Even hard-to-please Marvel fans loved what Kiwi outsider Taika Waititi brought to Thor: Ragnarok—a joyously irreverent approach to the comic-book character, that married a keen eye for the absurd with an emotional and affectionate grounding. Waititi's long-term admirers felt vindicated; the director of such…

Coming back down to Earth after several years cocooned in the Star Wars universe, Rian Johnson proves that he hasn't lost touch with the modern world with his stylish but seriously topical black comedy Knives Out. Set in the aftermath of an apparent suicide, it finds the family of late fiction writer Harlan Thrombey…

Chinonye Chukwu's sophomore feature Clemency has had long legs this year, debuting to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in January before quickly becoming a steady festival favorite around the world. It was in the States, though, that the film's subject matter hit the hardest, with Alfre Woodard starring as prison…

Few could have imagined at the beginning of the year that a film about strippers spiking Wall Street wolves with a ketamine-and-molly KO combo would turn out to be anything other than a guilty pleasure, especially with Jennifer Lopez as a mink-clad pole dancer named Ramona. And yet Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers has been…

Since the release of his debut film Heavy in 1995, James Mangold has been impossible to predict, moving between romcoms, Westerns and comic-book movies, garnering an Oscar nomination for his script for Marvel's 2017 Wolverine movie Logan. Ford V Ferrari, known overseas as Le Mans '66, is his most awards-friendly…

Netflix signaled that they had no intention of slowing their investment in top-tier talent in the final panel of The Contenders – London, which featured four of the festival season's most popular attractions. In the first panel, Andreas Wiseman spoke to director David Michôd and composer Nicholas Britell about The Kin…

Neon came to Contenders London with their Sundance hit Apollo 11, a visually stunning documentary tracing the 1969 moon mission helmed by Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins. Whittled down from over 300 hours of archival footage, some of it on 70mm, Todd Douglas Miller's film has, so far, grossed $11m at…

Warner Bros presented a very eclectic but solidly awards-friendly slate at The Contenders London today, headed up by Todd Phillips' recent Venice Golden Lion winner Joker. "Most composers have a director they work with, but I — accidentally — had an actor," laughed Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. In this case, the…

Representing Focus Features at this year's The Contenders London was this year's not-so-surprise Brit hit Downton Abbey, which brought producer Liz Trubridge, actor Michael C Fox — who plays footman Andy Parker — and costume designer Anna Robbins to the stage. Speaking to Deadline's Peter White, the trio confirmed…

Although it's only been on release for five months, the Russo brothers' Avengers: Endgame has already been anointed the highest grossing movie of all time worldwide, nudging James Cameron's Avatar into second place. For casting director Sarah Halley Finn, it's "almost hard to comprehend." “It was very, very emotional…

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World director Dean DeBlois came to The Contenders London with the third and final entry in the Oscar-nominated animated franchise, which debuted in 2010 and has since grossed $1.6B at the global box office. Adapted from the book series by British author Cressida Cowell, the latest…

British journalist Caitlin Moran began writing for the rock press in the early '90s, at the age of 16, and her experiences in the field provided the basis for her second novel, How to Build a Girl, in 2014. A film version has been in the works ever since the novel was first published, and this year director Coky…