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Ang Lee is an Oscar-winning filmmaker who has worked in a variety of genres and styles to explore the lives of people around the globe. Let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in Taiwan in 1954, Lee’s interest in film brought him to NYU’s graduate program, where he worked as a crew member on classmate Spike Lee‘s thesis project, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.” He directed his first feature, “Pushing Hands” (1991) at the age of 37.

Lee followed up his debut with back-to-back international successes, each one scoring Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film: “The Wedding Banquet” (1993) and “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994). In both films, the director explored the kinds of complex familial relationships that would animate many of his stories.

He was then drafted by Hollywood to helm the Jane Austin adaptation “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), which...

With Seeds, Canadian Mohawk actor Kaniehtiio Horn has embraced the indigenous horror-thriller genre — with some added comedy.

“I didn’t want to make a trauma movie,” the Reservation Dogs actor tells The Hollywood Reporter about her directorial debut, a genre-bending home invasion film she wrote, stars in and produced. And she wants her world premiere audience at the Toronto Film Festival to laugh.

Heartily. And in the right places. Horn says laughter abounds in indigenous culture and communities — however varied are the tribes and language groups. That’s especially laughing with, and not being laughed at: “Oh my God, we are funny! We can make fun of each other, but it’s always in a teasing way. It’s always in a loving way.”

And before writing the Seeds screenplay, Horn never considered jumping into the director’s chair. But after playing the Deer Lady on FX’s Reservation Dogs...

Pride month is over, but just because it is no longer June doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop celebrating love and telling queer stories. In fact, we should always celebrate love and tell queer stories. So, here is a list of 62 films with canon main Lgbtqia+ characters and couples. Call Me by Your Name Original Title: Call Me by Your Name Year: 2017 Director(s): Luca Guadagnino Writer(s): James Ivory, André Aciman Country: Italy, France, United States, Brazil Language: English, Italian, French, German, Hebrew Genre: Drama, Romance Motion Picture Rating (MPA): R The rather sensitive Elio (Timothée Chalamet), the only son of the American family of Italian and French Perlman ancestry, is facing another lazy summer at his parents' home in the beautiful, languid Italian countryside. Every summer, Mr. Pearlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) hosts an academic to help with his research. This year’s student, Oliver (Armie Hammer), comes to bring change.

Ang Lee is once again looking back at Brokeback Mountain‘s memorable best picture loss to Crash at the 2006 Academy Awards.

Speaking with IndieWire, the filmmaker shared that after he won best director for the queer, modern-day Western, he was told by a stage manager to stick around backstage, as the film was expected to also take home an Oscar for best picture.

“I got my award, which was [second to] last to the big one, and I was walking off the stage, they called me down, and said, ‘Stay here. That’s your mark. Everybody assumes you will win, so stay at that mark,'” he recalled.

Lee continued, “Right next to the stage was the curtain. The next was best picture. ‘Stay here, just stay here.’ I saw Jack Nicholson, his profile, he opened the envelope, and I go, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ It took like 10 seconds before he announced,...

Ang Lee isn’t complaining about his time at the Oscars. The Taiwanese filmmaker has won Best Director twice (for “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”), and his 2000 wuxia classic “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” won four Academy Awards, including Best International Feature.

But he’s ready to admit that “Brokeback Mountain” — the most acclaimed film of 2005 — losing Best Picture to “Crash” was a response to Academy discrimination against a gay love story: “I think so, yeah,” he told IndieWire in a recent interview.

“Back then, [‘Brokeback Mountain’] had a ceiling. We got a lot of support — up to that much,” he said of the film’s three Oscar wins, with Best Adapted Screenplay for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (adapting Annie Proulx’s devastating novella) and Best Original Score for Gustavo Santaolalla. You know the music. “It has that feeling. I wasn’t holding a grudge or anything. It’s just how they were,...

Now is the time to explore melancholy masterpieces that tug at our heartstrings and dig into the complexities of human emotions. From stories of love and sorrow to contemplative journeys of self-discovery, these 5 blockbuster Hollywood movies that provide a moving and compelling cinematic experience that will leave an indelible impact.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Based on Stephen King’s novella, ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’, this timeless classic directed by Frank Darabont is a tale of hope, friendship, and redemption. Set within the walls of Shawshank State Penitentiary, the film follows the enduring friendship between Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker wrongfully convicted of murder, and Red (Morgan Freeman), a fellow inmate. As they sail the harsh realities of prison life, their bond serves as a beacon of hope amidst despair, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Lost in Translation,...

Pedro Almodóvar, the most celebrated Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel, will be the toast of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. There, his latest film — Strange Way of Life, a short Western starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal and set to be distributed by Sony Classics — will have its North American premiere; he’ll receive the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media at the TIFF Tribute Awards; and he’ll participate in an “In Conversation” discussion on Sept. 9.

Almodóvar has made 21 features, among them classics like 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which was nominated for the best foreign-language film Oscar; 1999’s All About My Mother, which won that Oscar; and 2002’s Talk to Her, for which he was nominated for best director and won the best original screenplay Oscar, marking only the fifth time that a non-English-language script had been awarded that trophy. But his past two...

While Hollywood still has a long way to go in supporting queer stories and storytellers, we’re living in a relative golden age of LGBTQ cinema compared to what has come before. Netflix has not always chosen to support the LGBTQ community in their business decisions, but the streamer has played a major role in increasing the visibility of queer characters and storylines in both film and TV, and in supporting queer creators in telling stories.

As we celebrate Pride month and beyond, let’s take a look at some of the best LGBTQ movies Netflix currently has on offer. If you’re looking for a queer film to watch—satirically funny or devastatingly earnest, heart-stoppingly romantic or casually queer—try one of the many excellent and diverse options below.

Brokeback Mountain

“Brokeback Mountain,” a neo-Western film about two male cowboys who love one another in a deeply homophobic society,...

The American star of Manchester By the Sea on making his West End debut in the world premiere of Brokeback Mountain, escaping tragic film roles, and nepo babies

Brooklyn-born Lucas Hedges, 26, began his acting career in his teens with a supporting role in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. His breakthrough was Manchester By the Sea, which earned him an Oscar nomination. Subsequent film credits include Lady Bird, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Boy Erased. Hedges now makes his West End debut in the stage adaptation of Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain.

The world premiere of Brokeback Mountain is rooted in Annie Proulx’s original novella, but what’s your relationship with the 2005 film?

I saw it when I was young and thought it was great. Certain moments stuck in my mind but I’m trying to forget those now that I’m doing this play! I’m just seeing...

It’s no secret that Pedro Almodóvar flirted with the idea of directing “Brokeback Mountain” in the early 2000s, the flamboyant Spanish auteur understandably convinced that Annie Proulx’s gay cowboy drama could make for an ideal English-language debut. He eventually moved on from the project (as he recently explained to IndieWire), believing that his interpretation of the material would be more carnal and unashamed than Hollywood was then prepared to accept.

Almost 20 years later, Almodóvar is still trying to break through the language barrier and make an “American” feature of some kind, but the 30-minute “Strange Way of Life” — his second English-language short — finds him desperately trying to make up for lost time.

Tantalizing to watch despite boasting all the staying power of a stray tumbleweed, this chatty little Western reflects on the repressiveness of its genre while mining a rich vein of conflict from the mutual acrimony shared by its two lead characters,...

You've seen Pedro Pascal play a queer prince, an intergalactic gun-slinger, and a rugged loner with a tragic past. Now, get ready to see him play ... a queer, rugged gun-slinger with a tragic past in Pedro Almodóvar's "Strange Way of Life." No, the new short film by the internationally-celebrated Spanish auteur wasn't deliberately designed to act as an amalgamation of Pascal's most famous roles to date, but it certainly works as one. Rather, Almodóvar has described the Western as, in his own words, "my answer to 'Brokeback Mountain'" and an examination of the type of masculinity that has traditionally characterized the genre yet has only occasionally been interrogated on-screen.

Much like Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama and the 1997 Annie Proulx short story that inspired it, "Strange Way of Living" centers on a pair of cowboys (played by Pascal and Ethan Hawke) who have spent decades maintaining an intimate yet distant relationship.

Wyoming is headed to West End. Brokeback Mountain — Annie Proulx’s short story made popular by the 2005 film — is getting a stage adaptation set to premiere in London, starring Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist as closeted cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. It marks both actors’ West End debuts.

Variety reports that the West End adaptation of Brokeback Mountain is slated to premiere at the venue @sohoplace, and will play from May 10th through August 12th, 2023. Although there’s no Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in this go around, Proulx said in a statement that the “script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments,” which seems like a promising co-sign.

The play Brokeback Mountain was written by Ashley Robinson, with songs by Dan Gillespie Sells. Jonathan Butterell directs, and it’s produced by Nica Burns with Adam Blanshay Productions, Lambert Jackson Productions...

A stage adaptation of Brokeback Mountain will come to the West End this spring, starring Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges.

The adaptation, which calls itself “a new play with music,” is based on Annie Proulx’s short story, which was later adapted into the 2005 film. The stage version was written by Ashley Robinson and features direction by Jonathan Butterell and songs by Dan Gillespie Sells.

The show will make its world premiere at London’s Soho Place and run from May 10 through August 12.

Hedges, who was Oscar-nominated for his role in Manchester By the Sea and has performed on Broadway, will play Ennis, the role portrayed by Heath Ledger in the film adaptation. Faist, who recently appeared on Broadway and in the West Side Story film, will play Jack, the role portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal. Both actors will make their West End debuts with the show.

The plot of the...

Brokeback Mountain is transitioning into a stage adaptation on London’s West End.

Originally a short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain achieved notoriety in 2005 after making its way to the silver screen in an Oscar-winning film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.

The plot centers around an intimate and secretive love story between Jack and Ennis, who bond at their remote job at Brokeback Mountain.

Read More: Michelle Pfeiffer And Lucas Hedges Are The Ultimate Mother And Son Duo In Dark Comedy ‘French Exit’

Proulx spoke highly of the staged reenactment of her story, saying: “Brokeback Mountain has been recreated in several different forms, each with its own distinctive moods and impact. Ashley’s script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments.”

The book’s West End adaptation will star Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges, who have accrued...

“Brokeback Mountain” is set as a stage production.

Almost two decades since the acclaimed 2005 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger debuted, “Brokeback Mountain” is confirmed as a West End play. Oscar-nominated star Lucas Hedges (“Manchester on the Sea”) will play the part of Ennis Del Mar, with BAFTA-nominated “West Side Story” breakout Mike Faist cast as Jack Twist.

“Brokeback Mountain” is based on the New Yorker short story by Annie Proulx. Producer Nica Burns stated that the play is inspired solely from the 1997 short story and not Ang Lee’s film, according to Deadline. Production will be a play with music and debut at the Sohoplace Theatre in the West End for a 12-week season starting May 10.

“Brokeback Mountain” centers on two cowboys who fall in love in Wyoming. Ashley Robinson adapted the script, with “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” director Jonathan Butterell helming the play with collaborator Dan Gillespie Sells...

"Crash" winning Best Picture over "Brokeback Mountain" is easily one of the biggest upsets in modern Oscar history. The Academy's decision was already highly contentious and has only aged like sour milk in the decades since. Ang Lee's tragic romance, on the other hand, remains a touchstone for positive queer representation in mainstream cinema. To dismiss it as the embodiment of the "Bury Your Gays" trope is to approach the film in a vacuum. At a time when homophobic humor intended to assuage the insecurities of straight audiences was commonplace in Hollywood, Lee and his "Brokeback" actors dared to take the story of two men falling in love seriously.

According to Deadline, the tale of cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is getting a new lease on life thanks to a London stage production based on Annie Proulx's original 1997 short story (not Lee's movie). Mike Faist and...

BAFTA-nominated Mike Faist and Oscar-nominated actor Lucas Hedges will star in a London stage adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain.

The production is described as a play with music and will run at the Sohoplace Theatre in the West End for a 12-week season beginning May 10.

Theater owner and producer Nica Burns stressed that the play is based on Proulx’s short story originally published in the New Yorker in 1997 and not on Ang Lee’s acclaimed 2005 film that starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Faist, who landed a BAFTA nom for West Side Story, will play the part of Jack Twist. Hedges, whose Oscar nom was for Manchester By the Sea in 2016, will play Ennis Del Mar.

The story of two lonesome cowboys who fall in love in the big, wide open spaces of Wyoming touched a chord with those who read the story and caught the movie.

Courtney Love stands by a claim she made on Marc Maron’s “Wtf” podcast that Brad Pitt got her booted from “Fight Club” after she blocked his attempt to make a Kurt Cobain biopic.

The story, in which Love detailed that she was initially cast in the role of Marla that went to Helena Bonham Carter in David Fincher’s 1999 film, went viral this week. A source disputed the claim in Variety, specifying that while Love auditioned for the film, she was never actually cast. “You cannot be fired for a job you didn’t get,” the source said. “It’s common knowledge that roles are not decided by other actors but by the director.”

Love spoke out about the controversy in an Instagram post she shared December 30.

“Hi. Regarding a story I told on the @marcmaron #wtf podcast. A story I was never going to tell. Brad pushed me a bridge too far.

From the moment it was announced, 2005's "Brokeback Mountain" was the subject of ridicule — "the gay cowboy film," people called it. If anything, the movie's box office success and three Oscar wins (including Ang Lee for Best Achievement in Directing) only egged comedians on. Indeed, long before his infamous homophobic tweets and stand-up jokes, Kevin Hart appeared in a sequence directly mocking Lee's romantic drama in 2006's "Scary Movie 4." Two years after that, Ben Siller's 2008 satirical action/comedy "Tropic Thunder" gave "Brokeback Mountain" yet another ribbing with the in-movie trailer for "Satan's Alley," a fake period drama in which two queer 12th-century Irish monks fall in love.

None of this is to suggest "Brokeback Mountain" or any film, no matter how "important" it's deemed to be, is off the table for comedy ... assuming that comedy is punching up at a deserving target. One could argue "Satan's Alley," much like the rest of "Tropic Thunder,...

Pedro Almodóvar has spent decades avoiding the allure of American studio projects, from “Sister Act” to “Brokeback Mountain,” and still doesn’t trust the system. “It’s kind of a contradiction,” he told IndieWire during a recent afternoon in his office in Madrid. “Hollywood wants to bring in outside talent, but they don’t always let them do what they want to do.”

These days, Almodóvar has addressed that conundrum by making the talent come to him. Continuing his toe-dip into English language filmmaking that started with his Tilda Swinton-starring short film “The Human Voice” in 2020, the 72-year-old director is on the verge of taking another step.

“Strange Way of Life,” which begins production in late August, will star Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as a pair of middle-aged gunslingers at the center of a 30-minute Western. Much of the action will take place in the desert region of Spain’s Almería region,...

A version of this story about Jane Campion first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

It has been nearly three decades since Jane Campion was nominated for an Oscar, an extraordinary span of time that evaporates instantly when the writer-director starts to talk about why she was drawn to the story of tortured masculinity in “The Power of the Dog” — and whether she was the right person to tell it.

Ultimately, she said, she felt “emboldened” by the #MeToo movement to take on the project that she admitted was “not a woman’s story.” And now she has Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, along with four of her main actors — an impressive tribute to the impact the film has had.

“The Power of the Dog” has enjoyed near-universal praise, save for a recent jolt of vitriol from actor Sam Elliot,...

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel The Power of the Dog had been percolating for some time in the back of the brain of filmmaker Jane Campion, previously an Academy Award winner for writing the screenplay for The Piano. Eventually, she felt compelled to adapt it for the screen.

“It intrigued me for many reasons: I couldn’t guess what was going to happen, it was incredibly detailed, and I felt that the person writing the story had lived this experience,” says Campion. “It’s not just a cowboy story from 1925 of ranch life. This is a lived experience, and I think because of that I felt a real trust for the story. I loved how deeply it explores masculinity and that it’s also about a hidden love.

Editor’s Note: The following story contains spoilers for “The Power of the Dog.”

Jane Campion is enjoying this moment. After winning the Silver Lion for directing at Venice for “The Power of the Dog,” her triumphant return to feature films after 13 years, and soaking up the New York Film Festival applause at Alice Tully Hall, the director settles into a soft sofa at Netflix’s after-party at Tavern on the Green. She had taken a detour from moviemaking to create eight episodes of Sundance TV’s lauded series “Top of the Lake” (2013-2017), which starred Elisabeth Moss and Holly Hunter, back home in New Zealand. Campion smiles as she tells me about the fun she’s having creating marketing materials for “The Power of the Dog” with Netflix, which won the hardboiled 1920s western in a bidding war at Cannes 2019, before production began in January 2020 in remote Central Otago,...

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has published its list of the 101 greatest screenplays of the 21st century, topped by Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” Peele won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with the script for his horror movie, which also marked his solo feature directorial debut. Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” screenplay cracked the WGA’s top five along with Charlie Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network,” and the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.” All of these aforementioned films won screenwriting Oscars.

The remainder of the WGA’s top 10 consists of Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous,” and Christopher Nolan’s “Memento.” Anderson has three scripts in the top 101, as does Tarantino. Writers with multiple ranked scripts include Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman,...

“Now, you’re in the sunken place.”

If you recognize that line, you know the film whose script the Writers Guild of America just voted as the best of the past 22 years. Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning Get Out tops the WGA’s just-released list of the “101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far)”. See the full list below.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Social Network, Parasite, No Country for Old Men and Moonlight round out the top six. All of them won a Screenplay Oscar, but three of the next four on the WGA’s list — There Will Be Blood (No. 7), Inglorious Basterds (No. 8) and Memento (No. 10) — did not. The No. 9 script, Almost Famous, took Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay.

Christopher Nolan wrote four of the 101 top screenplays — 2000’s Memento, 2008’s The Dark Knight (No. 26), 2010’s Inception (No. 37) and 2006’s The Prestige (No. 82). Dark Night and Prestige...

Editor’s Note: The following story contains spoilers for “The Power of the Dog.”

Jane Campion is enjoying this moment. After winning the Silver Lion for directing at Venice for “The Power of the Dog,” her triumphant return to feature films after 13 years, and soaking up the New York Film Festival applause at Alice Tully Hall, the director settles into a soft sofa at Netflix’s after-party at Tavern on the Green. She had taken a detour from moviemaking to create eight episodes of Sundance TV’s lauded series “Top of the Lake” (2013-2017), which starred Elisabeth Moss and Holly Hunter, back home in New Zealand. Campion smiles as she tells me about the fun she’s having creating marketing materials for “The Power of the Dog” with Netflix, which won the hardboiled 1920s western in a bidding war at Cannes 2019, before production began in January 2020 in remote Central Otago,...

Writer-director Jane Campion and star Benedict Cumberbatch said Paul Newman was one of the previous stars who tried to adapt Power of the Dog before them, relating the history of their new film based on Thomas Savage’s book during Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles panel Sunday at the DGA Theater.

“The book had been optioned five times before,” Campion said. “Paul Newman apparently optioned it at one point.”

Cumberbatch stars as wealthy Montana rancher Phil Burbank. He runs a ranch with his brother George (Jesse Plemons), whose decision to marry Rose (Dunst) and raise her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) causes turmoil between the brothers as Phil torments the mother and son.

“Hey, if it’s good enough for Paul Newman, who am I to shy away from the opportunity,” Cumberbatch said on the panel that included Dunst and Smit-McPhee. “Every time I hear that I go, ‘Damn, I...

Jane Campion’s first film since 2009’s John Keats portrait “Bright Star” is a similarly moody study of masculinity, albeit one supplanting a Montana cattle ranch for early 1800s London. The Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker (“The Piano”) crafts an ice-blooded, prickly Western — starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemmons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee — about love, repression, and, well, power as the title indeed implies. There’s also Jonny Greenwood’s soothing (i.e. deeply unnerving) string-and-guitar score to massage things along as this quartet comes operatically undone at the hands of a terrifying Cumberbatch. Watch the new trailer for the film below.

Here’s Netflix’s official synopsis:

Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil’s romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river,...

Before shooting “The Power of the Dog” back at the start of 2020, Jane Campion kept having crazy dreams. “I’ve had this terrible fear of being on this big black horse and trying to go down this little lane on this cliff,” she said. “The horse was very testy. And I was proud to be on such an exciting animal, but I didn’t really know it at all. I was going down this trail, it’s getting smaller and smaller. And I can see we can’t fit here. And we can’t get back because this horse and I don’t know each other, I can’t get it to go back. ‘This is certain death.’ Then I woke up.”

Campion faced her fears with a woman who “facilitates a dialogue between yourself and your dreams and work,” she said. “She’s a genius. Most people are just too scared to do it.

In a film of carefully appointed details, let’s isolate one. Phil Burbank (a fierce Benedict Cumberbatch) is, among many things, a man of reputation. The Montana governor (played by legendary American thesp Keith Carradine) has heard flattering rumors about the man, one of the most successful ranchers in the state, and a clear contributor to the local economy. With excited spittle on his lips, the governor exclaims of his status as a “Yale graduate in classics, Phi Beta Kappa!” Phil is a man whom most wouldn’t pick as an adversary, or even a comrade, but the character in the story who best resembles these has a pointedly different academic specialism––in medicine and science. This difference in sensibility––a direct binary opposition between two strong-willed characters––is critical to what transpires in The Power of the Dog.

Long absences from theatrical filmmaking can seem as central to the...

Diana Ossana is flat on her back, wracked with grief. She’s just lost her best friend and writing partner, Larry McMurtry, a man she nursed through open heart surgery in 1991 and a couple of other heart attacks, who after three years of battling congestive heart failure, finally succumbed Thursday in his home in Archer City, Texas. He was 84. “Larry through stubbornness and brilliance kept going,” said Ossana. “He kept going. I feel like one of my limbs is cut off. We’re all pretty crushed.”

Ossana picked up the phone to talk about her writing partner of 28 years, with whom she shared the 2006 Screenplay Oscar for adapting Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain.” “We were each other’s best friend,” she said. “Larry would tell people to call me in the last 10 years or so: ‘Ask Diana, she knows me better than I do myself.’ From the beginning of our friendship,...

Diana Ossana is flat on her back, wracked with grief. She’s just lost her best friend and writing partner, Larry McMurtry, a man she nursed through open heart surgery in 1991 and a couple of other heart attacks, who after three years of battling congestive heart failure, finally succumbed Thursday in his home in Archer City, Texas. He was 84. “Larry through stubbornness and brilliance kept going,” said Ossana. “He kept going. I feel like one of my limbs is cut off. We’re all pretty crushed.”

Ossana picked up the phone to talk about her writing partner of 28 years, with whom she shared the 2006 Screenplay Oscar for adapting Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain.” “We were each other’s best friend,” she said. “Larry would tell people to call me in the last 10 years or so: ‘Ask Diana, she knows me better than I do myself.’ From the beginning of our friendship,...

Larry McMurtry, the Texas novelist known for American West epics like Lonesome Dove and the Oscar-winning screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, has died. McMurtry’s death on Thursday was first reported by The New York Times. He was 84.

Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1936, McMurtry was a prolific author with an uncanny gift for making a lengthy opus like Lonesome Dove — all 843 pages — eminently readable. The page-turning tale of two grizzled cowboys on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana in the mid-19th century won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986. First...

Larry McMurtry, who won an Oscar for penning Brokeback Mountain, earned a nomination for The Last Picture Show and authored books that spawned Emmy winner Lonesome Dove and Best Picture Oscar winner Terms of Endearment, died Thursday of heart failure. He was 84. The news was confirmed to media outlets by family spokeswoman and 42West CEO Amanda Lundberg.

McMurtry — whose son is the singer-songwriter James McMurtry — won the Pulitzer Prize for writing Lonesome Done, which became a popular 1989 CBS miniseries and spawned a sequel and a syndicated series, and was awarded the 2014 National Humanities Medal by President Obama.

McMurtry’s 1975 book Terms of Endearment became the 1983 film from writer-director-producer James L. Brooks. Starring MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels and John Lithgow, the pic was a commercial smash and led all films with 11 Oscar noms. Along with Best Pictrure, it earned Academy Awards for Shirley MacLaine, Nicholson and...

Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose novels, such as “The Last Picture Show,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Lonesome Dove,” were turned into award-winning films and who won an Oscar for co-adapting “Brokeback Mountain,” has died, according to The New York Times. He was 84.

A spokesperson for McMurtry’s family confirmed his death to The New York Times. No cause of death was given.

McMurtry and his frequent collaborator Diana Ossana penned “Brokeback Mountain” based on Annie Proulx’s short story, taking the Western genre in which McMurtry so frequently worked in a new direction: a gay love story. The film saw this theme welcomed by large mainstream audiences for the first time and also won the Oscar for best director and was nominated for best picture.

McMurtry also shared a 1973 Oscar nomination with Peter Bogdanovich for the adaptation of McMurtry’s novel “The Last Picture Show.”

With William D.

Larry McMurtry, the prolific novelist of “Lonesome Dove” and screenwriter known for “Terms of Endearment,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Last Picture Show,” has died. He was 84.

McMurtry died on Thursday, his publicist told TheWrap. No cause of death or where he died was given.

McMurtry wrote over 30 novels in his career that spanned five decades. He became renowned for his ability to remove the romanticism from the image of the American West and the small towns of modern day Texas. He was first nominated for an Oscar for “The Last Picture Show” and won in 2006 for “Brokeback Mountain,” the screenplay which he co-wrote with his longtime collaborator Diana Ossana based on the short story by Annie Proulx.

He most recently collaborated with Ossana on “Joe Bell” starring Mark Wahlberg, which made its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year.

McMurtry won the Pulitzer prize for his novel “Lonesome Dove...

Marcia Gay Harden plays Mathilde Geffard on the Nat Geo series “Barkskins.” She is a previous Oscar winner for the film “Pollock” and a two-time Emmy nominee.

Harden recently spoke with Gold Derby contributing editor Riley Chow about what inspired her to become a part of “Barkskins,” what it was like to shoot in Quebec and the uniqueness of her Oscar win. Watch the exclusive interview above and read the complete transcript below.

See‘Barkskins’: 2020 Emmy ballot submissions include actors David Thewlis and Marcia Gay Harden

Gold Derby: Marcia, we’ve seen you onscreen for over three decades. You have an Oscar and a Tony. How or why did you have it in you to get out there into the wilderness to film this show?

Marcia Gay Harden: Well, first of all, I’m a working mom, so it doesn’t matter how long I’ve been working. I want to still keep working.

The 2020 Emmy ballots have been released by the Television Academy, so we now know which shows, actors, etc. are in contention for this year’s golden statues. Nat Geo’s limited series “Barkskins” accounts for two entries on the performer ballot, David Thewlis in lead and Marcia Gay Harden in supporting, and it’s a force to be reckoned with for creative Emmy contenders like composer Colin Stetson. This eight-episode series, based on Annie Proulx‘s 2016 novel, tells the story of European colonists trying to make a home for themselves in New France.

Nat Geo is no stranger to the Emmy Awards, earning Best Limited Series bids for “Genius: Einstein” (2018) and “Genius: Picasso” (2019). A third “Genius” installment, starring Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin, was originally scheduled to air this season but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Will sprawling period drama “Barkskins” now fill the “Genius” void at the 2020 Emmys?...

There are a number of reasons to binge NatGeo’s “Barkskins,” an adaption of Annie Proulx’s celebrated novel, this summer. Most importantly, it covers an important period in North American history rarely acknowledged or known outside of Canada and accurately depicts the power of the Indigenous nations in New France at the time during the 17th Century. It also features some wonderfully impressive performances from Marcia Gay Harden, David Wilmot and, of course, David Thewlis.

Continue reading David Thewlis Reveals A Nick Cave Inspiration For ‘Barkskins’ & Clarifies He’s Na’Vi in ‘Avatar 3’ [Interview] at The Playlist.

Recently, National Geographic finished airing the first season of the channel's historical but fictional drama series, Barkskins. The TV show hasn't been cancelled or renewed for a second season yet but the show's creator, executive producer Elwood Reid, is hoping for a few more seasons to fully tell the series' story.

Having aired on Monday nights, the Barkskins TV series is based on a portion of the novel of the same name by Annie Proulx. The show stars David Thewlis, Marcia Gay Harden, Aneurin Barnard, James Bloor, Christian Cooke, David Wilmot, Thomas M. Wright, Tallulah Haddon, Kaniehtiio (Tiio) Horn, Lily Sullivan, and Zahn McClarnon. "Barkskins" is a term for indentured servants who are working toward their freedom. The series examines the mysterious massacre of settlers in the vast and unforgiving wilds of 1690s New France. This event...

You could say that “Barkskins” showrunner Elwood Reid and composer Colin Stetson were meant to work together. “When we met [about the show], it was this immediate camaraderie, immediate good vibes. I adore that man. It turned out he was a bouncer in a club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I grew up and went to school, and this club I played at four times a week,” Stetson revealed during Gold Derby’s Meet the Btl Experts: Composers panel (watch above). “So we no doubt had crossed paths many times. We talked about the show. I loved his vision for it, which was very, very unconventional as far as pieces of its ilk that I’ve known of. We bonded over a mutual love of black metal and I was in from the first hour.”

Based on the novel of the same name by Annie Proulx, the Nat Geo limited series covers the...

The Oscar winning co-writer and producer of Brokeback Mountain takes us on a cinematic journey through her life, and talks about the pleasures of writing with Larry McMurtry and Joe Bonnano, and what Ken Kesey’s favorite movie was.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Red River (1948)

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Hud (1963)

Piranha (1978)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

They Drive By Night (1940)

Kings Row (1942)

The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)

The Grapes of Wrath (1942)

Buffalo Bill (1944)

Laura (1944)

Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)

The Day of the Triffids (1963)

Moby Dick (1956)

Village of the Damned (1960)

Written on the Wind (1956)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Brazil (1985)

Lost In La Mancha (2002)

The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)

The Fisher King (1991)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

A History of Violence...

The musical chairs of hot directors once attached to direct the classic pastoral gay romance “Brokeback Mountain,” which ultimately went to Ang Lee, is the stuff of legend. Gus Van Sant was once set to helm the adaptation of Annie Proulx’s story, with Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix eyed to star in the roles that went to Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Joel Schumacher was at another point linked to direct the 2005 Academy Award-winning film, and co-screenwriter Larry McMurtry even offered the project to Pedro Almodóvar, who said he was tempted to make a more “animalistic” version of the love story.

But as revealed in a new interview with Insider, Oscar-nominated “Precious,” “The Butler,” and “The Paperboy” director Lee Daniels said he was also in talks to direct the film, but getting it off the ground proved to be complicated.

“I was going to be directing ‘Brokeback Mountain,'” the “Empire” creator said.

The musical chairs of hot directors once attached to direct the classic pastoral gay romance “Brokeback Mountain,” which ultimately went to Ang Lee, is the stuff of legend. Gus Van Sant was once set to helm the adaptation of Annie Proulx’s story, with Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix eyed to star in the roles that went to Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Joel Schumacher was at another point linked to direct the 2005 Academy Award-winning film, and co-screenwriter Larry McMurtry even offered the project to Pedro Almodóvar, who said he was tempted to make a more “animalistic” version of the love story.

But as revealed in a new interview with Insider, Oscar-nominated “Precious,” “The Butler,” and “The Paperboy” director Lee Daniels said he was also in talks to direct the film, but getting it off the ground proved to be complicated.

“I was going to be directing ‘Brokeback Mountain,'” the “Empire” creator said.

Based on the 2016 bestselling novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx of Brokeback Mountain fame, National Geographic’s scripted drama series Barkskins is a savage trip back in time to the wild frontiers of the late 17th century. Set in the wooden settlement of Wobik, now the Canadian province of Quebec, the show features an ensemble cast that includes David Thewlis as the wealthy but eccentric landowner Claude Trepagny and Marcia Gay Harden as wily innkeeper Mathilde Geffard, keeper of the local community’s secrets.

Speaking during Deadline’s Contenders Television virtual event, showrunner Elwood Reid explained that it was Proulx’s consummate world-building—the book spans over 300 years—that inspired him to adapt it.

“As a writer, you’re always looking for those worlds that aren’t on television,” he said, “and it had these really interesting core characters in there [too], so I was immediately drawn in. Claude Trepagny is a character that,...

Network: National Geographic

Episodes: Eight (hour)

Seasons: One

TV show dates: May 25, 2020 -- June 15, 2020

Series status: Ended

Performers include: David Thewlis, Marcia Gay Harden, Aneurin Barnard, James Bloor, Christian Cooke, David Wilmot, Thomas M. Wright, Tallulah Haddon, Kaniehtiio (Tiio) Horn, Lily Sullivan, and Zahn McClarnon.

TV show description:      

A historical fiction drama series, Barkskins is based on the novel of the same name by Annie Proulx.

The TV show examines the mysterious massacre of settlers in the vast and unforgiving wilds of 1690s New France. This event threatens to throw the region into an all-out war. Likely suspects abound - the English, the Hudson's Bay Company, and a band of Kanien'kehá:ka (Iroquois) possibly in league with the English looking to drive the...

A loose adaptation of Annie Proulx’s novel, “Barkskins” is a unique beast even in the era of Peak TV. Executive Produced by film and broadway uber-producer Scott Rudin, it was created and written primarily by Elwood Reed whose previous work don’t necessarily scream 17th century period piece set in the French Canadian wilderness. And the same can be said for filmmaker David Slade, who helmed the first two episodes of the series.

Continue reading Marcia Gay Harden Contemplates Where A Second Season Of ‘Barkskins’ Could Go [Interview] at The Playlist.

That was no way to end a "limited" series.

The French settlement of Wobik was under attack by the Iroquois and the fates of key characters remained up in the air after Barkskins Season 1 Episode 7 and Barkskins Season 1 Episode 8.

Sure, cliffhangers are nothing new. But usually, they come at the end of a potentially ongoing series. Limited series usually include, oh, I don't know, conclusions.

But before the season, showrunner Elwood Reid admitted that Barkskins was a limited series in name only, with the uncertainty about Covid-19 leaving future productions impossible to plan.

In that same interview, Reid added that his source material, Annie Proulx's lengthy novel of the same name, had several seasons worth of material just waiting to be tapped.

So future seasons will come down to what direction the powers that be at National Geographic Channel want to take.

Barkskins marked NatGeo's first foray into fiction-based scripted programming.

We're landing on some finales of beloved shows this week including Roswell, New Mexico.

Barkskins also takes its leave, so many of our Fanatics are watching reality shows like the multitude of crazy popular 90 Day Fiance versions.

There's a new movie on Amazon Prime this Friday starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, too. See what we recommend to watch this week below!

Sunday, June 14

8/7c 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? (TLC)

Larissa and Colt are back!

Yes, really. Two of the most controversial stars of the franchise are returning, and it seems like they are embarking on love with new people.

After everything that happened between then in the past, will they have to cross paths again?

We hope so!

9/8c Good Witch (Hallmark)

Martha is busy planning another exciting function for the citizens of Middleton, and all of our favorite characters will play a part. Martha is full of inspiration!

We step...

One of the quirkier moments on Barkskins' first two episodes came when David Thewlis's Claude Trepagny received official permission to take a wife.

The National Geographic Channel drama, based on the novel by Annie Proulx, is jammed with big characters.

And the biggest of these is philosophical French loon Trepagny.

Out in the midst of his wooded estate, Trepagny lives with Mari, his half-French, half-Wendat Indian lover, and their young son Theo.

And yet, behind her back, he's been writing to colonial officials in Quebec City.

He hopes to gain the required paperwork for him to marry a Filles du Roi.

These are young women sent from France to marry settlers and multiply, increasing the population of New France.

Caught in the middle is Rene Sel, Trepagny's indentured servant.

Rene Sel is falling for Mari but lies to cover for his boss when Mari asks about the letters Trepagny is sending.