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In this week’s episode of “Screen Talk,” we take a look at the slow Sundance market as well as the new shape of the Oscar race post-Karla Sofía Gascón’s implosion.

There were a few competitive buys at the tail end of this year’s Sundance: Neon bought horror flick “Together,” Netflix acquired period Denis Johnson adaptation “Train Dreams,” Janus and Sideshow bought art film “Peter Hujar’s Day,” and A24 bought breakout Eva Victor’s “Sorry Baby.”

But so far, no one has picked up Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which awkwardly tries to meld a Kander & Ebb Broadway musical with a prison romance. If a distributor positioned it well, there might be some action for star Jennifer Lopez as a legacy prize, as well as breakout Tonatiuh.

Netflix is making an Oscar play with Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” starring Joel Edgerton. And “Sorry...

As Sundance 2025 gave us the weekend to continue watching films online after announcing its prizewinners, I took the opportunity to cram in some last-minute movies to my festival deep dive. Though many of the films covered in my dispatches from this year were middle-of-the-road, there was always the chance that...

In Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” viewers explore the raw landscapes of early 20th century Pacific Northwest, where chainsaws cut through ancient forests. The film follows Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger molded by a stark environment of harsh beauty. Adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella, the narrative reveals life’s complex emotional terrain during an era when logging defined national growth.

Grainier, orphaned early, navigates labor’s brutal challenges while searching for moments of human connection. His relationship with Gladys (Felicity Jones) briefly illuminates the logging world with tender warmth. Tragedy strikes swiftly, with loss and grief mirroring nature’s unpredictable force. A disturbing scene depicting a Chinese laborer violently ejected from a bridge exposes the period’s deeply entrenched racial violence.

The film explores human resilience against a backdrop of societal transformation. Robert’s path reflects a deeper story of personal struggle and cultural reckoning, where each fallen...

Hot off their Academy Award nomination for Adapted Screenplay for Sing Sing, writing duo Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar are already premiering their next film, Train Dreams, this time with Bentley in the director’s chair. Although this literary film has some astounding visuals and impressive performances, it lacks the emotional resonance that one expects from the duo.

Train Dreams Review

Train Dreams is adapted from the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson, following a logger who works for the railroad as he drifts through life, experiencing love, loss, and progress. Although the novella was published in the early 2000s, it has the feel of the “Great American Novel” — a character-driven approach to life in the rustic America of the 20th century. And while Bentley and Kwedar may seem to be the perfect pair to approach such material on paper, it doesn’t quite translate as well as one would hope.

Many Oscar contenders have been dive-bombed over the years, but Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón did herself in: first for complaining about rival Fernanda Torres, then for resurfaced tweets on her now-deleted X account (@karsiagascon). In past posts that went viral this week, she dissed Muslims, George Floyd, and Oscars diversity, among other things. We debate: If Gascón is out of the running, does she bring down her movie as well, which leads the field with 13 nominations?

Ryan Lattanzio is back from Sundance, which Friday announced its awards; he and Anne are both bingeing on the Sundance portal. While some films came in with distribution, the market seems slow. One Midnight entry spawned a bidding war won by Neon for over $16 million, Michael Shanks’ horror flick “Together,” starring husband-and-wife team Alison Brie and Dave Franco, which Ryan enjoyed and believes will hit big at the box office. Neon has...

My final dispatch for Sundance 2025 is bolstered by finally having access to a large swath of films from the festival that were only made available for folks covering it remotely on Wednesday. Among those films were most of the U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup. Of that selection, the lovely anthology...

In the second known deal of a slow Sundance on the acquisitions front, Netflix has picked up the drama Train Dreams starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones.

Clint Bentley directed the Premieres entry and co-wrote with Greg Kwedar, the director of Sing Sing, which Bentley co-wrote and produced.

Based on the novella by Denis Johnson, Edgerton plays a grieving day labourer in the American West at the turn of the 20th century who struggles to adjust to a new environment.

Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, and Michael Heimler produced.

Black Bear fully financed Train Dreams and produced with Kamala Films.

There is a moment in Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, where a tree gracefully falls to the earth, surrounded by lush green. Particles explode from the impact, the sunlight illuminating these small, insignificant specs. As the frame holds for an extra few seconds, these particles gleam as beautiful as anything else in the image. It’s a powerful exclamation that underlines the larger theme of the film: there are wonders both big and small. Tragedy, too, and who will remember any of it? And, perhaps more importantly, does it matter if anybody does?

Written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, based on the novella by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams tells the story of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger living and working in the Pacific Northwest during the early part of the twentieth century. He is husband to Gladys (Felicity Jones) and father to their little baby Katie. They live...

Netflix is buying the Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones drama Train Dreams out of the Sundance Film Festival. Sources tell us that the deal is in the high-teen millions. The pic made its debut in the Premieres section of the fest.

Train Dreams is based on the 2011 Denis Johnson novella and directed by Oscar nominee Clint Bentley, who co-adapted the script with Greg Kwedar. It follows Robert Grainer, an average man living in extraordinary times who works as a day laborer in the American West at the beginning of the 20th century. Battered by the death of his family, he struggles to adjust to this new environment.

Deadline first told you about the first deal out of Sundance: Neon’s $15 million global pickup of Michael Shanks’ horror movie Together starring Dave Franco, Alison Brie and Damon Herriman. Both deals were brokered by WME Independent.

Black Bear and Kamala Films produced Train Dreams with Marissa McMahon,...

“Train Dreams,” a lyrical drama about a logger whose work developing America’s railroad keeps him laboring in isolation, has sold to Netflix. The film earned rave reviews after debuting at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, with Variety’s Peter Debruge calling it a “modest monument” and praising it for “creating a record that history somehow missed.”

Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones star in “Train Dreams,” which is adapted from Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella. Clint Bentley, who oversaw the 2021 Sundance drama “Jockey,” directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Greg Kwedar. The two recently collaborated on the Oscar-nominated script for “Sing Sing.” Kerry Condon, William H. Macy and Clifton Collins Jr., who starred in “Jockey,” round out the cast of “Train Dreams.”

“Train Dreams” was fully financed by Black Bear, the production company which also funded “Sing Sing,” so this project extends their relationship with the filmmakers. Black...

“Sing Sing” co-writers Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley almost ignored the 2025 Oscar nominations — and it’s a good thing they didn’t.

The duo, along with John “Divine G” Whitfield and Clarence Maclin, are nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. The feature also received nods in the Best Original Song and Best Actor categories, with Colman Domingo landing his second consecutive Oscar nomination.

Kwedar and Bentley dropped by the IndieWire Studio at Sundance, presented by Dropbox, to discuss their latest feature, “Train Dreams.” But first, IndieWire film editor Ryan Lattanzio wanted to know how it felt to be newly minted Oscar nominees.

“I didn’t want to watch it,” Bentley said of the nominations, which were announced in a livestream by Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott. “I was packing to come here [to Sundance], actually, and I was in the closet packing a suitcase, and then my wife turned it on the TV and she’s like,...

The passage of time is somehow both fluid and jagged in Clint Bentley’s soulful film of the Denis Johnson novella, Train Dreams. It flows or ambles or bumps along, passing over moments of joy, shock, discovery, lonesomeness or devastating sadness, but just as often over seemingly mundane experiences that only later reveal their significance when we look back. The cumulative weight of all those moments that make up an ordinary life is the subject of this elegiac macro-miniaturist portrait of an itinerant worker in the early 1900s Pacific Northwest, played by Joel Edgerton in what might be the best work of his career.

Novelistic yet never page-bound, the story is shaped by superb acting and finely etched characters that seem to have been lifted from a long-ago time, with faces right out of a Walker Evans catalogue; by gifted cinematographer Adolpho Veloso’s painterly eye for compositions and calm,...

With a handsome actor like Joel Edgerton, audiences typically find themselves looking at his face, or those ice-blue movie-star eyes. But in “Train Dreams,” I found myself looking at his hands, great big mitts, with thick fingers and knuckles like gnarled roots that don’t get that way on their own. Over the years, I’ve seen more movies than I can count in which pampered actors who’ve never lifted an ax or changed a tire in their lives try to convince us they’ve spent decades in the coal mines. Edgerton feels like the real deal.

In “Train Dreams,” the Australian actor channels the spirit of the men who tamed the American Cascades, chopping down trees and laying track. Somewhere between an elegy and an anthem, this gorgeous, almost-century-spanning film was directed by Clint Bentley, one half of the creative team responsible for “Sing Sing” and “Jockey”. The inspiration hails from a slender,...

A black and cursed cloud, a vector of misfortune, follows Idaho day laborer Robert Grainier in director Clint Bentley’s elegantly crafted and ruminating Denis Johnson adaptation, “Train Dreams.” Beginning with a Pov shot of a cut tree dropping dead to the ground, the camera fixed to where the fir was felled, this 20th-century portrait of the Pacific Northwest weaves much pain and suffering in the life of Grainier, played with a hardened soul by a bearded Joel Edgerton.

Robert goes from day laborer to Spokane railroad logger, perennially tested by a nature that seems to have more control over human destiny than people themselves do. Co-written by Bentley with Greg Kwedar (the primary creative team behind “Sing Sing”), “Train Dreams” thrives on its philosophical inquiries into the earthly randomness of events that make up a life. The effect — amplified by skillful craftsmanship and a fondness for detail in even...

The state of Washington has always been one of the most beautiful, if tragically underutilized, places in the world to shoot a film, but rarely has it looked quite as movingly magnificent as it does in “Train Dreams.” A Western epic of breathtaking visual splendor and formidable lyrical cinematic poetry, it’s a work containing all the wondrous, devastating layers of an entire life, which it explores with a gentle grace without hiding from the agony that comes with it.

It’s not just the best thing director Clint Bentley, who previously directed 2021’s engaging “Jockey,” has done thus far, but it also sees star Joel Edgerton operating on a whole other level as he gives one of his most understated yet spectacular performances in a career never lacking for them.

“Train Dreams” is a patient, profound, and painful experience, bringing all the visual power of a Terrence Malick film...

Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams follows Robert Granier, a railroad builder, as he participates in America’s expansion to the West and finds love. Director Clint Bentley (Jockey) has adapted the Johnson’s attempt to contextualize the role of an individual within the immensity of history. Bentley’s Train Dreams screens as part of the Premieres section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Below, editor Parker Laramie explains some of the differences between the film and the novel and why scenes were rearranged in the edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The post “Narration is a Double-Edged Sword”: Editor Parker Laramie on Train Dreams first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams follows Robert Granier, a railroad builder, as he participates in America’s expansion to the West and finds love. Director Clint Bentley (Jockey) has adapted the Johnson’s attempt to contextualize the role of an individual within the immensity of history. Bentley’s Train Dreams screens as part of the Premieres section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Below, editor Parker Laramie explains some of the differences between the film and the novel and why scenes were rearranged in the edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The post “Narration is a Double-Edged Sword”: Editor Parker Laramie on Train Dreams first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“Deadpool 2” and “Joker” star Zazie Beetz and “The Crown” royalty Elizabeth Debicki are teaming up for “This Blue Is Mine,” the English-language debut of Brazilian director Iuli Gerbase.

International sales on the the film, described as an “original, psychosexual sci-fi drama,” have been launched by HanWay Films ahead of Cannes, with UTA Independent Film Group repping the U.S. sale. Marissa McMahon and Ashley Schlaifer of Kamala Films (“A Private War”) are producing. Beetz will serve as an executive producer.

“This Blue Is Mine” — scheduled to shoot in August and September in Colombia — is set amidst a family holiday at a tropical resort, where Arthur, a guilt-free bon viveur, surprises everyone by bringing his new beautiful and enigmatic girlfriend, Ivy (Debicki). Ivy’s arrival and her odd behavior throws the already delicate dynamics off balance with Arthur and his daughters. Connie (Beetz) is still recovering from the trauma of...

Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), William H. Macy and Clifton Collins Jr. have joined director Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” Variety has learned.

Production on the film, from Black Bear and also starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones, began earlier this month in Spokane, Wash.

“Train Dreams” is the sweeping and poignant tale of Robert Grainier (Edgerton), a day laborer employed as a logger helping to expand the railways across America. Forced to spend prolonged periods of time away from his wife, Gladys (Jones), and their young daughter, Grainier struggles to make sense of his place in a rapidly changing world. As his story unfolds, he experiences great love, unspeakable loss, and unique bonds on a journey that is both distinct and universal. The picture features a script by Bentley and Greg Kwedar (“Sing Sing”), which is adapted from Denis Johnson’s iconic, Pulitzer Prize-nominated novella of the same name.

Aftersun outfit Tango and A Private War producer Kamala Films are developing an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane thriller short story A Bostonian, tapping Philip Barantini to direct.

Damien Ober will adapt the short story from Shutter Island and Mystic River author Lehane, who will act as an executive producer.

A Bostonian is set in the world of antique dealers and estate sales. According to its synopsis, the tale “centers around Nathaniel Dodson, a mild-mannered proprietor of rare books who has developed an obsession with collecting rejection letters – something he never received when his mother abandoned him as a child. A rumor has developed that he is in possession of a rare and extremely valuable first edition of Tamerlane and Other Poems by A Bostonian (aka Edgar Allan Poe) just as a mysterious woman appears on his doorstep claiming to be his long-lost sister. As they get to know each other,...

It looks like Joel Edgerton has another drama in the vein of “The Boys In The Boat” and “Thirteen Lives” up next. The actor will co-star with Felicity Jones in “Train Dreams,” Black Bear‘s adaptation of Denis Johnson‘s 2011 novella. It’ll be the third adaptation of Johnson’s literary work for the big screen, after 1999’s “Jesus’ Son” and Claire Denis‘ recent outing, “The Stars At Noon.”

Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

Clint Bentley will direct “Train Dreams” from an adapted script he co-writes with his “Sing Sing” co-writer Greg Kwedar.

Continue reading ‘Train Dreams’: Joel Edgerton & Felicity Jones To Star In Adaptation Of Denis Johnson’s 2011 Novella at The Playlist.

Following up her Best Picture-nominated Past Lives, Celine Song has officially unveiled her next feature. Starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, The Materialists is a romantic comedy that follows “a professional matchmaker who gets involved with a wealthy man but still harbors feelings for the broke actor-waiter she left behind,” Deadline reports. Once again backed by A24, producers Christine Vachon and Pam Koffler of Killer Films, and 2Am’s David Hinojosa, the project is aiming to start shooting this spring, so expect a 2025 release.

Also on the 2025 release calendar is likely Kogonada’s third feature following Columbus and After Yang. Reteaming with Colin Farrell with Margot Robbie also starring, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is said to be an “imaginative tale of two strangers and the unbelievable journey that connects them,” Deadline reports. With production beginning this spring in California, it’ll be Robbie’s second project after Barbie,...

Joel Edgerton (The Gift) and Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) are set to star in Train Dreams, the newest feature from Jockey director Clint Bentley, which will be introduced to international buyers at EFM by Black Bear.

Bentley & Greg Kwedar (Sing Sing) penned the script which is an adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated novella. Damien Ober did a previous draft.

Pic tells the story of Robert Grainier (Edgerton), a day laborer employed as a logger helping to expand the railways across America. Forced to spend prolonged periods of time away from his wife, Gladys (Jones), and their young daughter, Grainier struggles to make sense of his place in a rapidly changing world. As his story unfolds, he experiences great love, unspeakable loss and unique bonds, on a journey that is both distinct and universal.

Producers include Marissa McMahon and Ashley Schlaifer for Kamala Films, Will Janowitz, and...

Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones have signed on to star in the epic drama Train Dreams, which Black Bear is fully financing and will introduce to EFM buyers in Berlin next week.

Clint Bentley (Jockey) directs and production is set to begin in April in Washington State. WME Independent handles US sales.

Train Dreams is described as a “sweeping and poignant” tale of Robert Grainier (Edgerton), a day labourer employed as a logger helping to expand the railways across America.

Forced to spend prolonged periods of time away from his wife, Gladys (Jones) and their young daughter, Grainier struggles to...

Having already proven their bona fides with both 1986’s Evol and 1987’s Sister, Sonic Youth delivered their most cohesive, accessible album to date with their 1988 opus Daydream Nation. Originally inspired by the ferocity of hardcore punk, the cerebral art rock of acts like the Velvet Underground and Public Image Ltd., and the avant-garde compositions of Glenn Branca, the album saw the four New York bohos sweeten their no-wave edge with anthemic songwriting.

Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo’s detuned guitars strum plaintively and hypnotically as Daydream Nation slowly shakes itself awake on “Teen Age Riot.” Bassist-singer Kim Gordon channels the Stooges’s eerie chants on 1969’s “We Will Fall” and even cribs from its lyrics: “Spirit, desire/We will fall,” she mumbles before the song’s dual-guitar riff tears the track apart.

“Teen Age Riot” is an articulation of the alternative nation—which saw Dinosaur Jr.’s lead noisemaker, J Mascis,...

Robert Gottlieb, the legendary editor at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker who helped shape the work of many of the world’s greatest writers over the past six decades, has died, according to Knopf and The New Yorker. He was 92.

A partial list of the literary talents whose work Gottlieb edited includes Nobel laureates such as Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul; bestselling novelists such as John le Carré, Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury; Hollywood types such as Elia Kazan, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Nora Ephron and Lauren Bacall; Pulitzer Prize-winners such as John Cheever, Katharine Graham and Robert Caro; and even a president, Bill Clinton.

Gottlieb was featured in the documentary Turn Every Page, directed by his daughter Lizzie, which premiered at last year’s Tribeca Festival and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. The film focuses on Gottlieb and Caro as...

Choose your words carefully with France’s most brilliant – and formidable – film director, as she discusses being bourgeois, Harvey Weinstein, and her latest movie, Stars at Noon

My first glimpse of Claire Denis is of a slight, elegant figure dressed in white slipping out of a black limousine that fills the narrow street outside the hotel where our rendezvous is scheduled. For an instant, I feel as if I have been sucked into the menacing world of her latest film. I have just travelled to Paris to interview her, and have arrived early because I am anxious not to waste a minute of the 45 I have been granted to investigate the extraordinary career of a French director idolised by peers such as Barry Jenkins, Charlotte Wells, Andrea Arnold and Pedro Almodóvar and whose work is a fixture of critics’ lists of the best movies ever made.

At 77, Denis is a formidable presence.

The Dance of the Dead episode of Best Horror Movie You Never Saw was Written by Cody Hamman, Narrated by Jason Hewlett, Edited by Juan Jimenez, Produced by John Fallon and Tyler Nichols, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if the zombie apocalypse coincided with prom night? The dead rising from their graves, calling out for brains. Disrupting the school event that’s supposed to be a great, memorable moment in a teen’s life. That’s what happens in the 2008 film Dance of the Dead (watch it Here). Which would have been a great sequel to The Return of the Living Dead if it were part of that franchise. And if you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely The Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.

Although Dance of the Dead was released in 2008, the first draft of the screenplay was written eleven years earlier.

This review originally ran May 25, 2022, for the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Not a word of French is spoken in Claire Denis’ languid thriller “Stars at Noon,” but the voice that rings out is crystal clear. On paper (and the film is adapted from Denis Johnson’s 1984 book), the project seems cut from similar cloth to a paranoid New Hollywood potboiler, draping games of cat and mouse with a geopolitical sash.

On screen, the film would just as soon do away with dress altogether, replacing the thrill of the chase with thrills of the flesh — and with a number of other illicit activities as well. The walls are closing in around our beleaguered leads, so they might as well pour a drink, light up a smoke, and enjoy that even closer proximity.

Marking her return to the Cannes competition for the first time in more than 30 years,...

Stars at Noon (2022).For any true connoisseur of modern poésie maudit, the prospect of Claire Denis adapting Denis Johnson comes with its own ineluctable gravity. The union of these two artists—Johnson, the late visionary poet and novelist, Denis the dark romantic-turned-French art house institution—affirms their long-apparent, subterranean resonances. Both have labored at the edges of their tradition in pursuit of its particular truth; both have elevated the lives of drifters and criminals to the station of saints. In recent years, even in her mellow late style, Denis still retains a coiled viper’s intensity and, with 2018’s High Life, she settled any doubts that a genuine star vehicle—let alone one shot entirely in her second language, English—could support her sensuous, elliptical filmmaking. Johnson, despite his cult following, has only been adapted for the screen once before, to mixed results.Denis's choice of material is characteristically heterodox.

(From left) Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley in Claire Denis’ Stars At Noon Photo: A24 Claire Denis arrives at her Upper East Side hotel’s sparsely populated restaurant one afternoon during the 60th edition of the New York Film Festival, clutching a drugstore item she had just purchased after searching...

Specialty film rollouts continues to accelerate with Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave and A24’s Stars At Noon joining releases from previous weeks to populate theaters as awards season gathers steam.

Till, from United Artists Releasing, world premiered at the ongoing New York Film Festival to stellar reviews. It opens on 16 screens in five markets – NY, LA, Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. The story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old lynched in 1955 while visiting cousins in Mississippi, is an emotional one, and a tough one. But explicit violence is something Chukwu determinedly left out of the frame, focusing instead on Deadwyler’s Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmet’s mother, as she pursues justice for her son. Word of mouth, that this is first and foremost a poignant, powerful cinematic journey about one person changing history, will be key.

(From left) Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley in Claire Denis’ Stars At Noon Photo: A24 Claire Denis continues a career preoccupation with ex-pat life in Stars At Noon, an update of Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel about an American woman who uses sex as currency to survive when she’s stuck in politically unstable Nicaragua.

White Material: Denis Heats Up with Sinister, Nervy Romance

Claire Denis leaves behind the Sandinistas of 1984 Nicaragua for Stars at Noon, based on the 1986 novel from Denis Johnson about a desperate romance between two trapped souls slowly losing themselves against the backdrop of violent political turmoil. Crafting something more sinister in its ambiguity and utilizing the Covid 19 pandemic as a way to both contemporize the novel and stay true to Johnson’s spirit of a specific topsy turvy world, Denis delivers one of her most striking escapades in this moody, sweaty, endlessly indeterminate milieu.

A sumptuous nod to the mysterious conspiracy thrillers following imperiled strangers in strange lands of the 1980s (think Peter Weir) married with 1970s arthouse aesthetics (think Antonioni), it’s a serpentine slow burn of increasingly unsettling elements, quite frenziedly led by a crackerjack performance from Margaret Qualley.…...

Claire Denis has had a busy year. Her two films, Both Sides of the Blade and Stars at Noon, premiered at Berlinale and Cannes, respectively. Blade earned the Silver Bear for Best Direction out of Berlin, Stars the Grand Prix out of Cannes. The two differ in tenor, but in each she pulls out fantastic lead performances, from one actor she’s worked with in spades, and one that’s new to her troupe: Juliette Binoche and Margarett Qualley.

Her more recent film, starring Qualley and Joe Alwyn, centers on a flailing journalist and mysterious businessman starting a relationship in Panama. Seemingly on the run at all times, the couple evade capture and cultivate a physical, financial, and—finally—emotional bond in the midst of a political thriller. Stars at Noon features a sizzling, sweaty narrative, muddled in its second act by a connection that doesn’t always stick between...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Newsi ran from it and was still in it.The Filmmaker Magazine editorial staff shared their annual roster of 25 New Faces of Independent Film, including Antonio Marziale, Darol Olu Kae, Lucy Kerr, and more.John Waters will return to directing with Liarmouth, an adaptation of his own novel of the same name. It will be his first film since 2004’s A Dirty Shame. The Edinburgh International Film Festival has been shut down after the charity that runs it, the Centre for the Moving Image (Cmi), announced it has called in administrators and made 102 out of the 107 current staff redundant. Mark Cousins wrote about the closure of the “feminist, unbridled, Nonconformist Scottish and passionately international” festival in the Guardian. The legendary actress Angela Lansbury died this week at age 96. "She moved so easily between film,...

By Abe Friedtanzer

At the NYFF introduction of Stars at Noon, the most recent work by Claire Denis, it was noted that the acclaimed auteur doesn’t have a consistent style or preferred genre in her filmmaking. Recent works like High Life and Let the Sunshine In, both of which screened at NYFF and featured her frequent collaborator Juliette Binoche, are not at all indicative of her two 2022 films (the other is Both Sides of the Blade). Stars at Noon is another about face. It's a romance mired in political mystery, a puzzle that never truly feels like it needs to be solved.

Stars at Noon is based on the 1986 book by Denis Johnson that's set during the then-recent Nicaraguan War. Denis has updated the material to the present, and centered it on Trish (Margaret Qualley), an American journalist who has clearly outstayed her welcome and is struggling to find...

Today, the English alternative rock band Tindersticks released the title track off of the original motion picture soundtrack for Stars At Noon, Claire Denis’ new A24 film based on the 1986 novel by Denis Johnson. Alongside a music video pulling footage directly from the film, the band also revealed the track list for the original motion picture soundtrack, which will drop in conjunction with the film’s U.S. release on October 14.

Following its premiere at Cannes and ahead of its theatrical and streaming release in October, A24 has shared the new trailer for Stars at Noon, the erotic thriller co-starring Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn (a.k.a Taylor Swift’s boyfriend).

The film, directed by Claire Denis and based on the novel by Denis Johnson, revolves around a young American journalist (Qualley) who gets stranded in Nicaragua, where she meets Alwyn’s maybe-secret agent.

Stars at Noon, which updates Johnson’s 1986-set story for the pandemic-era present day, also stars Danny Ramirez,...

Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley's new movie promises to go beyond your wildest dreams. In the newly released trailer for the upcoming thriller Stars at Noon, an American journalist (Qualley) and a mysterious Englishman (Alwyn) enjoy an exhilarating, hot and heavy romance after they cross paths in Nicaragua. According to the synopsis of the film—which is an adaptation of Denis Johnson's 1986 novel—things quickly take a turn, however, when Qualley's character "soon realizes that he may be in even greater danger than she is." It's worth noting that Qualley and Alwyn weren't exactly starting from a blank space prior to filming—since Alwyn's...

A24 has released the official trailer for its upcoming Claire Denis-helmed romantic thriller “Stars at Noon,” starring Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn. The film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

The two-hour film follows a young American journalist (Qualley), who falls for a mysterious Englishman (Alwyn) while stranded in Nicaragua. Though at first he seems like her best bet at getting out of the country, it is slowly revealed that her affiliation with the Englishman has put both of them in immense danger.

Also appearing in the film in supporting roles are Danny Ramirez, John C. Reilly and Benny Safdie. Ramirez plays a Costa Rican policeman, Reilly plays an American boss and Safdie plays a CIA agent. They all take interest in the Englishman’s ominous dealings in Nicaragua.

The story is an adaptation of author Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel of the same name, although the...

Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn find love in the time of political corruption and international unrest.

The duo star in Claire Denis’ latest romance-thriller “Stars at Noon,” distributed by A24. Qualley plays a young American journalist who is stranded in present-day Nicaragua and falls in love with an enigmatic Englishman (Alwyn) who seems like her best chance of escape. However, she soon realizes that he may be in even greater danger than she is. Danny Ramirez and Benny Safdie also star in the film, premiering in theaters October 14 and debuting on Hulu October 28.

“Stars at Noon” won the Grand Prix at 2022 Cannes and screened at the New York Film Festival. Writer/director Denis adapted the screenplay from Denis Johnson’s novel “The Stars at Noon,” which is part love story, part political thriller.

Denis originally was set to collaborate again with “High Life” star Robert Pattison before he had to...

It’s now evident that smaller-scale projects from Claire Denis that she completes while waiting for the larger-scale ones to get off the ground are more artistically satisfying (see: Let the Sunshine In and this year’s Both Sides of the Blade). However, a new work from the French auteur is still one to seek out. Her Cannes winner Stars at Noon, starring Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn, adapts Denis Johnson in a sweaty, captivating, and, yes, occasionally aimless tale of strangers in a strange land. A24 will now release the film in theaters and VOD on October 14 followed by a Hulu debut two weeks later and the first trailer has landed.

David Katz said in his review, “It’s intriguing for a long-term fan of a director, perhaps even one whose films you’ve grown up alongside the last decade or two, to watch them stumble slightly. But for Claire Denis,...

Notebook is covering the Cannes Film Festival with an ongoing correspondence between critics Leonardo Goi and Lawrence Garcia, and editor Daniel Kasman.Son of Ramses.Dear Lawrence and Leo, I’m glad to read you, Lawrence, on Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon. Reactions to the film here seem to be muted, but I loved it: Leave behind any idea that this is a robust production of an English-language thriller, and instead embrace way the great French impressionist and master elliptician skims the bare surface of the genres that provide the film’s framework, in order to evoke the tenuous limbos—national, mortal, romantic—of its sweaty, horny imperialist couple. The film feels like it was a fly-by-night, catch-as-catch-can shoot, with images and drama caught quickly and on the go. Yes, this means that many opportunities, particularly of the Nicaraguan context from Denis Johnson’s source novel, are lost, which...

With a Hamaguchi-like approach to 2022, Claire Denis premiered her stellar, small-scale melodrama Both Sides of the Blade at Berlinale and now debuts a higher-profile feature at Cannes. Stars at Noon, her adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel, follows a mysterious English businessman and headstrong American journalist who strike up a passionate romance in Nicaragua circa 1984.

With Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn leading the cast, and an ensemble that includes Benny Safdie and John C. Reilly, Denis’ first Cannes competition selection since 1988’s Chocolat has now premiered to a divisive response––an occurrence the director is quite familiar with. While our review will be coming shortly, the first pair of clips have now arrived and can be seen below.

Stars at Noon will be released by A24.

The post Watch the First Two Clips from Claire Denis' Stars at Noon first appeared on The Film Stage.

Asked this morning at the Cannes presser about how the fest sidelines female filmmakers, Stars at Noon director took the high road, and didn’t throw the event, which lauded her with the Directors’ Fortnight prize for 2017’s Let the Sunshine In, under the bus.

In recent days, Cannes has been dinged on social media for its lack of representing more women on its two-day (in total six hours) panel about the future of cinema. While Tuesday’s dais was filled with all male filmmakers, led by Guillermo del Toro, day 2 saw the arrival of Lynne Ramsay, Rebecca Zlotowski, and Agnes Jaoui who sounded off on the topic.

“About (the) women (question); I had no choice. I was a woman since my birth. So, I think it’s much better now,” Denis said.

“Still, I can say that it’s really hard for men and women to do a movie; harder for women,...

Early in “Stars at Noon,” Yank journalist Trish gazes wistfully at a yellowed black-and-white photo of Nicaraguan resistance fighters, framed and tacked to the wall of the grim Managua hotel room where she’s having businesslike intercourse. “Young rebels used to be so sexy,” she sighs. It’s a direct jab at the unformidable army lieutenant on top of her in that moment, but also a callback to what could be perceived from afar as a more romantic, mysterious age of global political unrest — the kind that fueled the novels of Graham Greene and films like “The Year of Living Dangerously,” an alluring realm of fiction that perhaps propeled Trish so far from home in the first place. Claire Denis revives that sort of grimy glamor in this humid, intoxicating American-abroad thriller, but she’s not nearly so naive or nostalgic as her young protagonist.

Updating the late Denis Johnson...

Given the combustible subject matter and the director’s reputation, French auteur Claire Denis has made a remarkably listless and unpersuasive film in Stars at Noon. Set during the Nicaraguan Sandanista revolution circa 1984, this adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novel published two years later centers on a couple of Americans of dubious character who misspend time in Central America before finally deciding it’s time to split when, in fact, it might be too late. This is the sort of misfire that, just because it comes from a hallowed French auteur, sometimes gets programmed in the Cannes competition even when it manifestly doesn’t deserve to be there.

The best scenes, even though they’re a bit confusing, come at the beginning, as saucy young American alleged journalist Trish (Margaret Qualley) has it off with a local politico with whom she has some sort of tit-for-tat arrangement. Trish is more...

Claire Denis may have fallen in love with Margaret Qualley because of her coltish and carefree performance as one of the Manson girls in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, yet I can’t help but suspect that — if only subconsciously — there may be another reason why she decided to cast the young actress in the lead role of “Stars at Noon.”

Like so many of Denis’ films, this sweaty romantic thriller about two white foreigners who fall in love (or at least fuck a lot) against the background of Central American political tensions is a cryptic and carnal search for a way out of purgatory. And like so many of Denis’ films, the incandescent “Stars at Noon” is cut with such jagged atemporality that it often seems set in a space between time, where the past never happened and the future may never come.

In this case, that dislocated...

Claire Denis will do anything to get the perfect shot. From braving freezing water to film an underwater scene in “Both Sides of the Blade” on an iPhone to directing actors from cramped spaces, the “Stars at Noon” director is a powerful force on set, according to lead star Joe Alwyn.

“Everyone was brilliant, but Claire was at the helm of it,” actor Alwyn told Deadline. “Seeing the way that she worked out how to work, and what she wanted, how she communicated with the heads of department around her, and how she functioned, was amazing.”

“The Stars at Noon” debuts in competition at Cannes later this week, Denis’ first film in the main competition since 1988’s “Chocolat.” Alwyn stars as a mysterious English businessman who meets an American journalist, played by Margaret Qualley, while reporting on the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1984. Based on Denis Johnson’s novel “The Stars at Noon,...