CATEGORIES

Back With a Vengeance - Sir Ridley Scott returns to the Colosseum with Gladiator II, the long-awaited sequel to the greatest historical epic of this century. Total Film meets the director and cast to discover how Maximus' legacy is echoing in eternity.

Ridley Scott is not a filmmaker to repeat himself. It's a trait that's all the more remarkable when you consider how prolific he's been over the nearly five decades since his feature debut, 1977's The Duellists. Alien prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are the only times he's gone back to the same world, and those films are radical departures from the original.

Bad Romance - Timestalker Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...

Her antidote to that? Timestalker a dark not-quite-romcom set over the course of centuries. Her protagonist Agnes finds herself attracted to the same man, Alex (Dunkirk's Aneurin Barnard), in every lifetime as she's reincarnated in the 1680s, 1790s, 1980s and the 22nd century. As romantic as that may sound, there's a bit of a catch: 'He's sort of a dickhead. On the surface he's appealing, but under, he's not.'

McQueen & Country

A moment of national pride and terror comes to the screen with World War Two historical drama Blitz. Total Film speaks to writer/director Steve McQueen and his stars Saoirse Ronan and Stephen Graham about uncovering the truth and celebrating the triumph of a defining moment in modern British history.

'I WAS, AND AM STILL, SURPRISED BY EVERY OPPORTUNITY. I'VE BEEN CONTINUOUS AND FEEL AT THE TOP OF MY FORM' JEFF GOLDBLUM

Seth Brundle. Dr. Ian Malcolm. Grandmaster. Jeff Goldblum has played some titanic characters over his 50-year career, and is celebrating a half-century on our screens by going bigger than ever. First he played Zeus in Netflix show Kaos, and now he's the Wizard of Oz in Wicked. Total Film meets the man behind the curtain...

STICKY SITUATION

Seven years on from his last big-screen appearance, marmalade's biggest fan returns for Paddington in Peru. Total Film talks to director Dougal Wilson, actor Hugh Bonneville and the visual-effects wizards who make the magic happen...

BORN TO BE WILD

BROTHERS IS THE MOST SURPRISING ACTION COMEDY OF THE YEAR, AND NOT JUST BECAUSE JOSH BROLIN AND PETER DINKLAGE PLAY CRIMINAL TWINS. TOTAL FILM ROUNDS UP THE STARS TO TALK ABOUT DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES, THE 'HARD AS NAILS' COMEDIES THEY GREW UP WITH, AND MASTURBATING MONKEYS...

TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT Payal Kapadia's film shows the Mumbai you've never seen...

HUMPH DAY BOGART: LIFE COMES IN FLASHES

Behind every great man is a great woman. Or in Humphrey Bogart's case, four great women...

CALLING THE SHOTS

NEVER LOOK AWAY Lucy Lawless directs a bio-doc about a trailblazing camerawoman...

A FAMILY HEIRLOOM

THE PIANO LESSON Malcolm Washington's feature debut is all about family...

MONSTER'S KINK

YOUR MONSTER Melissa Barrera learns to live, laugh and love again with a most unexpected flatmate.

IT'S SHOWTIME

SATURDAY NIGHT Jason Reitman brings the chaotic birth of SNL to the screen - in real time...

BRICKIN' IT

PIECE BY PIECE Telling Pharrell Williams' life in Lego, Morgan Neville reinvents the doc form...

BAD BLOOD

NOSFERATU Robert Eggers' scary reimagining makes the vampire foul and frightening again...

DOG DAYS

NIGHTBITCH Amy Adams is a mum on the edge in Marielle Heller's wild parenting fable.

HOT RIGHT NOW

MICHAEL B. JORDAN IS STEALING THE SHOW...

SNOW TIME TO DIE

RED ONE J.K. Simmons' Santa gets kidnapped. Luckily, Dwayne Johnson's on hand to save him...

Tip of the Iceberg - Tracing Oz Cobb's spectacularly violent rise to power from the iceberg lounge owner to Gotham's kingpin,

Tracing Oz Cobb's spectacularly violent rise to power from the iceberg lounge owner to Gotham's kingpin, HBO's prestige show the Penguin knits together the Batman and the pipelined the Batman part ii. Total Film huddles with executive producer matt reeves, star Colin Farrell, showrunner Lauren Lefranc and more to explore Gotham's darkest - and deepest - chapter yet.

Self Expression - Layla a non-binary, British-Palestinian drag queen navigates their expression of identity.

Rising star Bilal Hasna delivers a show-stopping turn as Layla, who we first meet in drag and on their way to a performance. Layla initially seems comfortable with their queer, trans identity, but all that changes when they fall in love with Max (Louis Greatorex). We see Layla acting differently whether they are with Max, their friendship group and their conservative parents as they struggle, notes Al-Kadhi, to 'negotiate which bit of themselves to show different people in their lives'.

Grin and Bear it - SMILE 2 Trauma-horror sequel sees the curse latch onto a pop superstar...

Parker Finn's debut horror feature Smile was originally destined for a streaming release. No one - not even the writer/director himself - expected that a late change to theatrical would create a hit horror sensation that made almost 13 times its budget at the box office. Given those figures, the swift greenlighting of a sequel came as less of a shock. But Finn didn't want to make a second movie just for the sake of it.

RETURN TO OZ

WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.

CLOWNING GORY

TERRIFIER 3 Creator Damien Leone says Art the Clown is coming home for Christmas...

GENA ROWLANDS

I like difficult roles,' said Gena Rowlands. No kidding. A stage, TV and film actor whose career spanned more than six decades, Rowlands will be most remembered for the series of coruscating dramas she made with her first husband, actor-turned-director John Cassavetes, between 1968 and 1984.

'NOW NOTHING IS ABOUT LOOKS OR ABOUT BEING A LEADING LADY.AND IT'S VERY LIBERATING' EMILY WATSON

Since breaking hearts in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has delivered countless screen masterclasses, from Gosford Park and Punch-Drunk Love to Apple Tree Yard. Now, the English star goes toe-to-toe with Cilllan Murohy in Irish drama Smeal/ Things like hese and fronts 1V prequel Dune: Prophecy. Is it her second coming? It's elementary, my dear Watson...

BLODD PRESSURE

BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK AND WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IT SCRIBE GARY DAUBERMAN, VAMPIRE MOVIE SALEM'S LOT FACED AN UNHOLY FIGHT TO GET TO OUR SCREENS. TOTAL FILM HUNTS DOWN DAUBERMAN AND STARS LEWIS PULLMAN AND MAKENZIE LEIGH TO LEARN ALL THAT WAS AT STAKE...

Lucky Man

He broke out in Beatles jukebox musical Yesterday and has a varied slate of juicy projects on the horizon, including a very different take on a superhero franchise. But, as the everhumble Himesh Patel tells Total Film, he puts a lot of it down to luck...

A BUE ABOVE

WORLD-BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE RIDLEY SCOTT IS ALSO THE MASTER OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, RESTORING HIS MISHANDLED GEMS INTO MASTERPIECES. WITH THE EXPANSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT OF NAPOLEON NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM, TOTAL FILM SPEAKS TO THE GREAT SCOTT ABOUT BLOWING UP BONAPARTE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EDITING AND WHY BIGGER IS (USUALLY) BETTER.

REAL STEEL

HE MADE THE WORLD BELIEVE A MAN COULD FLY, BUT NEW DOC SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY REVEALS THE HERO BENEATH THE CAPE. TOTAL FILM MEETS THE TEAM IMMORTALISING AN ICON.

POLE POSITION

Winner of this year's prestigious Palme d'Or in Cannes, Sean Baker's Anora is a loud and lewd love story gone awry, as a Brooklyn pole dancer discovers her Prince Charming is a frog. Total Film meets the writer/director and his team to talk dreams, screams and extremes.

PAPER MARIO: THE THOUSAND-YEAR DOOR

Return of the origami king...