Category: Entertainment

Peruse a list of films released in 1985 and you’ll notice a surprisingly high number of movies that have become classics in the ensuing 40 years. Sure, there were blockbusters like Back to the Future, The Goonies, Pale Rider, The Breakfast Club and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, but there were also critical arthouse favorites like Kiss of the Spider Woman and Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Ran. Since we’re going into a long Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve made a list, in alphabetical order, of some of the quirkier gems from 1985 that have stood the test of time. (Some of the films first premiered at film festivals or in smaller international markets in 1984, but they were released in the US in 1985.)

(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)

After Hours

Credit: Warner Bros.

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The big holiday releases are still waiting in the wings, but it’s not too soon to look forward to what’s coming in 2026. Amazon MGM Studios has released a new trailer for its forthcoming space odyssey Project Hail Mary, which is based on Andy Weir’s (The Martian) bestselling 2021 novel about an amnesiac biologist-turned-schoolteacher in space.

Weir told The New York Times that the inspiration for his novel came from a planned multi-book space opera called Zhek that he began writing after The Martian, about a potential fuel for interstellar travel. He eventually abandoned that effort and wrote the 2017 novel, Artemis, instead, but aspects of Zhek found their way into the Project Hail Mary novel.

As we’ve previously reported, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the rights for Weir’s novel before it was even published and brought on Drew Goddard to write the screenplay. (Goddard also wrote the adapted screenplay for The Martian, so he’s an excellent choice.) The studio tapped Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie) to direct and signed on Ryan Gosling to star. Per the official premise:

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Nothing says it’s holiday season quite like a new installment of Rian Johnson’s delightful Knives Out mystery series. The final trailer for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery was just released, featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc in all his Southern gentleman detective glory. This time, he’s tackling the strange death of a parish priest in a spookily Gothic small-town setting.

As we’ve previously reported, the original Knives Out was a masterfully plotted winning mashup of Clue and Murder on the Orient Express—or any number of adaptations of novels by the grande dame of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie—along with other classics like Deathtrap, Gosford Park, and Murder by Death. Craig clearly found Blanc a refreshing counter to the 007 franchise, and he and Johnson soon committed to filming a sequel: 2022’s Glass Onion, inspired particularly by the Christie-based “tropical getaway” whodunnit Evil Under the Sun (1982) and an under-appreciated 1973 gem called The Last of Sheila.

And now we have Wake Up Dead Man. With this franchise, the less one knows going in, the better. But Johnson has assembled yet another winning all-star cast. Josh Brolin plays the victim, the fire-and-brimstone-spewing Monseigneur Jefferson Wicks; Josh O’Connor plays a young priest named Rev. Jud Duplenticy; Glenn Close plays a devout churchgoer named Martha Delacroix, Wick’s loyal helper; Mila Kunis plays local police chief Geraldine Scott; Jeremy Renner plays town doctor Nat Sharp; Kerry Washington plays uptight lawyer Vera Draven; Daryl McCormack plays aspiring politician Cy Draven; Thomas Haden Church plays groundskeeper Samson Holt; Andrew Scott plays bestselling author Lee Ross; and Cailee Spaeny plays Simone Vivane, a disabled former classical cellist.

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Nothing says it’s holiday season quite like a new installment of Rian Johnson’s delightful Knives Out mystery series. The final trailer for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery was just released, featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc in all his Southern gentleman detective glory. This time, he’s tackling the strange death of a parish priest in a spookily Gothic small-town setting.

As we’ve previously reported, the original Knives Out was a masterfully plotted winning mashup of Clue and Murder on the Orient Express—or any number of adaptations of novels by the grande dame of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie—along with other classics like Deathtrap, Gosford Park, and Murder by Death. Craig clearly found Blanc a refreshing counter to the 007 franchise, and he and Johnson soon committed to filming a sequel: 2022’s Glass Onion, inspired particularly by the Christie-based “tropical getaway” whodunnit Evil Under the Sun (1982) and an under-appreciated 1973 gem called The Last of Sheila.

And now we have Wake Up Dead Man. With this franchise, the less one knows going in, the better. But Johnson has assembled yet another winning all-star cast. Josh Brolin plays the victim, the fire-and-brimstone-spewing Monseigneur Jefferson Wicks; Josh O’Connor plays a young priest named Rev. Jud Duplenticy; Glenn Close plays a devout churchgoer named Martha Delacroix, Wick’s loyal helper; Mila Kunis plays local police chief Geraldine Scott; Jeremy Renner plays town doctor Nat Sharp; Kerry Washington plays uptight lawyer Vera Draven; Daryl McCormack plays aspiring politician Cy Draven; Thomas Haden Church plays groundskeeper Samson Holt; Andrew Scott plays bestselling author Lee Ross; and Cailee Spaeny plays Simone Vivane, a disabled former classical cellist.

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We got our first glimpse of the much-anticipated second season of Fallout (adapted from the popular video game franchise) in August when Prime Video released an extended teaser. We now have the official trailer, with all the deadpan humor, explosions, and mutant atrocities one could hope for—including ghoulish Elvis impersonators in New Vegas.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

As previously reported, in S1, we met Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a young woman whose vault is raided by surface dwellers. The raiders kill many vault residents and kidnap her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), so the sheltered Lucy sets out on a quest to find him. Life on the surface is pretty brutal, but Lucy learns fast. Along the way, she finds an ally (and love interest) in Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire masquerading as a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel. And she runs afoul of a gunslinger and bounty hunter known as the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a former Hollywood actor named Cooper Howard who survived the original nuclear blast, but radiation exposure turned him into, well, a ghoul.

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We got our first glimpse of the much-anticipated second season of Fallout (adapted from the popular video game franchise) in August when Prime Video released an extended teaser. We now have the official trailer, with all the deadpan humor, explosions, and mutant atrocities one could hope for—including ghoulish Elvis impersonators in New Vegas.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

As previously reported, in S1, we met Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a young woman whose vault is raided by surface dwellers. The raiders kill many vault residents and kidnap her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), so the sheltered Lucy sets out on a quest to find him. Life on the surface is pretty brutal, but Lucy learns fast. Along the way, she finds an ally (and love interest) in Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire masquerading as a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel. And she runs afoul of a gunslinger and bounty hunter known as the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a former Hollywood actor named Cooper Howard who survived the original nuclear blast, but radiation exposure turned him into, well, a ghoul.

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie dominated the box office in 2023, racking up $1.36 billion and snagging several Oscar nominations for good measure. So naturally there’s a sequel, and Nintendo just dropped the official trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, due out next spring.

(Spoilers for the 2023 film below.)

The first attempt at a Super Mario movie adaptation in 1993 was notoriously a dismal failure, although it still has its ’90s-nostalgic fans. But 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Movie won over gaming fans who were skeptical about another adaption—including Ars Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland. “This film version captures all the fun and vibrancy of the Mario games, with enough references to familiar characters, items, and locations to make even a die-hard Mario fan’s head spin,” he wrote in his 2023 review, adding that, despite a few flaws, the film was “everything that a 10-year-old version of me could ever have dreamed a Mario movie could be.”

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Director Gore Verbinski has racked up an impressive filmography over the years, from The Ring and the first three installments of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to the 2011 Oscar-nominated animated western Rango. Granted, he’s had his share of failures (*cough* The Lone Ranger *cough*), but if this trailer is any indication, Verbinski has another winner on his hands with the absurdist sci-fi dark comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

Sam Rockwell stars as the otherwise unnamed “Man from the Future,” who shows up at a Los Angeles diner looking like a homeless person but claiming to be a time traveler from an apocalyptic future. He’s there to recruit the locals into his war against a rogue AI, although the diner patrons are understandably dubious about his sanity. (“I come from a nightmare apocalypse,” he assures the crowd about his grubby appearance. “This is the height of f*@ing fashion!”) Somehow, he convinces a handful of Angelenos to join his crusade, and judging by the remaining footage, all kinds of chaos breaks out.

In addition to the eminently watchable Rockwell, the cast includes Haley Lu Richardson as Ingrid, Michael Pena as Mark, Zazie Beetz as Janet, and Juno Temple as Susan. Dino Fetscher, Anna Acton, Asim Chaudhury, Daniel Barnett, and Domonique Maher also appear in as-yet-undisclosed roles. Matthew Robinson (The Invention of Lying, Love and Monsters) penned the script. This is Verbinski’s first indie film, and Tom Ortenberg, CEO of distributor Briarcliff Entertainment, praised it as “wildly original, endlessly entertaining, and unlike anything audiences have seen before.” Color us intrigued.

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It’s shaping up to be an excellent season for Stephen King adaptations. In September, we got The Long Walk, an excellent (though harrowing) adaptation of King’s 1979 Richard Bachman novel. Last month, HBO debuted its new series IT: Welcome to Derry, which explores the mythology and origins of Pennywise the killer clown. And this Friday is the premiere of The Running Man, director Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, Last Night in Soho) take on King’s novel of the same name. So naturally Paramount has released a final trailer to lure us to the theater.

As previously reported, the 1987 action film starring Schwarzenegger was only loosely based on King’s novel, preserving the basic concept and very little else in favor of more sci-fi gadgetry and high-octane action. It was a noisy, entertaining romp—and very late ’80s—but it lacked King’s subtler satirical tone. Wright expressed interest in adapting his own version of The Running Man in 2017, and Paramount greenlit the project four years later. Wright and co-screenwriter Michael Bacall envisioned their film as less of a remake and more of a faithful adaptation of King’s original novel. (We’ll see if that faithfulness extends to the novel’s bleak ending.)

Per the official premise:

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