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The sequel had a tough act to follow, but it still delivered a terrifying monster movie with grand sequences, a sweeping score and an indelible tagline.As a child, I collected so many shark jaws that my mom disappeared them all one day while I was at school because my room allegedly smelled “fishy.” I suspect it was my general fixation on the beasts that didn’t pass the sniff test.When I first saw “Jaws” at age 8 — more than a decade after its 1975 release — it exploded my already shark-obsessed young mind. I should have been more scared, but instead I was captivated. When I saw “Jaws 2,” not long after, it spawned another great love of mine: monster movies, with all of their suspense, horror, surrealism and spectacle.The original, which was directed by Steven Spielberg, is of course a monster movie, too — probably the best monster movie ever made — but it was also a masterpiece that changed cinema. But “Jaws 2,” released in 1978, was not trying to be anything but a monster movie. On that score, it’s a horrifying success and a feat in its own right — a sequel that delivers more of everything I want (which explains why I rewatch it every summer): more shark, more shark attacks, more screaming teens.Roy Scheider reprised his role from the original.Universal PicturesThe film takes us back to Amity Island four years after the events of the first movie, with some of the same cast members returning. Roy Scheider is Martin Brody, the beleaguered police chief who once again is fighting to protect the seaside town from another killer great white. Scheider plays him with full-tilt, man-on-a-mission madness. Lorraine Gary is Martin’s wife, Ellen, and is more present in the sequel, offering crucial balance to her frenetic, spiraling husband. And Murray Hamilton is Mayor Larry Vaughn. How the mayor kept his job perhaps requires more suspension of disbelief than the fact that another shark is terrorizing the same community.Unlike the first film, which is known for perfectly executing the slow-burn buildup to its monster reveal, the sequel gives us the creature immediately after the opening credits, when it swoops in on two scuba divers photographing a shipwreck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

<!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>In the space below, please list up to 10 titles that you consider to be the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. Each movie should be feature length and released commercially. If you need a starting point, we have compiled our critics’ favorites from the last 25 years on one handy […] More

<!–> [!–> <!–> –><!–> –>and 73 more ballots from the over 500 voters who determined our list of the century’s best movies<!–> –> 100 Best Movies And more ballots from … actors  Naomi Ackie, Uzo Aduba, Casey Affleck, Joel Kim Booster, Daniel Brühl, Jemaine Clement, Richard Gadd, Tony Hale, William Jackson Harper, Naomie Harris, Sally […] More

More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. Here is how their ballots stacked up. More

Three directors are credited for Pixar’s latest film, but not all are listed onscreen at the same time. Here’s the back story.After the emotionally resonant final moment of Pixar’s new outer-space adventure “Elio,” the names of directors Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian pop up onscreen — typical for any feature film. But if you stick around until after the mid-credits tag, you might find something curious. Once the crawl starts, another person is also listed as director: Adrian Molina.The discrepancy hints at some of the behind-the-scenes shake-ups involving the film about an orphaned boy who dreams of being abducted by aliens.Midway through production, Molina, the original director, was replaced by Shi and Sharafian. All of the listed filmmakers have history with the company. Molina was one of the screenwriters and the co-director of the hit “Coco” (2017). Shi directed the red panda puberty story “Turning Red” (2022), while Sharafian was behind the Oscar-nominated short “Burrow” (2020).During an interview with The Wrap last summer, Pixar’s chief creative officer, Pete Docter, said that Molina was moved off “Elio” and onto a “priority project that we’re not ready to talk about yet.” (Molina is reportedly working on a “Coco” sequel due out in 2029, though it’s unclear whether that’s what Docter was referencing.)Docter, in the same interview, explained that Shi and Sharafian were crucial to figuring out story beats involving the awkward Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), who ultimately gets his wish and is beamed up to an intergalactic summit by kindly extraterrestrials who believe he is Earth’s leader. “I think they’ve made some major discoveries on him that really helped the audience to connect and to move forward with the character into the second act,” Docter said.On animated films, one person often assumes the title of co-director, a role the Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton once described as a “jack of all trades.” That’s the part Molina had on “Coco.” But on “Elio” none of the listed directors have the “co” prefix.“Elio” has had a lengthy journey to the screen. The project was announced at Disney’s D23 conference in 2022 and was originally scheduled for release in 2024. America Ferrera appeared at that event and revealed that she was playing Elio’s mother. That in itself offers some clues as to what changed. In the finished film, Elio’s mother is dead and Zoe Saldaña voices his overwhelmed aunt living on a military base. More

The director Dean DeBlois narrates a sequence from his live-action film, starring Mason Thames as Hiccup.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.In the live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon,” expressions can speak louder than words.That’s the case in this early scene from the film, in which Hiccup (Mason Thames) has caught a Night Fury dragon and is conflicted about what to do. He comes from a line of Vikings who kill dragons as part of their warrior tribe, but when Hiccup gets close to the Night Fury, he connects with the dragon (whom he later nicknames Toothless) and can’t muster the will to kill the creature.Narrating the scene, the director Dean DeBlois (who also directed the 2010 animated film), said, “This is one of the scenes that follows quite closely the animated movie. It’s a handful of scenes that I wanted to recreate almost shot for shot. But in this case we realized we didn’t need a lot of the dialogue that we gave Hiccup in the animated version. So much of it could be played on Mason Thames’s face.”DeBlois said he spoke with his actor about the emotional way to play the scene.“I remember on the day talking to Mason before we started rolling cameras, and I said, ‘Don’t forget, this is the moment you reference later in the movie when you looked into his eyes and you saw yourself.’ It seems like a moment of weakness but this is that strength in disguise that causes Hiccup to be a new thinker that can usher in an era of peace that nobody saw coming.”Read the “How to Train Your Dragon” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

Now 20 years old, this love story about two sheepherders is being rereleased in theaters. Here’s a look at what it meant to pop culture, then and now.“I wish I knew how to quit you,” says a frustrated Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) to his secret lover Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) in a now emblematic scene from Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” the celebrated gay-themed drama based on Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story.The film was originally released in December 2005, but is back in theaters this June for a 20th-annivesary Pride Month reissue.Jack’s sorrowful line came to synthesize the doomed love affair between the two rugged men for whom the majestic landscapes of Wyoming became a sacred romantic hide-out — the only place they were free to express desire and tenderness for each other.But that line, and the notion of two men who embody an archetype of American masculinity falling for each other, was both parodied and memed in pop culture — often reduced to “the gay cowboy movie” — even while the film received critical raves and Oscar nominations (eight, including best picture, a prize it lost to the movie “Crash”). Arriving at a political turning point in the United States, “Brokeback Mountain” struck a chord far beyond cinephile circles.For the film critic and author Alonso Duralde, who wrote a book about queer cinema history called “Hollywood Pride,” the film was a watershed moment for representation in mainstream Hollywood. It was distributed by Focus Features, the indie outfit of Universal Pictures, with a revered director and up-and-coming stars, which meant it could potentially have a wider reach and impact.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

We catch you up on the “28” franchise, including the new movie, with commentary from the films’ screenwriter Alex Garland.This article contains minor spoilers for “28 Years Later.”Excitement has been building for Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later,” in theaters June 20. Sure, the trailer, which uses a 1915 reading of a Rudyard Kipling poem to striking effect, is uncommonly exciting. And it’s been a while since we’ve seen actually scary zombies on a big screen. But for many viewers, the anticipation is further compounded by the history behind “28 Years Later.”The release is a new chapter in a franchise that began in 2003 with Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” now widely credited as creating a zombie revival, so to speak. Shot on a relatively tight budget, that film imagined a Britain taken over by ferocious, flesh-eating hordes. Some of the building blocks are familiar by now: Survivors band into small, often mismatched groups; scavenging expeditions loot empty stores; everybody runs from relentless pursuers of the fast-moving variety at one point or another. But “28 Days Later” still feels radical, thanks to Boyle’s inspired direction. The movie interspersed quickly edited close-ups of violence into much longer moody, melancholy scenes whose haunting power has not faded, and was often driven by the superb soundtrack. Tellingly, the composer John Murphy’s spooky instrumental “In the House — In a Heartbeat” has been reused (including in a Louis Vuitton ad) and recycled (including by Murphy himself in “Kick-Ass”) many times since.From left, Williams, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes in “28 Years Later.”Miya Mizuno/Columbia Pictures and Sony PicturesNow Boyle has reunited with the “28 Days Later” screenwriter, Alex Garland, for what Garland has described as a trilogy. (The two men were executive producers on a first sequel, “28 Weeks Later,” that was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and released in 2007.)In a video interview, Garland said that while “28 Years Later” is a stand-alone film, a second has also been made, directed by Nia DaCosta. He explained that these two installments are narratively connected and were shot back to back. (DaCosta’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is expected in January.) As for the third feature, Garland said, “the story is written. The script is not written.”Now that we are back in the “28” world, here’s what to know about the premise, the new film’s universe and what you might expect.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More