“Maria is a film about someone who was never a victim. Someone who was in control of her will and her destiny, who knew what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it,” says Visionary Chilean director Pablo Larraín, who researched her life with screenwriter Steven Knight, a leading British screenwriter. Read more / In cinemas 31 January

Better Man was co-written, produced, and directed by Michael Gracey, who was inspired to write the docudrama through his friendship with Robbie Williams and the singer’s influence on Hugh Jackman during the making of The Greatest Showman. Williams often referenced himself as a “performing monkey” and shared captivating stories about his life, which Gracey found intriguing. This unique perspective and Williams’ charismatic personality provided the creative spark for the film. Read more / In cinemas from 24 January

It was during a trip to Poland that Jesse Eisenberg had what he calls a ‘strange revelation’. A two-week trip through the country landed him at the tiny house in the village of Kranystaw, where his aunt Doris had lived before the Holocaust displaced her entire family. “Had the war not happened, this is where I would be living,” Eisenberg remembers thinking. “What would my life be like? Who would I be?” Twenty years later Eisenberg found himself back at that house, this time as the director, writer, and co-star of A Real Pain. Read more / In cinemas 24 January

“These classic monsters have endured for a reason,” visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell says of Wolf Man . “They are as iconic and as famous as Michael Jordan, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, all these faces throughout history. The Mummy, Dracula, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man are on the Mount Rushmore of pop culture. Something about them is just too fascinating, creepy and mysterious to go away.” Read more / Now in cinemas

“In many ways, my adaptation of Nosferatu is my most personal film,” says visionary filmmaker Robert Eggers. “A story, not engendered by me, but one that I have lived with, within, and dreamed about since childhood.” He looked to the physical screenplay for Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror for insight and inspiration. “I studied Henrik Galeen’s screenplay with Murnau’s annotations very carefully,” he says, also extensively researching the occult and historical representations of vampires. Read more / Now in cinemas

Christian Gudegast, the mastermind behind the gritty crime thriller Den of Thieves, returns to the director’s chair with even more intensity. Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera doesn’t just build on the original—it skyrockets it. With an expanded universe, jaw-dropping stunts, and action sequences that push the envelope, Gudegast raises the stakes while deepening the evolving dynamics between the characters. “The line between cop and criminal is sometimes almost invisible. One exists only with the other.” Read more / In cinemas

Writer-director James Mangold was taken by the currents of A Complete Unknown – of Dylan the iconoclast, the relationships surrounding him, and his specific rise to stardom in a four-year span. “This is a story about a specific moment in a person’s life, not their whole life. And it is about a world where so much is communicated with song.” Read more / In Cinemas

“A lot of documents have to be prepared in connection with the financing of a movie. Of course, a script, a budget, cast and crew lists, but often a director’s statement is also required. I tried to squeeze something like this out of directors Richard and Karsten, but neither of them was particularly motivated to invest a lot of time in it. So, I decided to do an interview with both of them, and the transcript is the director’s statement of Panda Bear In Africa,” says producer Chantal Nissen. Read more / In cinemas

“The script got me so excited,” says the director Josh Cooley, Pixar veteran and Oscar winner for Toy Story 4, of Transformers One, the first animated theatrical feature since 1986 and a new look into the Transformers universe. “It was an opportunity to reimagine the Transformers while still honoring their roots. And it made me laugh, which was one of the important reasons I agreed to do this film.” Read more / In cinemas

The journey from page to screen for Lee began with a table that had been the centerpiece in the kitchen of the house where Lee Miller had many joy-filled summers in Cornwall with the likes of Roland, Max Ernst, Noel Coward and Paul Éluard to name a few. During those hedonistic summers of love, these artists would prepare meals, eat, discuss ideas and create at this table and acquiring it set Kate Winslet on her own subsequent creative journey as producer and taking on the role of Lee Miller. Read more / In cinemas

For writer-director Chris Sanders, bringing The Wild Robot to the screen proved to be a profound personal and professional experience. “This project is one of the proudest achievements of my career. The artists have truly outdone themselves in giving life to a book, a story and characters that hold immense personal significance for me, the crew and hopefully, for all audiences. Like a life well-lived, The Wild Robot embraces tragedy, joy, failed plans and accidental triumphs.” Read more / In cinemas

For screenwriters KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby, when starting a project they say: “It always starts with a ‘what if’. With Never Let Go, it was simply ‘what if there’s a family confined within their home because of an evil force outside that’s after them, but the force is unable to breach the safety of their walls’?” Read more / In cinemas

“When I started writing Lonesome, I was thinking about where our queer community is right now in Australia,” says writer-director Craig Boreham. “Our connections via social media are constant but the physical community spaces have begun to disappear and our big cities can be trickier places to navigate when you are searching for your people.” Read more / Now streaming

When he wrote Bros, screenwriter Billy Eichner knew from the beginning that he wanted to make a film about modern, urban gay male life that felt adult, authentic and relatable. “I wanted a movie that showed in a very funny, but realistic, way what happens when two adult gay men who both pride themselves on not needing a relationship fall in love for the first time.” Read more / Now streaming on Showmax

“In my head, Speak No Evil was always a psychological thriller with a horrific core,” says writer-director James Watkins. “This subtle distinction is important in terms of my approach. The tension hopefully blooms from the psychological exploration of each character and how they interact in a modern social setting.” Read more /

“Things happen to all of us as we get older and change—relationships, children—all those things. That was the nucleus of it for me that got me back interested in it. It was quite emotional for me to revisit the characters,” says creative visionary Tim Burton of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to Burton’s award-winning Beetlejuice. Read more / In cinemas

“In the pantheon of action cinema, revenge narratives hold a special place, tapping into the primal instincts of justice and retribution,” says screenwriter-producer Jean Pierre Magro. “Hounds of War elevates this tradition, intertwining the raw, visceral path of vengeance with a daringly ambitious plot. This film is not just an exploration of personal vendetta; it’s a high-octane journey of a brother’s relentless pursuit of justice for the murder of his sibling, culminating in the audacious plan to kidnap the most protected individual on the planet—the President of the United States.” Read more / In cinemas

“What makes this movie so unique and appealing‐ is its amalgamation of the crazy 30s, the world of insects, its Agatha Christie’s‐style of plot, ” says director & producer Julio Soto Gúrpide of the animated Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow, based on an original screenplay by Rocco Pucillo. Read more / In cinemas

When director and co-writer Zoë Kravitz’s was acting in a film in 2017, the seed was planted for what would ultimately become Blink Twice. The #MeToo movement had just begun but notable predators like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein hadn’t yet been exposed yet. “Between things that I had seen, experienced, read, things that have happened to friends of mine, I just felt like there was such a lack of conversation about the dynamics between men and women,” Kravitz says. Read more / In cinemas

William Schneider, who co-wrote the screenplay of The Crow with Zach Baylin, “fell in love with director Rupert Sanders’ completely new take on a modern reimagination of the original graphic novel by James O’Barr. “The way he took a tale of revenge and from it built an unforgettable love story was so inventive, imaginative, and challenging. I loved getting into that element.” Read more / In cinemas

“When I read Colleen Hoover bestseller, it was clear that there was so much more to it than just a romance. This is a book about the human experience,” says recalls director and actor Justin Baldoni. A strong adaptation starts, of course, with a strong script, and Baldoni found the perfect screenwriter in Christy Hall a New York City based playwright who also serves as a producer on It Ends With Us. Read more / In cinemas

With the blessing of Ridley Scott, director Fede Alvarez decided to go back to the basics when shooting Alien: Romulus from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. “I knew that I wanted to take this chapter back to the beginning, not only story-wise but in terms of visual style,” explains Alvarez. “I wanted to keep it simple and focus on a few characters you could get to know and love.” Read more / In cinemas

“We wanted to make a big-scope, sci-fi adventure that’s both fresh and authentic in spirit to the characters and their universe,” says writer-director Eli Roth of the action-adventure-comedy Borderlands, based on one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, made to be experienced on the big screen. “I wanted to create the best moviegoing experience possible. I want it to be an emotional ride and for audiences to cheer.” Read more / In cinemas

“When I first read the script for Widow Clicquot by Erin Dignam, what jumped out at me was the life of a unique woman, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, told through a battle between the present and an invading army of memories,” says director Thomas Napper. “It’s about Barbe-Nicole’s transformative relationship with herself and her work (the vines), arriving into her own power, her own identity, and creating her own incredible legacy.” Read more / In cinemas

As a queer couple, director Joshua John Miller and screenwriter M.A. Fortin found it disturbing watching certain segments of the Christian faith go after LGBT folks and women. “While we acknowledge the church is a source of great joy and comfort to many, it’s also proven itself to be a blunt instrument of abuse and shame just as often— kind of like Hollywood. When we first started writing this movie, there was a lot of terrible behavior being unearthed in both institutions— wounded people inflicting wounds on those around them. Out of this “meta” stew, The Exorcism was born.” Read more / In cinemas

“I believe that the stories that have impacted me the most have happened in the movie theater,” says writer-director M. Night Shyamalan. “Trap is intended for the movie theater experience. My job within that experience is to provoke the audience and give them something original, something they’ve never seen before.” Read more / In cinemas

The initial spark for writer and director Jeff Nichols’ latest film, The Bikeriders, came to him nearly 20 years ago, when he was introduced to Danny Lyon’s seminal photographic and oral history of a Midwestern outlaw motorcycle gang by his older brother Ben. “It’s about our search for identity. It is very much about American, masculine identity, capturing a rebellious time in America when the culture and people were changing. ” says Nichols. Read more / In cinemas

“Deadpool & Wolverine unlocked creative freedom for us—not to shock or misbehave, but to help make the most authentic film possible,” says director Shawn Levy, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells. Read more / In cinemas

“This genre will live forever if people take it seriously,” says writer-director Kevin Costner of Horizon: An American Saga, examining the American West and all the contradictions, which, at its core, is what the Western has always been trying to do — interrogate the myths upon which our country was founded. “This is not a last stab at keeping this genre alive,” he insists. “This genre will live forever if people take it seriously.” Read more / Streaming

“Fly Me To The Moon reveals two sides that make America an inspiring country for so many: that it believes it can achieve anything, and that it has to chutzpah to sell you on that belief, too,” says director Greg Berlanti. “The spirit of the nation at the time of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing was believing in the impossible.” Read more / In cinemas

Twisters began to swirl into existence in 2020 when filmmaker Joseph Kosinski teamed up with screenwriter Mark L. Smith to develop a story to that followed a new generation of adventurous storm-chasers, exploring the wild subculture of storm-chasing, populated by a mix of professional meteorologists, hard-core weather enthusiasts and thrill-seeking adventurers, ensuring that the screenplay was based in accurate, authentic science. Read more / In cinemas

What if a movie could feel like a nightmare? Not in the sense that it gives you nightmares, though Longlegs, the new feature from writer and director Osgood Perkins, will certainly do that. But what if a movie could replicate the all consuming but still somehow unplaceable feeling of being trapped in a prison of your darkest subconscious, where the elemental fears of childhood boogeymen blend terrifyingly together with the anxieties and responsibilities of adulthood. Read more / In cinemas

“I wanted to make something positive. I wanted to make a feel-good movie,” says Visionary French writer-director Jean Pierre Jeunet of Amélie, the inspiring story of a shy, introverted and quirky waitresswho decides to change the lives of those around her for the better while dealing with her own isolation. Read more

Like all great writers, Carrie Solomon indeed mined her own experiences when she wrote the script for A Family Affair when she was 24. Echoes of her career as a rising screenwriter ricochet through the film, which weaves together three coming-of-age stories for its lead characters, each one undergoing what director Richard Lagravenese likes to call a “second adulthood” at ages 24, 34, and 50. Read more / On Netflix

Despicable Me 4 is here! In the vast realm of animated entertainment, the Despicable Me franchise stands out as a titan, firmly cemented as the most successful animated franchise in cinematic history. At its core, the beloved saga captivates global audiences with its endearing characters, vibrant animation and a brand of humor that knows no bounds of language or culture. Read more / In cinemas

“The first two movies are about one family, so I expanded the world, but that was just incidental. The heart of it is making sure that the characters’ stories are front and center,” says writer-director Michael Sarnoski of A Quiet Place: Day One, a taut horror thriller with big screen action that honors the legacy of the blockbuster franchise and shows audiences what happened on the day the world went quiet. Read more / In cinemas

For German writer-director Julia von Heinz Treasure has been a journey many years in the making. “I wanted to talk about transgenerational trauma but also show that it can be healed if we start telling our history to each other,” says von Heinz of this father-daughter road trip set in 1990s Poland. Read more / In cinemas

Mixing comedy, romance and melodrama to tell a story set at a pivotal moment in movie history, French writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’s astounding The Artist is itself an example of the form it celebrates:  a black and white silent film that relies on images, actors and music to weave its singular spell. Read more

“I always had a very personal connection to this story”, says writer-director Simon Verhoeven of Girl You Know It’s True, bringing the success and scandal story of pop duo Milli Vanilli to the big screen, based on his own screenplay. “A story that starts in Munich and ends in Hollywood.” Read more / In cinemas

In 1950, Austrian-born filmmaker Billy Wilder released Sunset Boulevard an ironic and melancholic commentary on ex-stars once acclaimed as gods, only to be forgotten. Solidifying its status as one of the greatest classics in cinematic history, this golden classic celebrates the expressive power of the silent film era and blends reality and fiction seamlessly in a meta-cinematographic style. Read more

Inside Out (2015) was inspired by Oscar-winning director Pete Docter’s own life as he witnessed his own daughter Elie growing up. Inside Out 2 returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as Headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolion to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Read more / In Cinemas

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s theme of rebelliousness inside an oppressive, claustrophobic environment was an ideal topic for director Milos Forman, who had permanently left the Communist-ruled society of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and probably had his own personal perspective on large-scale social suppression of freedom. Read more

 Few films in history have articulated so simply and so poetically what it’s like to have a love affair with the movies. Italian director filmed Cinema Paradiso at the beginning of 1988 when he was 31 years-old. It won the 1990 Best Foreign Film Oscar after setting box office records the previous year all over the world. Paradiso had a rough journey on its road to glory. Read more

“When I was deciding what my first feature should be, I looked at lots of different sources for inspiration; I really wanted to play with combining fantasy and thriller elements,” says writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan of The Watchers. A.M. Shine’s book was presented to me and I started to read… by page 70, I was like, “I have to make this movie.” Read more

Ezra started with a script by screenwriter and playwright Tony Spiridakis that was making the rounds.  The father of a son (now 24) on the autistic spectrum, Spiridakis had written a family drama deeply rooted in his own experiences—one charting the course of a father discovering how to stop banging his head against the wall and realize that his son’s neurodivergence isn’t something he needs to urgently “fix,” but something he can embrace, if only he can relax enough to connect. Read more / In cinemas

“His frustrations are universal,” says director Mark Dindal, who helms our lazy and sarcastic hero’s first fully animated big-screen adventure with The Garfield Movie. “He reminds people of their childhoods – reading him in the Sunday paper or seeing the specials.  The visual humor will always play. You can find Garfield comics from 15, 20, 30 years ago, and they don’t feel dated because they’re never really rooted in something specific to that time period.” Read more / In cinemas

Inspired by an unbelievable true story, Hit Man “is loosely based on a true crime article I read almost twenty years ago in the Texas Monthly,” says The film is attempting to hit a lot of notes—comedy, noir, thriller, psychological study—while examining most of all the concept of identity and how fixed our personalities may or may not be. Read more / In cinemas

“One of the things I’ve always been interested in exploring is that people are revealed by extreme situations,” says writer-director George Miller of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the much-anticipated return to the iconic dystopian world he created more than 40 years ago with the seminal “Mad Max” films. An all-new original, standalone action adventure that will reveal the origins of the powerhouse character from Mad Max: Fury Road. Read more / In cinemas

From early childhood we are enthralled by fairytales that transport us to another world. “I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing if you could bring all of that magic into your own real life?” says writer-director John Krasinski, whose inspiration for this enchanting Imaginary Friends was his own children. “If there’s one thing I want people to leave this movie with, it’s that believing in something bigger and more beautiful can actually get you through another day. That’s the kind of story I have always wanted to tell.” Read more

“While other kids watched cartoons and family adventures, my mother, a film buff, introduced me to the works of Hitchcock at a very young age,’ says director Renny Harlin, whose The Strangers ― Chapter 1, marks the chilling first entry of this upcoming horror feature-film series. Read more

“There’s something inherently scary about tarot cards and tarot readings,” says Anna Halberg, who with her writing and directing partner Spenser Cohen brings the fortune telling deck to life in terrifying ways in the horror film Tarot. Read more

As a child, visionary filmmaker Wes Ball was given a VHS copy of 1968’s Planet of the Apes which he watched over and over for years and breathes new life into the global epic franchise with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, following the success of the Planet of the Apes trilogy that was launched in 2011. “Story-wise, these films resonate with people because they have sci-fi concepts, and they tackle issues of humanity,” says Ball. “They hold a mirror up to society and compel us to look at problems we as humans face through the lens of this fantastical world.” Read more

Director Luca Guadagnino was inspired to helm Challengers when he read ‘A very brilliant script by Justin Kuritzkes that had a great voice — it was so humorous and piercing. And the premise of the story — people who are complicated and who never really want to put things in place but in fact make things more complicated for themselves — was even better.” Read more

“I think life is a comedy-drama,” says Scottish writer, actor and comedian Richard Gadd, who created and stars in the profoundly illuminating Netflix drama series Baby Reindeer, based on his one-man show and real-life experience. “Some of the darkest places I’ve been in, I’ve found giggles somehow. And some of the funniest places I’ve been in, including backstage at comedy clubs with other comedians, can be the most depressing places as well. I always think life is a mixture of light and shade. So I wanted Baby Reindeer to be a blend of them both.” Richard Gadd shares his complicated story with the world

From a screenplay by Drew Pearce, and based on the television series created by Glen A. Larson, The Fall Guy, is a love letter to action movies and the hard-working and under-appreciated crew of people who make them from former real life stunt man and director David Leitch. Crafting the storyline became a collaborative endeavor when Leitch enlisted Pearce to bring the story to life. Read more

Elements of state-of-the-art video games, Korean action movies, Japanese anime and classic horror- fantasy inspired the storyline of director Moritz Mohr’s spectacular dystopian action thriller Boy Kills World, “I’m a longtime gamer and I’ve tried to infuse the movie with that kind of craziness and fun,” says Mohr, who channels the hyper-kinetic thrill of classic video games in a visually dazzling, nonstop battle royale, from a script by Tyler Burton Smith. Read more

“Every good animated movie transports you to another world,” says writer-director Christopher Jenkins of 10 Lives, showing what happens when a pampered cat loses his ninth life and ffate steps in to set him on a transformative journey.“The question at the heart of the movie is, how would you live your life if you were given the chance to do it all again? And Beckett’s path is to learn that, when you live and love with all your heart, one life is truly enough.” Read more

Abigail was the brainchild of screenwriter Stephen Shields who first pitched the heist-meets-horror idea to Universal in 2019. “The inspiration for me was just the love of the two genres that I liked watching,” Shields says of this exciting new spin on classic vampire mythology. Read more

“As a storyteller, I am drawn to characters in crisis,” says director Adam Cooper of Sleeping Dogs, a razor-edge thriller about one man’s quest to reclaim his past. “The nature of that crisis can take on many forms– identity, mortality, faith – but at the centre, there’s always someone who is struggling to make sense of their life, someone who goes on a journey from a lost or fragmented state, to one where they can begin to restore themselves, ” says Cooper, who crafted the screenplay with frequent collaborator Bill Collage. Read more

“I was very adamant that Back To Black would be told through Amy Winehouse’s point of view,” says screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh who used Amy’s own words as a springboard into how to write her dialogue for the film. “This was Amy’s POV, so if Amy had said it herself, that’s all I needed to know. Highlighting Amy’s talent and charisma was paramount.” Read more

When Ivan Reitman passed away after the release of Afterlife, leaving an unmatched legacy of comedy and ghostbusting, Jason Reitman stepped into the Ghostbusters franchise. “The last story that I ever got to tell my dad was the story of Frozen Empire, a new adventure for the ghostbusters back in Manhattan,” says Jason, who co-wrote the screenplay of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire with director Gil Kenan. Read more

Filmmaker Alex Garland began writing Civil War in 2020, months after the pandemic had begun, as the possible futures that seemed certain were blown apart and we were launched into a very different reality. The fears that spurred him to write the film at the time have, in the intervening years, only metastasized. “I wrote it out of a mixture of anger and anxiety, and then you go about the long process of making the film,” Garland says. “Whatever sense of frustration I had while originally writing the script, it did not diminish. It grew.” Read more

“As I was looking at the true story and looking at the real people, I felt like there was a responsibility and an obligation to tell their story in a way that honored their life,” says director Jon Gunn of Ordinary Angels, an inspiring tale of faith and everyday miracles. “My vision was to share—with honesty and integrity—the truth and the challenges and the pain of that true story in a way that was optimistic and uplifting.” Read more

When writer/director/producer Dev Patel was imagining the story of Monkey Man, little could he fathom that a tale inspired by childhood stories would become his directorial debut. READ MORE

“I’m really proud of The First Omen because I think we take a lot of big swings when it comes to horror,” says director/co-screenwriter Arkasha Stevenson. “And I do think that a lot of those are particular to the female experience and the female perspective, and the fact that we had a whole film production who was in support of that and ready to take that big jump with me is a really cool feeling.” READ MORE

“Making Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire gave me the confidence that you can let these monsters tell their own story, let them just be characters, says Director / Story Writer Adam Wingard. ‘I wanted to make not just another Monsterverse film, but a thrill ride like you’ve never seen before.” READ MORE

“I wanted to capture what I felt to be the real New York, with its incredible diversity, vivid texture, and incredible soundscapes. And also its relationship to both violence and hope,” says French filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire. Furthering his examination of violence inside institutions and among close-knit groups, he turns his unflinching and inquisitive eye on his adopted hometown of New York City in all its ragged glory with Asphalt City. READ MORE / REVIEW

The Kung Fu Panda franchise launches into a new era with Kung Fu Panda 4, the narrative takes a compelling turn, guiding Po on an internal journey of growth and change. READ MORE

With the resounding success of The Gentlemen, filmmaker Guy Ritchie is back in the genre he made his own in films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. But this time, he extends his range by co-writing and producing the eight part series, while also directing the first two episodes. Watch on Netflix / READ MORE

Throughout history, there have been events so epic that they enter the realm of legend. Someone takes an all-or-nothing risk, and it defines the rest of their life. Epic tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have exemplified heroism for centuries. That legend inspired elite professional athlete Mikael Lindnord to bestow the king’s name on a battered stray dog whose quiet dignity shook him to the core. Screenwriter Michael Brandt adapted Lindnord’s best-selling book, Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home into the inspiring film Arthur And The King. READ MORE

“Nothing is scarier than what the audience imagines themselves,” says director and screenwriter Jeff Wadlow. ‘Imaginary puts that idea to the test. This is a movie about imagination, and one can imagine anything. You can imagine something fantastical that also seems very real. That is incredibly fertile ground for a horror movie because it lets us constantly play with the audience’s understanding of reality — which provides infinite possibilities to scare the hell out of them.” READ MORE /

“Frank Herbert wanted Dune to serve as a cautionary tale about imperialism and the allure of ‘saviors.’  Denis and I wanted to make sure this message rang out clearly in the film,” says screenwriter Jon Spaihts about Dune: Part Two, exploring themes both timeless and timely, from romantic love and maternal love to globalism, loyalty, revenge and catharsis.

The story behind the new South African buddy-comedy Frankie en Felipé is rooted in the shared dream of Bradley Olivier and Solomon Cupido, much like any actor aiming to create their own film. Their ultimate aspiration was to craft their own cinematic narrative and serves as a vehicle for people to connect with the characters through their struggles and dreams. READ MORE / South African Filmmaking

“Of my written work, Miller’s Girl is the first,” says writer-director Jade Halley Bartlett. “It began as a love letter to my dear friend and muse, Julianne, whose extraordinary talents as an actress inspired me to write a character who has become, to this day, a young woman from whom I am still learning.” READ MORE / In cinemas from 23 February

“Madame Web is unlike any other superhero,” says writer-director S.J. Clarkson, bringing to the screen one of Marvel’s most mysterious and inscrutable characters. Clarkson helms a standalone origin story for the character who uses the power of her mind to weave together the fates of everyone around her. “One of the themes of the movie is that you don’t have to be superhuman to have superpowers,” Clarkson continues. “Most superheroes’ powers come from strength and agility. With Madame Web, it’s all psychological.” READ MORE / Now in cinemas

By hewing to the darker, more existential tones of Italian author Carlo Collodi’s fairy tale Pinocchio than any previous adaptation, and pairing it with a style of animation that inherently draws a viewer into a state of wonder, writer-director Guillermo del del Toro has aimed to create a film that’s characteristically jubilant yet wistful, otherworldly but resonant. “One that’s meant for every kind of viewer — adults and children alike.” READ MORE/ Netflix

“When writing Land Of Bad, this bond was between the core characters, stuck in an impossible situation in an unforgiving landscape,” says writer-director William Eubank . ““When I arrived on set in Australia’s Gold Coast, I found that this bond transcended the page in two ways. It was forged between the actors, and is a key value of the country we filmed in. “It was this camaraderie – from researching and penning the screenplay with my co-writer and producer David Frigerio, to the stories we heard from real Delta Force soldiers, and what I experienced on set – that made Land Of Bad an unforgettable experience. READ MORE / In Cinemas

“David Hemingson had written a pilot script that took place in an all-boys prep school, and it was wonderful,” says director Alexander Payne, who called Hemingson and said, ‘I don’t want to make your pilot but would you consider writing a feature script based on a different idea?,” resulting in The Holdovers. Read More / Only in Cinemas

“I wanted to capture the contrast between somebody pouring a cup of coffee in their kitchen and somebody being murdered on the other side of the wall, the co-existence of those two extremes,” says 58-year-old writer-director Jonathan Glazer of The Zone Of Interest, in which the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. Read More / Only in cinemas

Writing a globe-trotting espionage thriller while the world was in COVID lockdown allowed screenwriter Jason Fuchs an escape. I hadn’t written an original screenplay in a long time, so Argylle became my little passion project,” Fuchs says. “It was cathartic and allowed me to escape my apartment office and traverse the world with Argylle on a Greek island or explore Europe with the characers.”Read More / Now in Cinemas

“Music and magical realism helped to heighten the world of the story, and allowed us to get inside of Celie’s mind,” says poet, playwright, screenwriter Marcus Gardley of the reimagining of The Color Purple. “For me, the story came alive in a new way when I realized that Celie’s imagination was the heartbeat of the film.” Read More / Now in cinemas

Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer considers himself a regular moviegoer and he gravitates to things we all feel the same about.  “When people take advantage of old people,” he says, “that makes me really angry… around the world people are being defrauded with no recourse for justice.” He decided to solve the injustice in his fantasy world by writing the screenplay for The Beekeeper. “I want a white knight for people who need it, who really need it.” Read More / Now in cinemas /

 “I was interested in exploring the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the 80s,” says British filmmaker Andrew Haigh, who infused his screenplay for All Of Us Strangers with a contemporary and personal touch, placing the story in a world more recognizable to his own. Read More / Read the Screenplay / Now in cinemas

In the sexy romantic comedy Beautiful Disaster, college freshman Abby and bad-boy brawler “Mad Dog” Maddox fell in love after a bet. In Beautiful Wedding they wake up after a crazy night in Vegas as accidental newlyweds. Writer/director Roger Kumble says that while a sequel wasn’t originally planned, a fun end credits sequence set up the characters for another adventure. Read More / Now in cinemas

“It has been remarkable to watch screenwriter John Collee turn this thing into a television story, and he’s taken it to places that I never went, that I wished I’d had more space to explore,” says novelist Trent Dalton regarding the TV adaptation of his brilliant, semi-autobiographical and intensely evocative 2018 debut novel Boy Swallows Universe. Read More / Watch on Netflix.

“Balenciaga is an almost “secret” creator. His work is extraordinarily public, but he maintained absolute privacy about his person. He gave practically no interviews and lived in a highly media-driven, but almost clandestine, environment. That was the first challenge: who was Cristóbal Balenciaga?” says Lourdes Iglesias, creator of the series on Cristóbal Balenciaga, one of the first fiction series of Disney+ Spain. On Disney + / Read More

“Alasdair Gray’s novel is packed with ideas about gender, identity, and even Scottish nationalism, says screenwriter Tony McNamara, who wrote the screenplay of Poor Things. “You’re in this incredibly rich philosophical and political world, all while being tremendously funny.” Read More

With a new screenplay by Tina Fey, the iconic high school comedy Mean Girls returns as a classic tale retold in the era of social media. This new version, she says, uses the strengths of both the original film and the hit Broadway show as a springboard for an extravagant and contemporary movie. Read More

“I see the court as a place where our lives are fictionalized, where a story, a narrative, is put on our life,” says French writer-director Justine Triet about Anatomy of a Fall, which she co-wrote with her partner Arthur Harari, eschewing the traditional courtroom drama to explore familial relationships. Read More

“Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. He made the world we live in, for better or for worse. And his story must be seen to be believed,” says writer-director Christopher Nolan, who consciously broke traditional screenwriting rules by skillfully penning the script for Oppenheimer in the first-person, something that had a unique and positive effect on the story. Read More / Read the Screenplay

It sometimes can be challenging when someone has written 300 beautiful pages of prose and then they need to turn it into a screenplay. Taylor Jenkins Reid adapted her own story, One True Loves, working with her husband, Alex. Says Alex J. Reid, “I’ve been fortunate enough to have adapted several books. But usually, I don’t have the benefit of adapting a book with its author — who in this case is also my wife!” Read More

Screenwriter Michael Golamco’s inspiration for Please Stand By came from a NY Times article about young girls with autism. “That girl resonated with me. The article said girls with autism have problems connecting socially, but what sets them apart from boys is that girls really want to connect. ” Read More

Like Spike Lee and his seminal classic Do the Right Thing, screenwriter Lena Waithe was striving to encourage a discourse on race relations in America with Queen & Slim, in a multilayered story that also speaks to love, hate, fear and ultimately the human condition. “I want audiences to determine for themselves whether or not they think Queen and Slim are heroes,” Waithe says. “People will have different takes on it, and that’s what’s great about art. Rather than audiences looking to the artist for the answer, I prefer to let the art speak for itself, allowing the audience to look to themselves for the answer.” Read More

Good Grief marks Daniel Levy’s debut as a feature-film writer and director. “For me, writing is one of the most meaningful ways of exploring and understanding my own feelings,” says Levy. Levy deftly moves beyond his Emmy-winning work as an actor and writer on the hit TV series Schitt’s Creek. Now on Netflix. MORE

Acclaimed Spanish director-writer J.A.Bayona adapted Pablo Vierci’s book Society Of The Snow, to give a voice to the survivors and to those who didn’t make it out alive. The event, which took place 50 years ago last year, is well known around the world and has affected (and continues to affect) generations of people. MORE

“I wanted to explore Killers of the Flower Moon,” says director Martin Scorsese. “To start working with Eric Roth and see what kind of a movie we could make. From 2017 to 2020, while we were shooting “The Irishman,” we went through every aspect of that story. We came at the story from every possible angle, with Tom White as the main character.” MORE

“I was fascinated by their dynamic in the context of Diana’s crazy dream and her desire to do something so dangerous that she just knew in her bones she could do it. What does that do to a relationship? What does that do to the person who loves you more than anybody else in the world?” asks Nyad screenwriter Julia Cox. MORE

Visionary writer-director Terrence Malick masterfully shines the spotlight on humanity with A Hidden Life. It is his first biographical film based on real people whose descendants are still alive. MORE

With Nicholas Winton’s daughter’s blessing, screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake gained access to Winton’s archives and letters, as well as her book about her father, to craft One Life. MORE

“This is an incredibly timely story. Thematically it’s about finding light in times of darkness,” says screenwriter Steven Knight on the decision to adapt All the Light We Cannot See for television. “There’s just a very hopeful feeling about it, that hope will triumph over evil in the end.” MORE

When screenwriter Kennedy Martin passed away in 2009, filmmaker Michael Mann revisited his script and its themes and crafted Ferrari, a biographical drama for a new era. MORE

“Who among us has the inner strength and autonomy to live outside the churning new cell phone cycle and the amplified social chatter of our digital consumer society?” Debra Granik questions poignantly, who directed Leave No Trace from a screenplay she crafted with Anne Rosellini. MORE

“I liked the idea of exploring the inner psyche of somebody who kills for a living. And how he qualifies his notion of what he’s doing from what other people might ‘misperceive’ it as.” says director David Fincher of The Killer, who re-unites with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, with whom he created the indelible serial killer thriller Se7en. MORE

”What started out as a simple research assignment became a two-year odyssey as doors kept opening, allowing me more and more access into this violent world,” says writer-director Ric Roman Waugh, whose film Shot Caller takes us into the hardcore culture of prison gangsters. MORE

Well-experienced in adaptations, award-winning playwright and screenwriter Alice Birch knew how to take Novelist and Poet Megan Hunter Megan’s words and make them cinematic and wrote the screenplay for The End We Start From. MORE

“I think audiences want to see movies that are relevant, authentic, and cinematic – but most of all, fun,” says writer-director Will Gluck of the hilarious comedy Anyone But You. MORE

I’ve always loved an underdog story,” says writer, director, producer, and cinematographer Zack Snyder. Incarnations of his screenplay for Rebel Moon originated 20 years ago. MORE

When Oscar-winning Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi learned about the epic failure and the story of an underdog team whose dreams finally came true, he knew he had to make Next Goal Wins. “You’re always looking for inspiration, but with this one, it was all already there,” he says. MORE

Making his English-language debut, Oslo-born writer-director Kristoffer Borgli follows the rise and fall of one man’s fifteen minutes of fame with Dream Scenario, a mordantly funny and playfully twisted take on the collective consciousness of modern life where just about anyone can suddenly become a strange kind of celebrity. MORE

“Rumaan Alam’s novel drew me in because of its characters, first and foremost. They all seemed authentic and a true product of modern society. There was something about the way they clashed with each other in this near-apocalyptic setting that resonated with me,” says writer-director Sam Esmail of Leave the World Behind . MORE

What inspired action-movie specialist John Woo his return after an absence of 2-decades, is a riveting screenplay for Silent Night, crafted by Robert Archer Lynn, “Even though it had no dialogue, it had great drama and a very, very good story. The script is full of surprises. I enjoyed the script because I like challenges.” MORE

“I wanted to bring to the world a Wonka back when he was young and wide-eyed and full of hope and optimism,” says writer-director Paul King of Wonka. “What I wanted to show is the flowering of a genius in the most extraordinary way you can possibly imagine—a man who discovers who he is, but also finds a family.” MORE

“Writing something so close to home, yet fictional, was an interesting new challenge,” says screenwriter Gabe Gabriel who wrote and stars in Runs in the Family, directed by his father Ian Gabriel. “While based on my own complex, but positive relationship with my father as a young trans man coming into his own in South Africa, the story had to eventually separate itself from us and become its own magical thing in order to really take off.” MORE

“Writing the first draft of May December in 2019 was not very comfortable. Mostly because I was crammed into the coat closet of our old apartment: a 3-by-3 space that we had taken the rod out of and installed a folding tray-table that I used as a desk,” says screenwriter Samy Burch. MORE

Filmmaker Eli Roth’s ode to 80s slasher horror  Thanksgiving began in 2006 when he created a fake trailer that would appeal to the grindhouse crowd. 17 years later horror fans were still begging for the best horror movie never made. MORE

Screenwriter David Scarpa’s craft lies in writing material with psychological themes that lend themselves to a sweeping cinematic experience.  With Napoleon, he uses real-life characters as a vehicle to illuminate broader themes about the human condition. MORE

Writer-director James Napier Robertson is well-versed in dramatisations of real-life stories. “There’s always a pressure and responsibility when telling a story about a real person.  I believe ballet is a bridge between countries and cultures. It’s an international language, a way for people to meet and create and do things without words. It’s about beauty and celebrating something that is bigger than just the basic functions of being human.” MORE

“We knew it was an incredible story, the question was how do we tell it in a way that would be really interesting. That’s when we came up with the perspectives idea and, ultimately, the kind of the bait and switch, where you have two thirds of a movie with these two men only to discover that this woman is actually the hero of the whole story,” says Matt Damon, who co-wrote the screenplay of The Last Duel with Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener. MORE

“Knock At The Cabin is a modern-day biblical story,” says writer-director M. Night Shyamalan. “The idea of telling large-scale biblical stories, but in modern times and in modern settings, is resonating with me right now.” MORE

Jimmy Smallhorne says his inspiration for The Miracle Club came from his Mam and all other women who were the best multitaskers. “We all have our jobs to make our little piece better, and I think The Miracle Club is my attempt to make my patch a little better”. MORE

John Lee Hancock, directing and producing The Little Things from a script he wrote almost 30 years ago, wanted to approach the gritty nature of the job as a means of exploring both the intellectual and psychological sides of solving crimes. MORE

“I was just astounded by this incredible story,” says screenwriter Wells Tower after reading a New York Times article, The Pain Hustlers, “I found it mind-blowing that these people, who for the most part have no medical training, have so much influence over the medications we’re prescribed,” MORE

“I grew up surrounded by women. I think of all the female characters I’ve written and being inspired by these women and their stability to overcome anything. By their ability to fight and by their strength,” says Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodóvar of Parallel Mothers. MORE

“It just tapped into such a shared truth for women of every generation in terms of how they navigate through sexual politics,” says screenwriter Michelle Ashford of Cat Person, who had previously tackled sexual dynamics and politics in the television series Masters Of Sex. MORE

“There is nothing more haunted than a Venetian palazzo, the city just calls for mist and masks, and the creepy crawly, throw-a-body-in-the-river kind of feel, ” says screenwriter Michael Green of A Haunting In Venice, an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party. MORE

Michael Green also crafted the screenplays for Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile, both directed by Kenneth Branagh /

“I was very interested in a story about destiny and humanity,” says visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro, who journeys into the most arrestingly dark, sweeping and realistic world – the cinematic world of film noir with Nightmare Alley, exploring the murky lines between illusion and reality, desperation and control, success, and tragedy. MORE

Crimson Peak is “the darkest of fairytales,” says filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who brings to the screen a masterful and imaginative Gothic romance. MORE

“How do you make a film where the feeling you’re trying to evoke is ‘not knowing’?” questions writer-director Grant Singer. “Mysteries that are most resonant and lasting are the most hidden.  Reptile began with a desire to capture a feeling of being deceived. MORE

“It made sense for John to do some soul-searching in a way we haven’t seen before, ” says screenwriter Josh Stolberg, who co-wrote the screenplay of SAW X with Pete Goldfinger. MORE

Artificial Intelligence (AI), is one of today’s most hotly debated topics and is at the epicenter of The Creator, a science fiction thriller set in the near future. “The Timing of this film is surreal,” says director/co-writer Gareth Edwards. “Even though we’ve been developing this movie for years, it’s opening at a fascinating time when our world is wrestling with a lot of the issues and questions we wanted to address with the film.” MORE / AI FILMS

Almost 20 years ago writer-director Wes Anderson was inspired to adapt Roald Dahl’s story The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. “ The story completely hooked me as a child, but if you take away his words, well, I guess, it’s not a movie I felt compelled to do. It’s a great Dahl story, but if I do it using his words, his descriptions, then maybe I know how to do it.” MORE

When writer-director Celine Song found herself sitting at a bar sandwiched between two men from vastly different parts of her life, it was there, sitting in this convergence of worlds, that Song, a mainstay in New York theater as a playwright, found the inspiration for what would become her filmmaking debut, PAST LIVES. MORE

“After really showcases an authentic romance and all of its beauty and all of its ugliness at the same time,” says writer-director Castille Landon, who directed After Ever Happy and After Everything of the After franchise. “It feels really real and relevant and I think we’re so exposed to this concept of a fairy tale romance that when you get into the real world, you find that’s not at all how things are.” MORE

“At the heart of our vision for Luma Animation and for Headspace, is the notion that everyone deserves to be the hero of their own story, not forgetting that, ultimately, we rely on the support of friends and collaborators to triumph,” Paul Meyer and Gerhard Painter, who directed this vibrant South African CGI Sci-Fi action-adventure from a screenplay they co-wrote with Daniel Buckland and Ronald Henry. South African Filmmaking / MORE

The inspiration for the high concept horror Talk To Me came from observing neighbourhood kids growing up and marks the debut feature film from Australian twins Danny and Michael Philippou, best known as online global sensations RACKARACKA, with more than 1.5 billion views on YouTube. MORE