check out our guide below to find out where you can watch more of Guadagnino’s best movies and TV shows.

Luca Guadagnino began his career in Italy and has directed everything from commercials to music videos, documentaries, short films, and feature-length movies. His first major hit around the globe was 2009’s I Am Love . An official selection at the Sundance, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto film festivals, the movie centers around a woman (Tilda Swinton) who begins a new life in Italy and marries into a wealthy family. But soon, she begins having an affair with one of her son’s friends. Filled with sexual tension, lies, and lust, the movie is salacious and captivating.

Arguably the most famous Guadagnino film is Call Me By Your Name . In the film, a 24-year-old (Armie Hammer) arrives in Italy to help a professor with a project during the early ‘80s. Soon, he begins to fall in love with the professor’s 17-year-old son ( Timothée Chalamet ). The film received praise for its sexual tension and emotional exploration of what life was like for closeted men who fall in love. Call Me By Your Name received ample amounts of praise and was even nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Chalamet would team up with the director again a few years later for Bones and All .

Guadagnino also directed the 2018 remake of Suspiria , a film about a reclusive German dance school that’s actually run by a coven of bloodthirsty witches. Despite being a horror movie, Suspiria was praised for its cinematography and gorgeous visuals. It also had an all-star cast that included Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, and Dakota Johnson .

Discover where to stream more of Luca Guadagnino’s best movies (and even his HBO miniseries We Are Who We Are ) using our guide below.

9 Best Tennis Movies to Watch After Challengers (and Where to Stream Them)

Maybe it’s because it stars Zendaya , or perhaps it’s the now-infamous ménage à trois scene, but Challengers has stolen the spotlight as one of the buzziest movies of the spring. If you liked it, check out our guide below to discover more great tennis movies you can watch right now. From a biopic starring Emma Stone to a Kirsten Dunst rom-com, and more.

What are some of the best tennis movies?

If you want to watch a great tennis movie, one of the most notable is 2017’s  Battle of the Sexes . The film tells the true story of when Billie Jean King played a match against tennis legend Bobby Riggs. King ended up beating Riggs, which became a monumental event in the tennis world, proving that women could hold their own against the men and should be taken seriously in the sport. Emma Stone played King and Steve Carrell portrayed Riggs. In 2001, a made-for-TV movie called When Billie Beat Bobby covered the same event, this time with Holly Hunter portraying King. The movie was well-received and Hunter even earned an Emmy nomination for her role.

Another high-profile tennis biopic is 2021’s King Richard , which starred Will Smith as Richard Williams, the father of tennis superstars Venus and Serena. The movie follows the Williams sisters as they grow up under the watchful eye of their dad who is determined to turn them into tennis pros, no matter how hard it might be. The film was nominated for six Oscars, with Smith winning for Best Actor. However, that same night Smith had the infamous “Oscars slap” incident and was promptly banned from the Academy Awards for a decade.

For a more romanticized tennis film, check out 2004’s Wimbledon . The movie stars Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany as two tennis players at Wimbledon. Bettany is a fading star, while Dunst is a rising tennis competitor. The two meet, sparks fly, drama is had, and the duo must navigate how to win their matches despite all the distractions of their relationship. The movie was loaded with other stars too, like Sam Neill and Jon Favreau.

Another movie set in Wimbledon is 7 Days in Hell . The film is based on the unbelievably true story of the longest match in tennis history. Played in 2010 between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, a series of constant ties forced the game to be played for more than 11 hours over three days. The movie starred Andy Samberg and Kit Harington as two fictitious tennis players (who are based on Isner and Mahut) who get locked into a neverending tennis match.

Where can I watch the best tennis movies streaming online?

There are tons more excellent tennis movies and series out there, including documentaries. If you want to watch more great tennis action, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream them all. We'll also show you where you can watch the best tennis movies online for free.

The 10 Best Jason Momoa Films, Ranked (And Where To Watch Them)

Jason Momoa has quickly become one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood, boasting roles in numerous high-profile franchises, including Dune , the DCEU , Game of Thrones , and Fast & Furious. He will also star in the Minecraft movie next year alongside Jack Black . For viewers who wish to acquaint themselves with Momoa’s work before his next projects arrive, this guide will rank his ten best movies and detail where to watch them.

Momoa’s first major film role was as the titular character in Conan the Barbarian (2011), a reimagining of the film of the same name starring Arnold Schwarzenegger . While Momoa’s acting was praised, the movie itself was a critical and commercial failure. Fortunately, Conan the Barbarian didn’t derail his career.

He bounced back with the underrated Bullet to the Head in 2012, where he proved his skill as an action star alongside Sylvester Stallone . However, it wasn’t until 2018 that he had his breakthrough with Aquaman .

Aquaman became the DCEU’s highest-grossing film to date, surpassing $1 billion at the box office. Momoa received high praise for embodying the half-human, half-Atlantean superhero Arthur Curry. He reprised his role as Curry in Zack Snyder’s Justice League , as well as Aquaman’s sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom , which failed to match the success of its predecessor.

Momoa also starred in Braven in 2018, elevating the film beyond a typical action-thriller with his emotional and fierce performance as a man desperate to save his family.

By 2021, Momoa had joined another major franchise when he appeared in Denis Villeneuve ’s critically acclaimed Dune . He held his own alongside A-list actors like Timothée Chalamet and Oscar Isaac while portraying Duncan Idaho, one of Paul Atreides’ most beloved mentors.

The following year, he debuted in the Fast & Furious series as Dante Reyes in Fast X . Despite the film receiving mixed reviews, Momoa’s unhinged villain role received unanimous praise, marking one of his career-best performances.

Ranking his movies is a bit difficult as some of his best performances were in movies that weren’t very well-received by critics. Hence, this list considers both the quality and significance of his role in each film, as well as the film's overall quality.

Here are Jason Momoa’s ten best performances, ranked from the best, and where to stream them online.

Where To Watch Every Marvel TV Show in Order

Marvel has recently been expanding its small screen presence through several Disney+ original series, which are canon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe . More Marvel TV series are on the way, including some, like Daredevil: Born Again , that tie into Marvel’s pre-Disney+ era. For those looking to catch up on every Marvel-based TV show, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch all the series in order.

The Marvel shows canon to the MCU began with the Disney+ series WandaVision in 2021. However, there were several important Marvel series before 2021 — they just weren’t produced by Marvel Studios. Marvel’s live-action TV presence started with ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2013, which ran for seven seasons and achieved high critical acclaim. Although not considered canon to the MCU, it does center on Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who first appeared in Iron Man . MCU star Samuel L. Jackson also appears as Nick Fury in the series.

The success of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. led ABC to greenlight Agent Carter , another non-canon spinoff focused on the MCU character Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Despite receiving stellar reviews, Agent Carter was canceled after two seasons. Meanwhile, the third ABC series, Inhumans , also faced speedy cancellation after being critically panned.

Netflix also invested in several Marvel series from 2015 to 2019. The streamer created what is known as the Defenders saga, consisting of six interconnected series. Of the series, the most critically acclaimed were Daredevil and Jessica Jones . Charlie Cox’s performance as Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance as Kingpin were so beloved that Marvel decided to integrate the characters into the MCU, despite the Defenders series technically not being canon. Cox and D’Onofrio will soon star in the Daredevil reboot Daredevil: Born Again. Hulu, FX, Fox, and Freeform have also briefly dabbled in Marvel series, with shows like Runaways and Cloak & Dagger .

By 2021, the MCU decided to move to the small screen with the Emmy-winning WandaVision, which saw Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their roles as the Scarlet Witch and Vision, respectively. In total, the MCU has released ten original Disney+ series. Of those series, What If…? and the Tom Hiddleston -led Loki were popular enough to warrant season 2 renewals. Future series include Agatha , Ironheart , and Eyes of Wakanda.

It’s impossible to watch every Marvel series in chronological order, given that not all of them occur in the same universe. Hence, the best way to watch is in the order of release date. See below for where to watch every live-action or MCU canon Marvel TV show (and TV special) in release date order.

Where To Watch Every Movie in the After Series in Order

The After film series is set to expand soon, with a prequel and fifth sequel reportedly in development. Based on the book series of the same name by Anna Todd, the movies have garnered attention for dramatically capturing a complicated modern college romance. For those interested in catching up on the series before the prequel, Before, releases, this guide will demonstrate where and how to watch every After movie in order.

After  premiered in 2019 and featured Josephine Langford in the lead role of Tessa Young. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Ralph Fiennes's nephew, starred opposite Langford as Hardin Scott. Fiennes Tiffin had previously portrayed young Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter film series . After follows Tessa, an innocent freshman college student who finds her life upended by Hardin, the manipulative and selfish “bad boy” she finds herself inexplicably falling for.

The movie received mixed reviews, as it drew criticism for being a rather generic romance but was praised for its drama and beautiful cinematography. It was also a hit at the box office, earning nearly $70 million worldwide on a budget of just $14 million.

Hence, a sequel, After We Collided , soon arrived. Langford and Fiennes Tiffin reprise their roles as the young lovers who re-enter a tumultuous relationship after regretting their breakup. It received slightly more negative reviews than the first. Still, it was a comparable commercial success to the original, resulting in three more sequels: After We Fell , After Ever Happy , and After Everything .

However, critical and commercial reception continued to fall, with After We Fell and After Ever Happy receiving a score of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and box office earnings dropping to around $20 million. Still, After Everything was greenlit. It was the first movie to boast an original story outside of Todd’s books and was advertised as the final film in the series. Although it received a limited theatrical release, it made $10 million at the box office and received relatively favorable audience reviews.

Soon, After Everything director Castille Landon confirmed the movie wasn’t the last chapter in the series, as a prequel was in development. Additionally, another untitled sequel is in development, inspired by the epilogue of the After Ever Happy book, which will focus on Hardin’s and Tessa’s children. It is believed the prequel and sequel will be the first movies without Langford or Fiennes Tiffin.

For those interested in catching up with the series before the prequel and sequel, here is where to watch the After movies in release date order.

Where To Watch Every Pixar Animation Studios Movie in Order

Pixar Animation Studios is one of the most influential and successful animation studios of all time, having made unparalleled contributions to the film industry in computer animation. The studio has produced 27 feature films and is gearing up to expand its film slate with Inside Out 2 , which is set to release on June 14, and is one of the most highly anticipated films of 2024 . Read on to discover where to stream every Pixar Animation Studios film.

Pixar began as a part of Lucasfilm’s Computer Division. Under Lucasfilm, it created the first wholly computer-animated sequence in a feature film by designing a scene where a planet transforms in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . By 1986, Steve Jobs bought the Computer Division and formed it into the independent company Pixar, which quickly began collaborating with Disney.

Out of Pixar and Disney’s collaboration, the very first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story , was born. The computer-animated movie was released in 1995 and explored a world where toys like Woody ( Tom Hanks ) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) come to life. It was like nothing viewers had ever seen before and quickly became the most important film of its kind, setting a precedent for further computer-animated features.

Since then, Pixar has stayed on top of the computer animation field, with every film boasting cutting-edge technology, innovation, and creativity. Nearly every Pixar film has achieved high critical acclaim, but a few stand out especially. Finding Nemo took home the studio's first Best Animated Feature win at the Oscars, while The Incredibles was the first wholly animated film to earn the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Cars became a profitable trilogy and introduced Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), one of the most iconic and recognizable Pixar characters. Meanwhile, the emotional and adventurous Up became the first Pixar film and second animated film in history to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Toy Story 3 soon became the third animated film to earn a Best Picture nomination and broke $1 billion at the box office.

Its movies have only become more sophisticated, with films like Inside Out , Coco , Soul , and Turning Red seeking to celebrate girlhood and other cultures and exploring concepts like grief and mortality. With Inside Out 2 poised to explore emotions in puberty and raise awareness for struggles with anxiety in adolescence, the studio could be adding another critically acclaimed film to its slate.

For those looking to catch up on Pixar’s movies before Inside Out 2, here is how to watch them in release date order from oldest to newest.

Where to Watch the Entire Sonic Cinematic Universe in Order

Sonic is the ultimate hero and the undefeated underdog. He single-handedly saved SEGA in the '90s, and when the first trailer for his live-action 2020 film debuted, it became the center of jokes and memes thanks to Sonic’s terrifyingly real animation. But after the movie received tons of praise from audiences and grossed more than $319 million at the box office, one thing became clear: Sonic is no joke. Check out our guide to find out where you can watch every movie and show in the Sonic Cinematic Universe in order. We'll also show you if there are options to watch Sonic movies legally for free in the United States.

What is the Sonic Cinematic Universe?

A lot of fans are probably wondering what exactly the “Sonic cinematic universe” is. It’s all the films, shows, and shorts that take place in the new live-action era of Sonic. Believe it or not, Sonic has actually had quite a few shows throughout his three decades – like  Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), Sonic Underground (1999), and Sonic X (2003). So it’s important to differentiate that the new franchise doesn’t include those older entries. 

So, where does the Sonic Cinematic Universe start? That would be with 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog , where Sonic uses a golden ring to transport himself to Earth. But once Dr. Robotnik discovers his location, Sonic is forced to escape with the help of his new friend (played excellently by James Marsden).

Thanks to the movie’s success, it was followed by  Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 2022. This time around, Dr. Robotnik is back for revenge and audiences get to see more iconic Sonic characters brought to life like Knuckles and Tails. The mid-credits scene also introduces the villainous Shadow, who is going to play a large role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 later in 2024…and be voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves.

There’s also the spin-off series Knuckles , which premiered in April 2024. The show centers around Knuckles, who helps the dimwitted town sheriff by teaching him the ways of the echidna warriors. The show features a fantastic cast that includes Hollywood veterans like Christopher Lloyd and Stockard Channing, as well as both Tika Sumpter and Ben Schwartz reprising their roles from the film series. In the franchise’s timeline, Knuckles fills the gap between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

There’s also a non-canonical short film Sonic Drone Home which is technically part of the new Sonic Cinematic Universe as well. The short was released as part of the special features on the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Blu-Ray and follows Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails as they encounter a (somewhat evil) scrapyard robot who loves poetry. Luckily, the short has been uploaded to YouTube for anyone who wants to watch it.

How can I watch the Sonic Cinematic Universe online?

You can find out where to watch every entry in the Sonic Cinematic Universe using our guide below. This includes every official entry into the live action Sonic movie series in release order, and every streaming option currently available to viewers in the United States.

Where to Watch the Entire Hotel Transylvania Series In Order

In 2012, Hotel Transylvania became an unexpected hit film. Released at the end of September (one of the worst months for cinemas), the movie ended up grossing over $358 million globally. Since then, three more films and a TV series have been released in the franchise. Check out our guide below to find out where to watch the entire Hotel Transylvania franchise in order.

The original Hotel Transylvania film starred a huge array of Saturday Night Live alums, like Adam Sandler , Andy Samberg, and Molly Shannon, along with other big names like Selena Gomez. The movie centers around a monsters-only hotel in Transylvania run by the vampire (and overprotective single-father), Count Dracula. But everything changes when Johnny, a human, checks into the hotel, unaware of who inhabits it. Things go even more awry when he starts to fall in love with Dracula’s daughter.

Then, in 2015 the sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 began by showing that Johnny and Dracula’s daughter Mavis got married and had a baby. But, questions arise about whether the baby will be a vampire or a human. The entire original cast returned for the sequel, and more comedic actors joined in on the fun too, like Mel Brooks, Nick Offerman, and Megan Mullally. The movie became an even bigger hit than the original, grossing more than $474 million globally.

From 2017-2020, there was also Hotel Transylvania: The Series . The show is actually a prequel to the first movie and follows a younger Mavis who has adventures throughout the hotel with her friends. The animated series had a different voice cast from the films and ran for 52 episodes. For hardcore fans of the franchise it’s a fun addition to watch, but seeing the show isn’t necessary to enjoy the films.

In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation , the gang desperately needs a vacation, so they book a cruise. Little do they know, the infamous vampire hunter Van Helsing is onboard along with his great-granddaughter Ericka. But, despite the Van Helsings' desire to kill Dracula… Ericka finds herself falling in love. Once again, the entire main cast reprised their roles, this time joined by newcomers like Chrissy Teigen and Kathryn Hahn.

The fourth film, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania , was released as an Amazon Prime exclusive in 2022. True to the movie’s title, this time around all the humans become monsters and vice versa. The only way for Johnny and Dracula to turn back to their old selves is to finally love each other and see each other as family.

Currently, there’s no news about a potential fifth film (though there are a bunch of fake fan-made trailers on YouTube). Hopefully fans will get a fifth installment, but until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream all four Hotel Transylvania movies and the prequel series.

How to Watch The Matrix Movies in Order (and Where to Watch Them)

In this guide, we’ll show you how to watch The Matrix franchise in order and show you where you can watch them on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if there are options to stream The Matrix movies legally for free.

In 1999, The Matrix became an overnight sensation when the directorial duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski unveiled their kung fu science fiction classic to the world. Starring Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, this groundbreaking movie grossed $460 million worldwide at the box office on a $63 million budget. This marked the beginning of an ongoing blockbuster franchise that is still beloved by fans today.

The Matrix franchise now includes a trilogy ( The Matrix , The Matrix Reloaded , The Matrix Revolutions ), an anthology of anime short films ( The Animatrix ) and a soft meta-reboot ( The Matrix Resurrections ). There are also tentative plans for an upcoming fifth installment by Warner Bros. Whether you’re watching The Matrix for the first time or rewatching the classic sci-fi franchise, this guide shows you where to watch them all online and the different viewing orders (release vs chronological).

How to watch The Matrix movies in order

If you only want to watch The Matrix feature-length movies, you can watch them chronologically in exactly the same way they were released.

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The Matrix: Resurrections (2021)

This is a great viewing order if you are new to the franchise and want to enjoy the main storyline without getting overwhelmed by the franchise’s expanded universe of short films and canonical video games. However, the Wachowskis and Warner Bros. have always been ambitious when expanding The Matrix as a multimedia franchise. They have released several canonical stories in video games (Enter the Matrix, The Matrix Online and Path of Neo) and The Animatrix. In particular, The Animatrix offers some of the franchise’s best storylines that you won’t want to miss. So, if you’re ready to ‘take the red pill’ and go deeper, here’s how to watch the franchise in its entirety.

How to watch entire The Matrix franchise in chronological order

While watching the Matrix movies in order isn’t too complicated, this becomes more difficult if you want to watch the entire story unfold in every movie, short film and video game. Technically, The Matrix video games Enter the Matrix, The Path of Neo and The Matrix Online are all canonical, so we’ve included these in our complete Matrix timeline. Similarly, the short films included in The Animatrix anthology take place at various times throughout the story.

The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II

The Animatrix: A Detective Story

The Animatrix: Kid's Story

The Animatrix: Final Flight of the Osiris

Enter the Matrix – Video game

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix: Path of Neo – Video game

The Matrix Online: The Matrix Online – Video game

The Animatrix: Beyond

The Matrix: Resurrections

The Animatrix: World Record – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: Matriculated – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: Program – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II takes place during the human/machine war in the mid-21st century. According to Morpheus’ estimations, everything from The Animatrix: A Detective Story until The Animatrix: Beyond then takes place circa 2199. The Matrix: Resurrections picks up the story 18 years later. Three Animatrix shorts have no discernable timeframe, so the best option is to watch those last.

The Matrix documentaries

The Matrix Revisited (2001)

Another important release for Matrix completists is The Matrix Revisited. This 2001 documentary shows the making of the first movie in 1999, revealing how many of the stunts were performed and explaining the movie’s revolutionary CGI techniques.

Where can I watch The Matrix movies in release order?

Below you can find the latest streaming information for every Matrix movie. You can check each movie’s availability on streaming services and find out if they are available online.

Where To Watch Every Fifty Shades of Grey Movie in Order

Shortly after becoming one of the fastest-selling adult paperbacks of all time, E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey earned a film adaptation . The film was a major commercial success, leading to the whole book series being adapted into a movie trilogy. This guide will demonstrate where and how viewers can watch and stream the entire Fifty Shades of Grey series in order.

The first movie in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey , premiered in 2015, starring Dakota Johnson in the lead role of Anastasia “Ana” Steele and Jamie Dornan in the role of Christian Grey. It is often credited with kickstarting both Johnson and Dornan’s careers. Like the book, the film follows Ana’s experiences as she finds herself falling for the billionaire businessman Christian, though his interest in BDSM complicates their relationship.

Similar to the books, Fifty Shades of Grey received mixed-to-negative reviews but was a major commercial hit, grossing $381 million on a budget of $55 million. Although many disagree on the movie’s quality and how it chooses to frame BDSM, it has garnered widespread attention for tackling topics considered “taboo” and highlighting women’s sexuality.

Hence, it wasn’t long before the sequel, Fifty Shades Darker , was greenlit, with Johnson and Dornan returning. Luke Grimes and Rita Ora also returned to reprise their roles as Mia and Elliott Grey, respectively. Anticipation for this movie was relatively high, especially since James’ husband, Niall Leonard, signed on to write the script. The sequel sees the story heat up as Christian’s past comes back to haunt him while he tries to rekindle his relationship with Ana. Although Fifty Shades Darker received even poorer reviews than the original, earning just an 11% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it matched the original’s commercial success.

In 2018, the final movie in the series, Fifty Shades Freed , premiered. Johnson, Dornan, Grimes, and Ora returned while Leonard wrote the script again. The plot allows viewers to see the culmination of Christian and Ana’s relationship. Like its predecessor, the final film was also critically panned but proved a box office success. Despite its mixed reception, the series’ subject matter ensures the conversation and interest around it remains ongoing.

For viewers wishing to delve into the erotica series, here is where to watch it in order. There is only one viewing order, as the chronological and release date orders are the same.

Where to Watch Mad Max Movies in Order – A Streaming Guide

Check out our guide to watching all the Mad Max movies online including 1979's original film, Tom Hardy in Fury Road and the Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga prequel in 2024 starring Anya Taylor-Joy . Here you can find out how to watch every Mad Max movie in order (chronological vs release) and where to watch them all on streaming services in the United States. This includes the latest offers from services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We'll also let you know if you can watch any of the Mad Max movies online for free.

How to watch Mad Max movies in release order

The first Mad Max film premiered in 1979 and was set in a near-future dystopian Australia where society has collapsed due to oil shortages and widespread ecocide. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) works for the only remaining law enforcement agency in the country, the Main Force Patrol, and he’s tasked with roaming the wasteland to hopefully bring as much justice as he can.

The sequel, Mad Max 2 , released two years later in 1981, sees Max discover a small community living in a village built around a working oil rig. After noticing the village is constantly attacked, he tries to strike a deal: protect them in exchange for fuel.

The third film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome , has become arguably the most iconic. Released in 1985, Beyond Thunderdome stars Tina Turner as Aunty Entity, the leader of an outpost that gets its power from an underground refinery. Max is enlisted to take down the ruler of the underworld, who is plotting to overthrow Aunty Entity.

Mad Max fans had to wait 30 years until the next release in 2015, when  Mad Max: Fury Road premiered to critical acclaim. This time around, Max is played by Tom Hardy. Fury Road follows Max as he joins forces with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who is trying to liberate a group of “wives” who have been imprisoned by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Mad Max director George Miller has never been clear on whether Fury Road is a sequel to Thunderdome or a reboot.

The next movie to watch in release order is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga , the prequel to Fury Road. It portrays a young Imperator Furiosa, this time played by Anya Taylor-Joy. She is taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a dangerous biker horde.

There’s also another Mad Max sequel in the works, titled Mad Max: The Wasteland. The film is still in the early stages of development, but it appears to be a sequel to Fury Road and will see Hardy reprise his role.

How to watch Mad Max movies in chronological order

Because Mad Max is treated like a mythological character in George Miller's post-apocalyptic franchise, the exact order of the movies isn't as clear (or important) as other franchises. However, this is our suggested order if you want to follow Mad Max's adventures through the Wasteland.

• Mad Max (1979)
• Max Mad 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
• Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Where can I watch Mad Max movies online?

You can use this guide to find out where to watch every Mad Max movie online. Browse through the complete franchise below to see every streaming offer for viewers in the United States. This includes the availability of Mad Max movies to buy, rent and stream on all popular streaming services.

Where To Watch Every Disney Live-Action Remake in Order

Recently, Walt Disney Studios has been ramping up its remake strategy. The studio is capitalizing on the enduring legacies of its biggest animated classics, such as Beauty and the Beauty , Peter Pan , and Pinocchio , by remaking them in live-action. These remakes have been extremely successful at the box office, appealing to older audiences through nostalgia while giving younger audiences a chance to experience the magic of seeing Disney's iconic stories on the big screen for the first time. In this guide, you can find out how to watch every live action Disney remake on streaming services in the United States.

Disney began dabbling in remakes in the 1990s with Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book , 101 Dalmatians , The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story , and 102 Dalmatians . However, the studio only distributed (but did not produce) Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, while Mowgli's Story was a direct-to-video release. Hence, the studio’s first big live-action adaptation success was  One Hundred and One Dalmatians , which grossed $320.7 at the box office on a $67 million budget.

The studio waited until 2010 to release another remake, starting with Tim Burton's  Alice in Wonderland . Technology advancements meant the studio could truly capture the full scale of the classics. Disney then picked up the frequency with which it released live action remakes.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) is one of the biggest standout remakes. Emma Watson and Dan Stevens bring Belle and Beast to life in an enchanting, magical movie with lavish details and beautifully crafted songs. It also became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, solidifying the appeal of live action Disney remakes.

The studio also released  The Jungle Book and The Lion King . While these remakes were CGI-heavy, the special effects were so lifelike that it’s difficult to label them as “animated,” especially since The Jungle Book had a prominent human component in actor Neel Sethi, who brought Mowgli to life. 

Disney has gotten creative with its remakes in other ways, too, such as with Christopher Robin and Cruella , which are adaptations of Winnie the Pooh and One Hundred and One Dalmations, respectively. Instead of being straightforward adaptations, they were live-action reimaginings that probed the iconic villain Cruella’s ( Emma Stone ) origins and the life of an adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor).

Following the recent success of the Halle Bailey-led The Little Mermaid , Disney is developing more live action remakes of their own classics, with  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Moana on the horizon.

Where can I watch live action Disney remakes online?

Here are all of Disney’s live-action adaptations in release date order, from oldest to newest. In this guide, we've included the latest streaming information so you can easily find where to watch every live action Disney remake. You can also use JustWatch to find out which movies are available to stream legally for free.

How to Watch Pitch Perfect Movies in Order – A Streaming Guide

Aca-scuse me? If you’re looking to watch the three Pitch Perfect movies and their spin-off series Bumper in Berlin, check out our guide below to find out where you can stream them all. 

Pitch Perfect premiered in 2012 and was somewhat of a sleeper hit. The film centered around a struggling college acapella group, the Barden Bellas, who hilariously struggle to return their group to its former glory. It starred Anna Kendrick in what many consider her career-defining role, as well as Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, and Rebel Wilson in her breakout role. Pitch Perfect initially had a limited release, followed by a wide release the following week.

Thanks to social media and word of mouth, the movie gained tons of publicity. While it never topped the box office, it continued to perform well week after week, staying in theaters well into February of the following year. In total, the movie made $115 million on a budget of just $17 million.

The success of the first movie led to a sequel, Pitch Perfect 2 , which premiered in 2015. Now, the Barden Bellas are among the top acapella groups in the world…but after a scandal, the Bellas need to save their reputation and re-earn their glory. The film was an even bigger success than the original, grossing more than $287 million.

A third film, Pitch Perfect 3 , came out in 2017. The Bellas are now graduated and struggling with the monotony of their jobs. But they hatch a plan to reunite and perform at a USO tour overseas. The movie was the biggest and craziest yet, involving global travel and even kidnapping. However, Pitch Perfect 3 received worse reviews than the first two films and remains the final Pitch Perfect movie to date.

But in 2022, the franchise received a spin-off series with Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin . The show follows Bumper, who has been a struggling musician since graduation. But after one of his songs becomes a hit in Germany, he heads to Berlin to hopefully jumpstart his career. The show had a fantastic cast including Adam DeVine who reprised his role as Bumper, along with Sarah Hyland and Jameela Jamil. After initially being renewed for a second season, the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strike ended up causing the show’s cancellation.

Hopefully more Pitch Perfect films are on the way, but until then, find out where to watch all three Pitch Perfect movies and Bumper in Berlin with our guide below.

How to watch the LEGO Movie franchise in order

The LEGO brand is huge, spanning movies, TV series, animated specials, video games, and of course, the iconic block toys. One of the brand’s biggest successes has been The LEGO Movie franchise. While LEGO has produced tons of movies and series, like the various LEGO Star Wars specials on Disney+, The LEGO Movie franchise is its own universe separate from the other LEGO franchises. Check out our guide below to find out how to watch every entry in The LEGO Movie series in order.

The series began in 2014 with The LEGO Movie . Starring Chris Pratt , Elizabeth Banks, and Morgan Freeman, the movie centers around a LEGO city under attack and the heroes who must save it. In the finale, however, it turns out that it was all taking place inside a giant LEGO set-up in a family’s basement. The movie had some surprisingly great humor and became a hit, earning more than $468 million at the box office.

Then, in 2017, the film received two spin-off sequels. First up was The LEGO Batman Movie . Will Arnett reprised his role as Batman and was joined by other stars like Michael Cera as Robin, Zach Galifianakis as the Joker, and Rosario Dawson as Batgirl. In classic DC fashion, Batman must stop Joker’s evil plans…but instead of being gritty like modern Batman movies, the film was loaded with lots of LEGO humor. 

Just seven months later, another spin-off hit theaters. The LEGO Ninjago Movie centered around the famous ninja-inspired LEGO brand of the same name. The brand already had the long-running animated TV show Ninjago , which began airing in 2011, but the film is actually considered part of The LEGO Movie universe instead. The plot follows the son of an evil mastermind who does everything in his power to stop his dad from taking over the world. 

Also in 2017, the series Unikitty! premiered and followed the fan-favorite character Princess Unikitty from the first film. As an episodical, the show followed the various misadventures and hijinks of the Princess and her fellow inhabitants of the Unikingdom. The show ran for three seasons, airing over 100 episodes. 

The most recent addition to the franchise is 2019’s The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part . This time around, the team faces their biggest threat yet: space invaders destroying everything in sight. The hilarious part is that the space invaders are actually toys from the LEGO Duplo line, which is the brand’s toy collection made for toddlers.

According to Variety, Universal Studios acquired the rights to produce LEGO content in 2020, so more movies are expected sometime in the future. Until then, check out our guide below to find out where you can watch every entry in The LEGO Movie franchise so far.