Latest in Specialty Preview

"It's been the great mystery in political history of the past 50 years," said Slamdance Film Festival founder, writer and director Dan Mirvish of the 18½ minutes famously missing from the Nixon Tapes. His campy political thriller out this weekend takes a stab at what might have happened. Adventure Entertainment opens 1…

"I have very little to say except that I think it very charming and kind of you all to give us your Sunday night," said a disarming Julian Fellowes at the NYC premiere of Downton Abbey: A New Era last Sunday. Distributor Focus Features – and the broader industry — hopes audiences will give the film many more Sunday…

It's one of busiest opening weeks in some time for indie releases with Neon (Pleasure), Bleecker Street (Montana Story), IFC Midnight (The Innocents) and Roadside Attractions (Family Camp) in theaters — even as the imminent closure of the Landmark Pico underscores just how arthouses are struggling to win back core…

Audrey Diwan's Happening launched New Directors/New Films in April, mesmerizing viewers with the story of a brilliant literature student from a working-class background seeking an abortion to keep her life from derailing. In 1963 France the procedure was illegal. The suspense builds with each week a new chapter title…

Studio brass wowed theater owners this week with Maverick: Top Gun, Avatar: The Way of Water and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse among other tentpoles. But they were also clear at the just-wrapped CinemaCon that a reviving box office requires a wide breadth of content. "If we narrow what we bring to theaters, our…

Sony Pictures Classics art heist caper The Duke, Neon's tender Petite Maman, and Charlotte from Good Deed Films, an animated biopic with mature themes, open an eclectic specialty weekend ready to draw older crowds if they're ready to return. Younger demos are back when they like the pic, as per A24s Everything Everywhe…

The face of five-year-old Aline looks weirdly mature and toothy as she crawls from under a table at a family wedding to belt out a song early in the film of the same name. French comedian and actress Valérie Lemercier, 58, wrote, directed and stars in Aline and it's her head on a body altered by special effects in…

The heroine of Goran Stolevski's You Won't Be Alone is a witch, with echoes of vampire and zombie, yes, but mostly with a haunting desire for human connection in 19th century rural Macedonia. The film’s Sundance premiere got great reviews (see Deadline's here). It’s 94% Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh with critics as…

This is one of the best weekends for new indie releases in some time — a bit of space in theaters to run and audiences slowly, but increasingly, willing to return. Focus Features' The Outfit – the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) — opens nationally on over 1,200 screens…

Joe Wright's Cyrano twirls onto 797 screens, the highest-profile specialty release in weeks (as the market awaits Focus Features The Outfit with Mark Rylance and Sony Pictures Classics Mothering Sunday). But the well reviewed period musical romance from UAR starring Peter Dinklage is landing in a tough place. Industry…

As Oscar nominees circulate in theaters, exhibitors are studying where and when to play Best Picture contenders during the long run-up from nominations February 8 through the awards March 27, juggling holdovers and new releases. (See this weekend's specialty box office offerings below). In an interview with Deadline…

Films from Belfast to Drive My Car, from The Worst Person In The World to Nightmare Alley saw ticket sales pop after Academy Award nominations and as distributors kick into high gear for this weekend and beyond, juggling theater counts and ramped up media campaigns that now have a shiny new imprimatur. For Neon’s The W…