When “The Mandalorian” premiered in the winter of 2019, it gave its titular hero (and the world) the gift of Grogu (aka Baby Yoda). When “The Book of Boba Fett” debuted in December 2021 — an obligatory spinoff of that first, very successful, Disney+ series — it gave its titular hero… a drink of water. A kind reading of such a simple ending would be that “Star Wars” is getting back to basics....

That stat comes from Nielsen’s latest report on the most-viewed streaming shows, which stated that “Clickbait” was viewed for 1,108 million minutes from September 6 to September 12, narrowly beating out “Lucifer,” the always-popular Netflix drama that premiered its sixth and final season on the streaming service September 10. “Lucifer” has long been a ratings hit and a mainstay on many of Nielsen’s latest streaming reports and will likely endure on Nielsen’s weekly rankings as fans bid farewell to the fantasy series, which originally premiered on Fox in 2016....

Per HBO, the documentary profiles Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a veteran psychiatrist who has studied various infamous murderers. Her research includes videotaped death row interviews and examines the formative experiences and neurological dysfunction of such infamous murderers as Arthur Shawcross and Ted Bundy. Her work challenges the very notion of evil, proposing that murderers are made, not born. The film also explores the death penalty itself, highlighting research that indicates states with the death penalty tend to have higher murder rates than those without, questioning the theory of the death penalty as a deterrent to violence....

Majors stars as real-life U.S. Navy aviator Jesse L. Brown in the 2022 TIFF-selected film “Devotion,” directed by JD Dillard (“Sleight”) and based on true events. The film centers on the friendship between Brown (Majors) and fellow pilot Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) before entering the Korean War together. “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout Powell began developing the film five years ago after reading Adam Makos’ 2014 nonfiction book “Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice....

Starring Camila Mendes (“Riverdale”) and Maya Hawke (“Stranger Things”) as two unlikely allies in a battle for teen justice, “Do Revenge” is a funny feminist take on the mainstream high school comedy. Touching lightly on class awareness and queer politics, the girls are firmly in control of this candy-coated world — though only one can come out on top. As their Machiavellian quest for revenge leads to some unlikely revelations, the self-righteous anti-heroines prove that boys aren’t the only toxic ones....

When Loy Cannon dies, he’s the only one who doesn’t see it coming. Standing on his porch, having just negotiated a peaceful (if far from advantageous) agreement with the Fadda crime family, Loy (Chris Rock) stops to silently admire his happy children playing inside. “He has this moment where he thinks, ‘Oh, I thought I needed more power to keep my family safe, but now that I’ve lost my power, I think we can be a happy, healthy family,’” showrunner Noah Hawley said....

There have been countless movies about the immigration crisis, but none of them have the sheer ingenuity of “Flee.” In Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s poignant animated documentary, an Afghan refugee recounts his 20-year survival story, and the dazzling storytelling goes there with him. Yet the remarkable graphic stye works in tandem with a narrative that would stun in any format: As the man — identified only by a pseudonym, Amin Nawabi — gradually opens up about his experiences, “Flee” builds to a powerful secret buried in his past that reframes the global migrant crisis in intimate terms....

And what of the disappointing fact that it was directed by Rodrigo García, a master chronicler of interior lives, from “In Treatment” to “Nine Lives”? Despite Close’s valiant efforts, everything about “Four Good Days” feels artificial, like face powder barely caked on over the horrors of a TV movie of the week. When “Four Good Days” begins, we meet an unrecognizable Mila Kunis as Molly. She’s a 10-plus-year-long heroin addict who’s been all but kicked to the curb by her mother Deb (Close), a kindly massage therapist who doesn’t display any of her daughter’s tendencies for addiction aside from the occasional (and at times very much needed) swill of white wine....

“I related to the concept and the satire of someone who feels he’s an afterthought,” Tobman said. “He’s a half-developed, background character who’s destined for something more but can’t figure out why he feels like a cog in a machine. That’s something a lot of us feel, and the idea of creating a world around that concept was such an enormous intellectual and creatively juicy challenge.” The Fox fantasy adventure, directed by Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”) and produced by Reynolds (but greenlit by Disney after the Fox acquisition), underwent many rewrites, with Tobman pitching world-building ideas to scribe Zak Penn (“Ready Player One”)....

The ending of Season 1 saw Deborah offering Ava the chance to go with her on the road to try out the new material the young woman has crafted for her. But is that necessarily going to make for a career home run? As Downs said during the festival, “What we were most interested in exploring was what it’s like for someone like her to keep bombing. It might be something novel and might be something exciting in the beginning, but someone like her who has fans that come to see her, and sells out a 2,000-seat theater in Vegas and crushes, what is it like when you’re on the road in small venues and not doing well?...

Jamie Lee Curtis has played the iconic final girl scream queen since John Carpenter’s “Halloween” in 1978, killing off a multitude of sequels, requels, and reboots. The latest trilogy, helmed by David Gordon Green, seemed to wipe the slate clean for a PTSD-plagued Strode to defend her family, comprised of her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak), from a deranged Myers after he escapes a maximum-security prison. Green’s “Halloween” in 2018 was followed by 2021’s extra bloody “Halloween Kills....

HBO confirmed as much in a statement to TVLine. “Co-creators Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair have decided to take a break from producing ‘High Maintenance’ to pursue other projects. We look forward to hearing what they come up with next.” This marks the second recent HBO series to set its conclusion. Last week, it was announced that Issa Rae’s series “Insecure” would close out after its fifth season. “High Maintenance” started as a web series on Vimeo in 2012 before being acquired by HBO and airing in 2016....

Series creator Ryan Murphy always envisioned the series as being told through the eyes of Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson), Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein), and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford), Burgess told IndieWire. Though she was a child when the scandal originally started she always noted how adults of that era reflected back on it. “There’s this incorrect belief that Monica Lewinsky enjoyed wanting the story to become public,” Burgess said. “[In fact], she did not want this to come out....

“Ethan Hawke was on our list too, but I thought at that time he was too young,” Emmerich said. “It was pretty clear it had to be Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. That was the combo we thought. The studio said, ‘No, we don’t like Will Smith. He’s unproven. He doesn’t work in international [markets].’ Devlin added, “They said, ‘You cast a Black guy in this part, you’re going to kill foreign [box office]....

Now, after a string of past allegations for discrimination and sexual harassment were revealed against Richards — as well as a string of sexist and racist comments he made on a podcast he ran — Richards has stepped down from the position. Actress Mayim Bialik, who was initially revealed to be sharing the position in some capacity, will be filling in for at least the next three weeks. As Variety announced, Sony will announce more guest hosts at a later date....

The film, which premiered in the midnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, emerged from a collaboration with legendary fashion house Yves Saint Laurent. Noé was unable to constrain his creativity into the confines of a traditional commercial and conceived of the project as a 50-minute mockumentary about a film shoot gone wrong. Saint Laurent is listed as a producer on the film, but the project is a bona fide original work from Noé....

For Wilson devotees and newbies alike, that’s a sturdy enough combo to let this bittersweet ode to the Mother of Blues strut its stuff. The second adaptation of the Pittsburgh Cycle following Denzel Washington’s sturdy “Fences” treatment (he serves as a producer here), “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” embodies the frustrations of Black artists in a society rigged against them, with the boisterous singer and her combustible band wandering a recording studio on a sweltering Chicago afternoon, squabbling and grandstanding until the final minutes....

“News of the World” stars Tom Hanks as a widower in the Old West who “travels through the Texas desert to perform a one-man show about true stories from afar. His goal, apart from gathering coins in his cup, is to bring people together and expand their perspective of the world.” The widower gets thrust into a dangerous journey after he discovers a young girl (Helena Zengel) who is the lone survivor of a carriage accident in the middle of nowhere....

This diverse group of academics, industry professionals, and critics (for which I vote) is often predictive of the Adapted Screenplay Oscar race. Last year’s Scripter winners on the film and TV side were Oscar and Emmy nominees Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”), respectively. Past winners of both the Scripter and the Oscar include “Call Me by Your Name,” “Moonlight,” “The Big Short,” and “The Imitation Game.” In fact, before 2019, eight Scripter Award winners went on to win Oscars....

“On the Count of Three” tells the story of Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Abbott), two lifelong friends who are now determined to kill themselves. The film explores the friendship between them over the course of what they hope will be the final day of their lives. Like much of Carmichael’s comedic work, it looks to combine blunt truths about the realities of life with plenty of laughs to soften the blows....