audience: Last News

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic These days, gay men can arrange sex by a smartphone app as easily as ordering a pizza. But back in the ’90s, when “Plainclothes” takes place, such trysts not only had to be coordinated in person, but could be punished by arrest.

Alison Herman TV Critic The writer and producer Dan Fogelman has a CV that spans genres, from a script credit on Pixar’s 2006 movie “Cars” to creating the musical fantasy series “Galavant.” But Fogelman is best known for “This Is Us,” the NBC hit that spent six seasons applying a twisty structure to a sentimental family drama. This unorthodox formula won a large and loyal audience, but to this critic, it was always a mismatch — hiding pertinent information in the name of cheap surprise. With his latest series, the Hulu thriller “Paradise,” Fogelman pivots to a register where OMG-inducing water cooler moments feel much more at home.

The Traitors UK season three finale was the most watched live episode in the show’s history.Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the reality series features a group of strangers holed in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, with a small selection of ‘Traitors’ attempting to eliminate the remaining ‘Faithful’ contestants without being detected.After 12 episodes, eight murders and 14 banishments, Leanne and Jake were declared joint winners, taking home £47,300 each.The finale was watched live by an average audience of 7.4million on Friday night (January 24), up 1.6million on last year’s final, reports BBC News.Following the finale, a further 4.8million also tuned in to an extended episode of The Traitors: Uncloaked spin-off podcast, broadcast on BBC One and Sounds.Host Ed Gamble was joined by all of the finalists and host Winkleman – with the rest of the cast in the audience – as they reacted to the final episode.In a tense finale, Leanne and Jake successfully managed to banish the last remaining Traitor, Charlotte, but also sent home two innocent Faithfuls in Alexander and Frankie, which left many viewers furious.Back in August, the BBC announced that they had renewed the show for a fourth season, and also confirmed there would be a celebrity version of the show, with both new series set to be recorded in 2025.The application process for the next regular season is now open, with production company Studio Lambert stating that they are looking for “smart, funny and strategic people to take part in the ultimate game of trust and treachery”.Members of the public must be 18 years of age or older and have the right to reside in the UK.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, and Spotify, the world’s largest paid streaming service, announced on Sunday new, multi-year agreements for recorded music and music publishing “focused on growth, innovation and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success,” according to the joint announcement. It also marks the first direct license between Spotify and a major publisher in several years.

Brad Womack is reflecting on an awkward moment with Ellen DeGeneres.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Like many Americans in the early aughts, documentary filmmaker David Osit watched “To Catch a Predator,” a hidden camera reality TV show that followed journalist Chris Hansen working in coordination with law enforcement while conducting sting operations that exposed adult men who were hoping to have sex with minors. “I found it fascinating and weird and strangely addictive,” he admits. “In many ways, it was sort of the template for modern true crime TV.” But he never really gave the NBC series much thought until years later when he came across an article about Bill Conradt, a Texas assistant district attorney who committed suicide in 2007 after police served him with a warrant stemming from one of Hansen’s online investigations into potential pedophiles.

A hectic schedule awaits King Charles in 2025,starting with a solo trip to Poland tomorrow for the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz.

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter “Flight Risk,” an action thriller directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mark Wahlberg as a balding, unhinged pilot, landed in first place with $12 million from 3,161 North American theaters in its opening weekend. It’s the second consecutive Lionsgate release, following “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” to debut at No. 1 as the studio takes advantage of January’s otherwise desolate box office landscape.

Aramide Tinubu Since Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in the 19th century, the forensic detective and his comrade, Dr. John H. Watson, have been enduring figures in global literature and other media, including television.

Jannik Sinner is a three-time Grand Slam winner!

Jordan Moreau Madison Square Garden was sold-out and packed with screaming fans on Friday night, but it wasn’t for a Grammy-winning artist or New York sports team: It was a group of “intrepid heroes” who have taken over the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Dimension 20, a group of D&D players who specialize in monster slaying and absurd improv on the streaming service Dropout, took MSG by storm for their first major live show, “Gauntlet at the Garden.” Led by their dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan, the Dimension 20 crew, made up of Zac Oyama, Emily Axford, Lou Wilson, Brian Murphy, Ally Beardsley and Siobhan Thompson, revisited their popular NYC-inspired Unsleeping City campaign.

Lauren Coates Variety & Audible’s Cocktails and Conversations panel at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival brought together journalist Ronan Farrow, Audible’s chief content officer Rachel Ghiazza and actors Juliette Lewis, André Holland and Mamoudou Athie to discuss storytelling for modern audiences. The panel discussion was moderated by Variety Executive Editor Brent Lang.

Jamie Lang The story around Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut, “The Legend of Ochi,” took a drastic turn, as so many Hollywood stories did, with this month’s Los Angeles fires. Saxon lost his home in the blaze, and the film’s theatrical release was pushed back. However, having spent years developing and working on the fantasy feature, Saxon is standing steadfastly behind his film and will be present for its Sundance world premiere.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “The Thing with Feathers,” Benedict Cumberbatch plays a London creator of graphic novels who, quite suddenly, finds himself a widower (his beloved wife collapsed on the kitchen floor and died). In an early scene, we see him try and sustain an atmosphere of everyday normality as he puts breakfast together for his two young sons. But it’s not happening.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Bob Dylan song choices Timothée Chalamet picked for his “Saturday Night Live” musical appearance were… well, completely unknown to most of the viewing audience. The actor’s dip into more obscure choices delighted many Dylanologists who tuned in, even as his picks defied expectations that he would recreate songs he performed as Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” which turned out to be the furthest thing from his mind.

Sundance Film Festival lineup, at the behest of its financiers at Participant Media, the independent movie has a new backer — and will light up snowy Park City with its world premiere after all. James Shani’s Rich Spirit and BN Media have acquired “Blknws,” buying Participant Media out of all rights in the process, with hopes of selling the film to a new distributor.

Angelique Jackson Filmmaker Rashad Frett is making movies with a mission. “I’m here to make films that bring in humanity,” Frett tells Variety. “Everything I do, I want to not only entertain our audience but inform them on what’s going on.

Guy Lodge Film Critic American writer David Vann’s 2008 book “Legend of a Suicide” is a striking, classification-averse work — not quite fiction or memoir, novel or short story collection — that ultimately amounts to an exercise in potent literary catharsis for its author: Vann veils, rewrites or sometimes fabricates events from his own family history in order to accept and understand the untimely death of his father. It’s the kind of singularly subjective writing, steered by a personal perspective bound to no storytelling rules but its own, that presents a challenge to any outside interpreters.

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter James Mangold misses the era when movies weren’t embarrassed to make audiences feel something. The director of the Bob Dylan musical biopic “A Complete Unknown” and comic book adaptation “Logan” believes there’s a growing hostility to films that wear “their hearts on their sleeve.” “Most of my generation, my peers, have been generally fascinated by irony or detachment.

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses the plot and ending of “Presence,” now playing in theaters. As with many ghost stories, the presence in “Presence” has a good reason to haunt its house. After watching on as the Payne family turns against one another, the Presence that drifts around their newly purchased, bougie abode makes a grand gesture to save its tattered residents. Looming above as the drugged Chloe (Callina Liang) is about to be murdered by her new boyfriend Ryan (West Mulholland), the ghost swoops downstairs to awaken her brother Tyler (Eddy Maday) from his own roofie-induced slumber.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “The Perfect Neighbor” delivers a harrowing look at how a small disagreement leads to tragedy. Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary is screening all weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. It follows the murder of Ajike Owens, a young Black mother of four who was shot and killed by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz.