Arco, a French animated feature about of unexpected friendship and the fate of a world impacted by climate change, has won the Cristal for best film at this year’s Annecy film festival.
The feature debut of famed French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu, which premiered in Cannes and counts Natalie Portman among its producers, follows Arco, a 10‑year‑old boy from the year 2932 who inadvertently travels back in time, via a rainbow, to 2075, where he encounters Iris, a young girl living through environmental collapse. Their burgeoning friendship becomes a tender yet urgent bond across time, rooted in innocence, curiosity and shared heartbreak. In her rave Hollywood Reporter review, Lovia Gyarkye called Arco “a considered meditation on ecological disaster within the dulcet grooves of a charming story about adolescent friendship.”
‘Endless Cookie’
Courtesy of the Annecy Film Festival
The top prize for the Contrechamp sidebar section went to Endless Cookie, a Canadian animated documentary from Seth and Pete Scriver, which premiered at Sundance. The lo-fi, often surreal feature explores Pete’s memories of growing up as a First Nations person from Shamattawa, Manitoba, touching on topics ranging from the legacy of residential schools and corporate land exploitation to systemic incarceration, interspersed with funny and surreal interludes.
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, an adaptation of Amélie Nothomb’s novel, directed by Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, won Annecy’s audience award for best feature.
‘Little Amélie or the Character of Rain’
Courtesy of the Annecy Film Festival
The Annecy film festival, which wrapped up with a gala awards ceremony Saturday night, has become a must-attend for the international animation industry, and a tastemaker for awards season. Last year’s two big winners: Competition Cristal winner Memoir of a Snail and audience award winner Flow, both scored Oscar nominations, with Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow winning the Academy Award for best animated feature.
‘ChaO’
Courtesy of the Annecy Film Festival
The competition jury prize went to ChaO, from Japanese director Yasuhiro Aoki, which imagines a chaotic future Shanghai populated by hybrid beings and shifting power dynamics. The Paul Grimault Award went to Momoko Seto’s Dandelion’s Odyssey, which premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week, and follows a group of seeds as they journey across varied ecosystems, exploring the fragility and resilience of life.
The Square, from South Korean director Bo-Sol Kim, which blends political commentary with experimental animation in its story of a Swedish diplomat in Pyongyang who begins a clandestine affair with a local traffic officer, took the jury prize of the Contrechamps section.
The winners were announced at a gala ceremony in Annecy Saturday night.
See the full list of 2025 Annecy Festival award winners below.
FEATURE FILMS – COMPETITION
CRISTAL FOR A FEATURE FILM Arco, dir. Ugo Bienvenu, France JURY AWARD ChaO, dir. Yasuhiro Aoki, Japan PAUL GRIMAULT AWARD Dandelion’s Odyssey, dir. Momoko Seto, France/Belgium GAN FOUNDATION AWARD FOR DISTRIBUTION Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, dir. Irene Iborra Rizo, Spain/France/Belgium/Chile/Switzerland AUDIENCE AWARD Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, dir. Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, France
FEATURE FILMS – CONTRECHAMP
CONTRECHAMP GRAND PRIX Endless Cookie, dir. Seth Scriver, Pete Scriver, Canada CONTRECHAMP JURY AWARD The Square, dir. Bo-Sol Kim, South Korea
SHORT FILMS
CRISTAL FOR A SHORT FILM The Night Boots, dir. Pierre-Luc Granjon, France JURY AWARD Les Bêtes, dir. Michael Granberry, USA ALEXEÏEFF–PARKER AWARD Sappho, dir. Rosana Urbes, Brazil OFF‑LIMITS AWARD The Graffiti, dir. Ryo Orikasa, Japan JEAN‑LUC XIBERRAS AWARD FOR A FIRST FILM Zwermen, dir. Janneke Swinkels, Tim Frijsinger, Netherlands/Belgium AUDIENCE AWARD The Night Boots, dir. Pierre-Luc Granjon, France
TV AND COMMISSIONED FILMS
CRISTAL FOR A TV PRODUCTION Christo The Civilized Barbarian: “Hunting Party”, dir. Shaddy Safadi, USA JURY AWARD FOR A TV SERIES Lena’s Farm: “Volles Nest”, dir. Elena Walf, Germany JURY AWARD FOR A TV SPECIAL An Almost Christmas Story, dir. David Lowery, USA AUDIENCE AWARD Freaked Out: “Major Decision”, dir. Théo Grosjean, Mothy Richard, Belgium/France
GRADUATION FILMS
CRISTAL FOR A GRADUATION FILM Zootrope, dir. Léna Martinez, France JURY AWARD Between the Gaps, dir. Martin Bonnin, France LOTTE REINIGER AWARD Q, dir. Masataka Kihara, Japan
VR WORKS
CRISTAL FOR THE BEST VR WORK Fragile Home
Special Prizes
FRANCE TV AWARD FOR A SHORT FILM Pooya Afzali, for At Night
SACEM AWARD FOR BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK IN A SHORT FILM Sebastian Hilli, for Dollhouse Elephant
SACEM AWARD FOR BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK IN A FEATURE FILM Arnaud Toulon, for Arco
PABLO PICO DISTINCTION – SACEM AWARD FOR BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK IN A FEATURE FILM Jean L’Appeau, for Death Does Not Exist
CANAL+ JUNIOR JURY AWARD Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears, for Forevergreen
YOUNG AUDIENCE AWARD Francis Desharnais, for The Great Annual Party of the Creatures of the Moon
ANDRÉ MARTIN AWARD FOR A FRENCH SHORT FILM Pierre‑Luc Granjon, for The Night Boots
FESTIVALS CONNEXION AWARD FOR A VR WORK Ondřej Moravec, Victoria Lopukhina, for Fragile Home
XPPEN AWARD FOR A GRADUATION FILM Jiali Tan, Haoyuan Zhu, for Won’t Be Here
VIMEO STAFF PICK AWARD FOR A SHORT FILM IN THE OFFICIAL AND OFF‑LIMITS CATEGORIES Michael Granberry, for Les Bêtes
CITY OF ANNECY AWARD Justice Rutikara, for Ibuka, Justice
CITY OF ANNECY JURY SPECIAL DISTINCTION Niko Radas, for Psychonauts
MIFA Pitch Awards
ALL CATEGORIES
CINEKID FOR PROFESSIONALS PRIZE The Star‑Child
MIFA – BEST PERFORMANCE PRIZE Crocodile Dance
MIFA – ANIMATION DU MONDE PRIZE Sun Chaser
FEATURE FILMS
SACD PRIZE Maryam & Varto
CICLIC PRIZE Saima – Scenes from a Midlife Crisis
CRISTAL PUBLISHING PRIZE The Northern Star
TITRAFILM PRIZE The Last of the Pebbles
SHORT FILMS
SACD PRIZE A Blue Monday
ARTE FRANCE PRIZE Kateryna
CICLIC PRIZE Haan
NEF ANIMATION PRIZE Very Flexible Girl
FILMVÆRKSTED VIBORG PRIZE Where Is My Espresso?
STUDIOS ALHAMBRA PRIZE Escucha El Río
TV SERIES & SPECIALS
DISNEY TELEVISION ANIMATION PRIZE Pouic and Pica
PRIX CICLIC Brune
TITRAFILM PRIZE Beasties
STUDIOS ALHAMBRA PRIZE The Star‑Child
DOCUMENTARIES
EURODOC PRIZE Ouch!
DOK LEIPZIG PRIZE Black Diaries
TITRAFILM PRIZE Erased
CRISTAL PUBLISHING PRIZE Ouch!
BIPTV PRIZE Playing House
CICLIC PRIZE Red Zone
IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
WEIRD MARKET PRIZE Damned
THE BOOSTER BY UNITED XR EUROPE PRIZE Poems of Life
NEWIMAGES PRIZE The Mother Tree
ANIDOX XR RESIDENCY PRIZE DeMaré – A Sensory Journey to the Depths of the Ocean
In Summer of 69, Matt Cornett plays the object of protagonist Abby’s affection, Max.
For Cornett, joining the film was a no brainer, largely in part to its first-time director – actress and filmmaker Jillian Bell. “She has such a warming and calming presence,” the 26-year-old actor tells The Hollywood Reporter about Bell on a Zoom from the trailer of his current project. “You feel so immediately invited in to just create and have fun, and with her specifically, there was never a moment where I didn’t feel like I could try something.”
While Summer of 69 is firmly in the teen movie category, the former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series actor is personally in a bit of a transition period between high school roles and what’s to come next. However, he jokes that as long as he can keep himself “feeling young,” he’ll be able to play high school.
Below, Cornett speaks with THR about Summer of 69, working with Bell as a director and what types of projects he’s hoping to join next.
What drew you to Summer of 69?
For me, one of the biggest things about it was, A, it was funny, obviously, and B, I think it had that kind of elevated level of comedy while still holding the heart and the softness of something that is going to tug at your heartstrings at times. At the end of the day, it is still like a dual coming-of-age story, and it still is something that Abby (Sam Morelos) is learning from Santa Monica (Chloe Fineman) and Santa Monica is learning from Abby. They could not be in more different places in their life, but they’re still teaching each other things without them knowing it. I think that’s something that I picked up on very quickly and that I love so much. I also heard wonderful things about the American High team because I have a bunch of friends who have worked with them. Obviously, Jillian Bell [directed the film], and I’ve always been a big fan of hers. All of those things collectively is the reason that I was so excited about it.
What was it like working with Jillian as a director?
It’s actually shocking that this is her first time directing because you would never know it. If you would’ve told me coming into this that she’s directed a hundred films, I would believe you. I’m sure Jillian probably had some stuff behind the scenes that she was freaking out about, but from my perspective and talking with a lot of the actors, from our perspectives, she had everything so well thought out and planned out. The way that in which she was excited to create this world and bring this world to life genuinely. I don’t know if it could have been done better by anybody else. Also, just the way that she speaks to the actors. I’ve always said an actor’s director is so much easier for the actor [because it’s] someone who came from the acting world.
One of my other favorite directors I’ve ever worked with Kimberly McCullough, she is also, she started as an actor and I worked with her on High School Musical, and she was spectacular. Directors that come from the acting world first know how an actor’s brain works, so they know how to get certain notes across and how to get certain ideas across of what they want out of a person in a scene. I think that was a big thing for her too. She knew how to talk to us and she created such a safe, fun, playful environment that from day one it was instantaneously I felt okay to just play around. And I think that’s really important, especially for a comedy.
People online seemed to take to the movie pretty quickly. How do you feel about that and why do you think that happened from your perspective?
Obviously, it feels great. It always feels really great whenever something that you make and something you put so much work into kind of turns out and people like it. It’s a good feeling. I’ve been reading a lot of very positive things about it. I think as for the reasoning, it’s a lot of reasons. I think the trailer was such a good showing of what it is, and obviously, that has a lot to do with Jillian and the way that she cut that. The way that it’s shot — Maria [Rusche], our DP — is beautiful and she made it look stunning. It has that elevated feel. I’ve read a few things that are like this should have been a theatrical release.
What types of projects are wanting to do these days? As you said, you’re 26, which can be a very middle of the road time in your life.
Something that I’ve had conversations with my team recently is just I am in that space where I’m kind of growing out of the teenage stuff that I had been doing for so long, and [that] I attribute a lot of my success in work to. I wouldn’t be anywhere where I am without it. Right? I love those things so much and there will always be a place for those things, but I think it is [a time where I’m] trying to transition into things that aren’t necessarily always high school. Like I said, as long as I can play high school, I will happily play high school. As long as I can keep myself feeling young, I’m good.
I think it’s a transition of trying to figure out what material I want to play in. I love comedy so much. I will continue to do comedy for as long as I can and as for long as people will have me do it. I think something that will help with that is just finding the areas in where we can find more mature material or more mature roles or something that has a bit of a deeper meaning to it. I always tell people I would love right now to do some kind of military or war movie. where it’s something that’s a bit heavier. It’s something that’s a bit more intense, something a bit more dramatic and something where people who have been to war, people like battle hardened soldiers, they’ve been through a lot.
I have a lot of family who’s in the military and my childhood best friends are in the military. Just talking to them, hearing from them and then watching documentaries, it changes a person. Someone who has been in battle; it’s a mental, emotional, physical toll on a person, and I think there’s so much to play and so much to research and so much to tap into with that. That’s something I think that would be fun. I don’t want to narrow myself down to one specific thing. I always tell my team, send me everything. I would rather see everything than I see a smidgen of things that come through.
I don’t necessarily know exactly what I want to do until the right thing comes across. I just talked to my about a film recently that if you would’ve just given me the gist of what it was, I probably would’ve been like, eh. But I read the script and I talked to my team about it, and I learned about the character. I was like, “This is fantastic. I love this so much.” It’s hard to say this is exactly what I want to do, but I think that’s where we are right now is that transition of really dialing in the trajectory of what I want for my career. [It’s] is hard to do, and it does feel like I have to figure it out, but at the end of the day, you don’t have to have it all figured out, which is what we learn in this movie a little bit.
Borrowing a page from Disney’s playbook is paying off big time for Universal at the box office, where the live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation‘s How to Train Your Dragon is headed for a series-best domestic opening of $82.7 million and $200.8 million globally, according to official early estimates. That includes a huge international haul of $117.7 million from 53 markets.
Graced with rave exit scores from moviegoers — including an A CinemaScore and an almost-unheard-of 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes — the $150 million summer event pic is winning over both families and younger single adults who grew up on the animated franchise. It’s the same phenomenon that turned Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch into a box office blockbuster. Case-in-point: nearly half of those rushing out to see How to Train Your Dragon on Friday were Gen Zers between the ages of 13 and 24. This is the first time DreamWorks Animation, now owned by Universal, has done a live-action rendition, with a sequel already dated.
If Universal’s estimates hold, the $150 million movie will boast one of the top-10 starts of all time for a live-action reimagining, including the seventh-biggest at the worldwide box office, the eighth biggest domestically and the sixth-biggest internationally. It’s also the eighth-best opening of all time for Father’s Day weekend and the fourth-biggest opening of the year to date.
Franchise regular Dean DeBlois returned to direct the live-action remake of his 2010 film about a young Viking boy named Hiccup (Mason Thames) who ignores the wishes of his father (Gerard Butler) and befriends a feared Night Fury dragon named Toothless.
How to Train Your Dragon topped Friday’s North America chart with a mighty $35.6 million from 4,356 theaters, including $11.1 million in previews. That’s less than $10 million behind the three-day opening of the 2010 pic, which started off with $43.7 million, not adjusted for inflation. And it will easily be the top opening of the series, supplanting 2019’s threequel How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World ($55 million).
After ruling the roost for three consecutive weekends and shattering numerous records, Lilo & Stitch is headed for a second-place finish domestically with $13 million to $14 million from 3,675 locations as its North American total climbs to $365 million. Globally, it crossed the $800 million milestone last week.
Filmmaker Celine Song’s new romantic drama Materialists, playing in 2,844 cinemas, is expected to come in third with an estimated $11 million to $12 million. If so, that would mark A24’s third-biggest wide opening, unadjusted. The star-studded pic features Dakota Johnson as an ambitious New York matchmaker pairing clients with rich partners who herself becomes entangled in a love triangle with a former flame (Chris Evans) and a high-powered exec (Pedro Pascal). Song herself worked as a matchmaker as a way of supporting her dreams of becoming a filmmaker.
Critics like Materialists— Song’s follow up to Past Lives — more than moviegoers. The film received a worrisome B- CinemaScore from ticket buyers, while the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a tepid 70 percent.
How to Train Your Dragon has a huge advantage in taking over Imax screens that had belonged to Paramount and Skydance’s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning for three weekends, but the Tom Cruise-starrer is looking at a fall of just 37 percent in its fourth outing to $9.3 million from 2,942 theaters for a domestic tally of roughly $165 million through Sunday as it prepares to clear $500 million globally.
Dragon is also playing in numerous other large-format screen this weekend. All told, premium screens are responsible for 40 percent of the pic’s gross to date.
Lionsgate’s John Wick spinoff Ballerina continues to struggle in its second weekend, at least in the U.S., despite stellar audience exits and solid reviews. The female-led action pic, starring franchise newcomer Ana de Armas, is expected to tumble 64 percent to an estimated $8.7 million for a 10-day domestic tally of $41.1 million.
In Henry King’s Jesse James (1939), Jesse and Frank, that is Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda, which is to say their stunt doubles, ride their horses over a cliff and tumble 70 feet into the Lake of the Ozarks. One of the horses was killed, the other injured.
The American Humane Society condemned the “most barbarous crime” and descended on the Hays office to demand that the motion picture industry enforce a strict set of protocols for the humane treatment of animals. Never again would the life of a horse be so recklessly and cruelly endangered.
The stunt men? They were okay, not that anybody asked.
The incident gives a fair sense of the relative value of horseflesh and below-the-line talent in classical Hollywood cinema. Though stunt men and women had lent their skills, bones and sometimes very lives to the cause of motion picture entertainment, the contributions of the risk takers, daredevils and fate tempters was usually unbilled and little acknowledged.
Tyrone Power and Randolph Scott in 1939’s Jesse James.
Everett
It was not until the early 1970s that the credit line “stunt coordinator” began to appear regularly in screen credits. A measure of restitution will be offered at the 2028 Academy Awards ceremony when, at long last, an Oscar will be presented for best stunt design. That’s one reason why The Hollywood Reporter is highlighting the best movie stunts of all time, a “what if” filling in a nearly century-long gap of recognition at the Oscars.
Like a lot of Hollywood job specialties, the work of the stunt person is a mix of art and science, balletic grace and precision engineering (the other key element, guts, is a necessary but not sufficient qualification). As any stunt coordinator or conscientious director will tell you, the trick is to make the stunt look dangerous but not be dangerous.
After the wildcat ways of the nickelodeon period gave way to the assembly line machinery of the studio system, stunt people — out of a sense of professionalism not to say self-preservation — embraced their vocation as serious business. During the production of Passage to Marseille (1944), Harvey Parry of Warner Bros. preferred to call his crew of 22 stunt men “safety engineers,” explaining that “the performance of dangerous feats now emphasizes science and planning rather than daring.” The job description never caught on but the ethos did. Risk needed to be tempered by smarts. Unfortunately, the balance was not always correctly calibrated.
The job of stunt performer seems to have sprung spontaneously from the rough and tumble action sequences demanded by the madcap silent screen — think Don Lockwood in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) volunteering to risk his skin for his first chance before the camera. In 1914, an Italian-born daredevil named Eddie Polo, a veteran of circuses and variety shows, elevated the stunt man to star status and educated moviegoers to the tricks of the trade. Polo billed himself as “the greatest stunt man in films, the man who has thrilled more millions with my daring feats than any other actor in pictures.” Starring mainly in two-reelers and serials, riding horses over cliffs, diving from great heights into water, and driving cars into ravines, he reportedly spent “as much time in hospitals as before the camera.” Retiring from daredevilry in 1930, he died in 1961 at age 86.
The theatrical poster for Passage to Marseille (1944), where stunt pros were called “safety engineers.”
Everett
To scan the trade press of Hollywood’s Golden Age is to come across a distressingly high number of “Stunt Men Hurt” and “Stunt Men Killed” headlines. The lore of silent cinema is replete with tales of hair’s breadth escapes and fatal mishaps of the equestrian, automotive and aerial kind.
Given the insane antics cooked up for the silent screen, it’s amazing the body count wasn’t higher. In 1922, John Stevenson was killed while doubling for Pearl White, the star of The Perils of Pauline serials. After a stunt woman refused to perform the stunt for less than $500, Stevenson volunteered to imperil himself. He was to leap from the top of a Fifth Avenue bus barreling northbound and grab the girder of the elevated 72nd Street Station of the Columbus Avenue L. As the bus sped under the station, Stevenson — outfitted in White’s costume and a blonde wig — leapt for the girder. He missed and plummeted to the pavement.
Stevenson was not the only sacrifice to the star system. While doubling for the silent matinee idol William Desmond, stunt man Jean Perkins was killed while jumping from the top of a speeding train to grab a rope ladder dropped from a plane swooping in from above. He managed to grab the ladder but the plane spun out of control and he died in the crash. William Desmond was bad luck all around: stunt man Max Marks was also killed doubling for him in Strings of Steel (1925) when a rope broke during a fight scene and Marks fell to his death from a balcony. “The God of the silver screen is a Moloch demanding human life!” wailed the fan magazine Screenland.
Aviation stunts racked up a huge toll in men and machines. Mustered out from the Great War, veteran pilots — still hooked on the adrenaline rush of aerial combat — reenacted their exploits for the screen in rickety biplanes that seemed to have been stitched together from string and paper mache. The pay grade varied depending on the risk — a blazing airplane spinning to earth was worth $15, a blazing airplane spinning into the sea earned a payday of $40, and so on. “A deluxe parachute jump with a delayed opening costs the producer $40,” the Film Weekly reported cheerfully in 1931. “If the stunt man delays too long, the money goes to his widow.”
In Wings (1927), Lafayette Escadrille veteran William Wellman set a standard for the choreography of aerial combat — thrills aplenty and nobody killed in action — but not all directors were as careful with the lives of their pilots, hence the defiant title of the 1931 memoir by famed stunt flyer Virgil “Dick” Grace, I Am Still Alive. (Grace’s heart-stopping specialty was moving from plane-to-plane mid-air; somehow, he managed to die of natural causes in 1965.) Not so lucky was Roy Wilson, a veteran of over 65 aerial sequences, who was killed during the filming of Columbia’s War Correspondent (1932) when his plane went into a tailspin at 2,000 feet and cracked up on the ground.
The theatrical poster for 1930’s Hell’s Angels.
Everett
Ironically, Wilson had earlier survived the deadliest stunt assignment in industry history, the aerial acrobatics for Hell’s Angels (1930), the dream project of the megalomaniacal Howard Hughes. The ad-pub boys used the stunt man body count as a selling point (“4 Million Dollars and 4 Men’s Lives!”). Photoplay celebrated “the thrilling romantic story of how Howard Hughes tossed fortunes and human lives into the making of Hell’s Angels.” The stunt men were not commemorated in the film’s credits.
In 1937, safety conditions and pay rates improved when stunt people came under the aegis of the Screen Actors Guild. Studio executives, who seemed to have thought of stunt people as props rather than performers, resisted the move, but SAG insisted that stunt men belonged in the fold, classified as extras “except when performing some special stunt.” Horsemen got an uptick in pay from $5 a day (for rider and horse) to SAG rates of $11 a day; trick riders got $35 a day. Stunt men returned the favor: when the Chicago mob tried to muscle in on the guild, SAG president Robert Montgomery, who served from 1935 to 1938, stood firm against the gangsters. They threatened to mess up his pretty face — with acid. Stunt men acting as Montgomery’s bodyguards provided pro bono protection.
Yakima Canutt, a champion rodeo rider and a stunt man legend.
Getty Images
Of course, the hall-of-fame model for the stunt profession is the legendary Yakima Canutt, who is to stunt people what Chuck Yeager is to jet pilots. A world champion rodeo rider, Canutt came to Hollywood in 1924 and enjoyed a career as a leading man in westerns before the talkie revolution (his voice did not match his image) forced a transition into full-time stunt work. He was “simply the very best there ever was at what he does,” said Charlton Heston, whom he taught charioteering for Ben Hur (1959). Canutt was just as adept at vertical stunt design.
As second unit director on Where Eagles Dare (1968), he mapped out the ascent of a team of sure-footed mountaineer-stunt men and one swaying cable car into the clouds of the Austrian Alps. Watching from a safe distance closer to sea level, star Clint Eastwood joked that the film should have been called Where Doubles Dare. Canutt’s rule of thumb for the aspiring stunt performer: “Never stop breathing,” advice he kept until 1986, when he died at the age of 90.
World War II was a fallow period for stunt work. Perhaps the authentically death-defying exploits screened in the newsreels satisfied the audience appetite for danger. Perhaps too the spectacle of able-bodied men being risked on the backlot when they were needed elsewhere left the impression of a waste of a vital human resource — though many stunt men were ineligible for military service due to broken bones and other infirmities acquired in the line of their civilian work.
The 1950s expanded opportunities with casts of thousands clashing swords in widescreen spectacles, helicopter stunt work for aerial shots, and a weekly need for cowboy stunts for television westerns (cf. pretty boy stuntman Cliff Booth in Bounty Law in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Among the nonfictional beneficiaries of the television boom was stunt man turned actor Jock Mahoney, whose advice to apprentices was not as cryptic as Yakima Canutt’s: “Know your limitations and fight the urge to do the stunt one more time.”
Steve McQueen’s thriller Bullitt (1968) set a milestone for its car chase scenes.
Everett
The stunt game changer was the 11-minute car chase in Peter Yates’s Bullitt (1968), in which stuntmen Bud Ekins and Loren Janes skid Steve McQueen’s Ford Mustang GT through the rollercoaster topography of the streets of San Francisco. The edge-of-the-seat virtuosity of that single scene inspired a flood of can-you-top-this demolition derbies, including but not limited to The French Connection (1971), Vanishing Point (1971), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), and Cannonball Run (1981), the latter two by stuntman turned director Hal Needham. It was around then (the big spike comes in 1973-1974) that the designation “stunt coordinator” became a standard credit line in Hollywood action adventures. (Bud Ekins, for example, is not listed in the credits for Bullitt, but he is for William Friedkin’s Sorcerer [1977].)
The 1970s remain the great age of cinematic car chases and smash-ups. Unlike later fast and furious vehicular franchises, automobiles still had to obey the laws of Newtonian physics and directors tended to favor continuity editing, long takes and a fidelity to the 180-degree line.
The grimmest reminder of the consequences of carelessness and incompetence was the tragedy that unfolded during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1982), when actor Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese-American children were killed by the rotor blades of a helicopter that lost control and plunged to earth. Though, amazingly, the fatal scene was not considered a stunt because no stunt performers were involved, the aftershock had a profound effect on the profession. Safety rules were tightened (scenes involving planes and helicopters needed to file a detailed flight plan with the FAA) and the event remains a vivid institutional memory. Stunt people not alive in 1982 were mentored by people who were and taught that theirs is a dead serious business.
Indeed, death was still very much an occupational hazard: the acclaimed stunt flyer Art Scholl was killed during the filming of Top Gun (1986) and Dar Robinson, long hailed as Hollywood’s premiere stuntman, was killed during a motorcycle stunt for Million Dollar Mystery (1987). Both films include a dedication line to commemorate the stuntmen killed in action, a show of respect that has become customary.
Today, besides the ever-present dangers to life and limb, stunt people face a new professional challenge from digital technology. Now that seeing is no longer believing, the flesh and blood pros operating in the material world can be switched out for pixels and greenscreen. Traditionally, the best proof of real danger in cinema was always the single-take, well-focused long shot, where the viewer can see that it is indeed Steve McQueen riding a stolen Nazi motorcycle and his stunt double Ekins crashing into barbed wire in The Great Escape (1963).
No longer. When I first saw Tom Cruise dangling from atop the Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), I just assumed the sequence was the product of really good FX because no insurance company would underwrite the risk and no star would be crazy enough to tempt fate no matter how secure the rigging. Likewise, in The Fall Guy (2024), a film about a stunt man showcasing outrageous stunts directed by former stunt man David Leitch, I also assumed the real risks were taken by computer software until the post-credit sequence confirmed the real world stunt work.
Increasingly, I suspect, pre-release publicity and behind the scenes peeks at the production will provide a seal of certification to stamp the stunt as the real thing — as will the well-deserved Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
THR Illustration
The full list: The Best Stunts of All Time, Over Nearly 100 Years of the Oscars
The Shanghai International Film Festival is set to launch its 27th edition in grand style, commemorating 120 years of Chinese cinema with a lineup packed with global talent, sold-out screenings and ambitious industry conversations.
Almost from the moment movie cameras first started whirring in China, filmmakers have flocked to Shanghai. Although Beijing boasts the country’s first film (1905’s The Battle of Dingjunshan), Shanghai undeniably remains the heart of China’s culture industries. The country’s first major film studios emerged in this sprawling metropolis in the 1920s, and its cinematic passion remains palpable. There are cinemas everywhere — around 400 in the city alone — and each year the public flocks to this landmark 10-day event.
Running June 13-22, SIFF will screen more than 400 films across approximately 1,500 showings, and the enthusiasm from audiences has been immediate. Chen Guo, managing director of the festival’s organizing body, Shanghai International Film & TV Events Center, tells The Hollywood Reporter, “Ninety-two films and over 600 screenings were sold out within an hour of tickets going on sale on June 5.”
The hottest ticket in town annually is the closing-day screening of whatever film wins the festival’s Golden Goblet Award for Best Director — a quirk that’s turned tradition, with no one knowing what they’re going to see until the award ceremony on the final day. According to Chen, tickets for the mystery screening this year disappeared in “just 26 seconds.”
The Golden Goblet competitions feature 49 films across five categories, with 12 films competing in the main category. As usual, the lineup boasts a strong local presence (including multi-award winner Cao Baoping’s One Wacky Summer), as well as features from afar afield as Kyrgyzstan (Aktan Arym Kubat’s Black Red Yellow) and Brazil (Flavia Castro’s Cyclone).
Italian Oscar-winner Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) chairs the main jury. The festival opens with Peter Chan Ho-sun’s She’s Got No Name, a Cannes selection set in 1940s Shanghai, starring superstar Zhang Ziyi, who is expected to grace the red carpet.
Other highlights include the Asian New Talent section, historically a launchpad for filmmakers of future acclaim, such as China’s Ning Hao and Tibet’s Pema Tseden, and a David Lynch retrospective featuring Eraserhead, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive — reportedly the festival’s second-fastest sellout.
Of course, there will be no escaping the swirling uncertainties surrounding the contemporary film business. The industry sidebar SIFF Forum has a series of panels tackling hot-button issues like artificial intelligence’s role in filmmaking. Additionally, the event’s International Film Market will merge with the Shanghai TV Market for the first time, running June 21-25.
THR sat down with Chen on the eve of the festival to discuss the vision and ambition for this year’s edition.
How has SIFF evolved recently, and what is its current role within China and internationally?
SIFF has become an important festival in Asia and even globally. Film has always been an important medium for cultural exchange, so as a significant international film festival, SIFF has persisted in using film as a link to continuously deepen the exchange and mutual learning between film cultures across various countries, ethnic groups and regions. This year’s Golden Goblet Awards jury consists of 21 jurors from 13 countries and regions across Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. The wide distribution of countries and regions fairly represents the diverse landscape of global film cultures, and we have striven to make the jury process more globally oriented and culturally inclusive. Chinese cinema has gone through a glorious journey of 120 years since its birth in 1905. Standing at this important historical mark, filmmakers have many issues to consider. Therefore, this year’s film festival will further aggregate industry forces, expand partners, and centrally display a number of high-quality films that are about to be released or under preparation and production, demonstrating the positive momentum of the industry.
What excites you most about this year’s festival?
While our programming teams have deep respect for the century-long journey of Chinese cinema, what excites me even more at this festival is forward-looking initiatives such as SIFF ING youth-focused program and the strong momentum building for Chinese-language films. I am also paying close attention to the synergy between technology and creativity. This year, the festival has established a dedicated forum on the application of AIGC in the film and television industry, bringing together innovative creators from around the world to explore emerging trends. This initiative not only responds to the industry’s strong interest in new technologies but also underscores SIFF’s proactive and insightful role in shaping the future of the film ecosystem.
‘One Wacky Summer’
Courtesy of Shanghai International Film Festival
As an industry insider, I’m glad to welcome all the guests to the new International Film and TV Market, which fully integrates the film market and the TV market for the first time. This evolution will not only foster greater exchange among content providers and platforms but also, through specialized sections focused on genre and region, strengthen ties with emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. It signals expanded opportunities for Chinese film and television to gain “visibility” on a broader international stage.
There looks to be some exciting emerging Chinese talent on display this year. What can you share about the contemporary scene and the opportunities for this generation of filmmakers in China today?
I firmly believe that today’s generation of emerging Chinese filmmakers is experiencing an unprecedented golden era. SIFF positions itself as “rooted in Asia, focusing on Chinese-language films, and supporting new talents,” adhering to the philosophy of being leading, professional and international. An important manifestation of our professional leadership is the cultivation and incubation of professional talents. We are seeing young filmmakers enjoying greater freedom when it comes to choosing themes and adopting perspectives that are both socially conscious and deeply personal. This is thanks to the maturing and growing diversification of the overall industry environment. An example is the SIFF Project industry sidebar’s new “Genre Film Project” section, which is set to encourage young filmmakers to innovate within genre frameworks, ensuring their work combines expressive depth with market viability. Meanwhile, cutting-edge technologies like AIGC are increasingly embraced by young creators — not as gimmicks but as tools to explore new frontiers of cinematic expression. Through dedicated forums and program units, SIFF actively promotes this integration, and I am confident in their creative potential with new media languages.
Can you share some tips on what we should be watching in Shanghai over the coming 10 days?
It’s hard to choose, but I suggest that everyone can focus on three Chinese-language films shortlisted for the main competitions. Qiu Sheng, director of My Father’s Son, returns after winning the Best Live-Action Short Film Award at the 24th SIFF with his sci-fi short Song of Life. Cao Baoping, director of One Wacky Summer, is a former winner under our Asian New Talent section [2015’s The Dead End] and was also the jury president for that section last year. The other film I’d like to point people towards is Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts, which is the debut feature film of director Wang Tong. These directors are all Chinese filmmakers we have long paid attention to, and we also hope that the international audience and media can give them more attention.
How is the festival addressing the current challenges facing the Chinese film industry?
With the global heat of Ne Zha 2, Chinese cinema in 2025 kicked off with a remarkable start. However, Chinese filmmakers have much to ponder. That’s why we have set up the Golden Goblet Forum to gather industry wisdom every year and to discuss important transformations in the development of the film industry, hoping this will provide inspiration and food for thought to filmmakers. Film is no longer just a form of art; it is becoming a new engine to promote consumption and drive economic growth. Thus, like the SIFF itself, the Golden Goblet Forum aims to serve as an annual platform for intellectual exchange, where guests from various fields offer suggestions for the high-quality development of Chinese cinema and seek common development from their respective perspectives. From the day after the opening ceremony to the closing day, there is at least one high-profile forum every day. Through different topic settings, we hope to deeply discuss the opportunities and challenges facing Chinese cinema today, so as to foster more excellent works, improve the market, and carry out cultural exchanges. This will help Chinese cinema progress from an initial success to continuous prosperity.
Wang Tong taps into shared global concerns over an aging population in his feature debut Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts — but the filmmaker also showcases just how far contemporary Chinese filmmakers are willing to push the boundaries of genre.
The film is part-thriller, part-twisted romance, part-dark, social commentary-driven drama, with the distinctive fringe-of-society shadows that have come with the advent of “China noir.” Above all, Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts is thoroughly entertaining, and it sets an ambitious bar early in this year’s Golden Goblet competition at the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival.
Wan Qian (star of God of War and The Wild Goose Lake) plays a caretaker/dark angel tasked with looking after a series of elderly folk nearing death. Rao Xiaozhi (director of the actioner Home Coming) plays a zookeeper drawn into her orbit — and maybe even into her heart — when tasked with overseeing the care of his own ailing father. And Wang plays with his audience’s perceptions of what is actually going on in and around the pair with the aid of ambitious stylistic flourishes that include roving cameras, split screens, and an ongoing dance between what’s real and what’s imagined.
“With this film I used a realistic approach but I also wanted to bring in a sense of romanticism,” the director explains. “The fact that such a story can even be told and shown, I think, is already a kind of honest response to our society and the times we live in.”
He adds: “I hope my films are grounded in reality in that the stories grow out of real-life experiences, and the characters feel truly alive, with emotions and depth. What matters to me is that the audience doesn’t just watch someone else’s story from a distance; I want them to feel something, to reflect, to see part of themselves in it.”
‘Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts’
Courtesy of the Shanghai International Film Festival
Wang graduated from Beijing’s Communication University of China with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in directing. He first drew attention with his acclaimed short Time to Die (2015), later being named one of the top five emerging filmmakers by the CFDG Young Director Support Program in 2020.
The director drew heavily from his own upbringing, having been raised by elderly relatives. “Over the years I’ve had many conversations with them,” he says, “and gradually the core of this film took shape. My first short film, Time to Die, also explored themes rooted in reality and traditional culture. The experience of making that film gave me a foundation that further shaped my understanding of subjects like life, death and the elderly.”
“In today’s reality, elderly people often face loneliness, while the younger generation experiences a kind of helplessness,” he cotinues. “It’s a situation that speaks to all of us.”
Rao is a revelation in what is his first lead role as an actor. Wang says he was quick to lean on the more experienced filmmaker’s experience and advice behind the scenes, too.
“Through this project, I’ve come to feel that creation isn’t just personal,” he says. “It starts from a personal or shared emotional experience but it becomes a collective process. During the making of this film, our producers Rao Xiaozhi and Wan Qian were deeply involved. We had a lot of conversations throughout. So, in the end, what you see in the film is really a reflection of group feeling.”
International sales for Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts are being handled by Moebius Entertainment.
Wang cites filmmaker Michael Haneke as a significant influence, noting he intends to continue “exploring human nature.”
He says: “Telling stories that deal directly with social issues is definitely challenging, because real life can be harsh and complicated. But that’s also the power of art — it reflects something real. Through someone else’s story, you can actually see yourself, gain insight, start thinking and feeling more deeply.”
