"Introducing" The film debuts of your Best Supporting Actresses

by Nathaniel R

Aunjanue Ellis in her film debut, "Girls Town"

In the glitz and glamour of awards season it can be hard to remember that today's most celebrated performers were once just starry eyed hopefuls trying to land a movie role. For this four-part series, a look back at the films that launched each of our acting nominees, some more auspiciously than others. Because acting is a three medium art form (stage, tv, screen) we're sticking to their first feature film role to make it easier. Some of the nominees had acting gigs before landing their first film. We'll take them in chronological order of their debuts and share a screen shot of the very first credited moment on film.

We begin with Supporting Actress which we'll be discussing at length on the Smackdown this weekend. But first a look back at their very first roles...

Click to read more ...

The Honoraries: Liv Ullmann in "Shame"

We're celebrating each of the upcoming Honorary Oscar winners with a few pieces on their career. 

by Eric Blume

Ingmar Bergman’s 1968 film Shame features one of Liv Ullmann’s greatest performances.  This was the third collaboration between the two artists, and the film is the middle portion of Bergman’s unofficial “Island Trilogy” that started with The Hour of the Wolf and concluded with The Passion of Anna.  Ullmann’s face is like the face of the film: beauty going blankly sour…

Click to read more ...

Linkers Dozen

• THR talks to Michelle Yeoh about her new film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Great 'meeting Tarantino' story and now I wish they'd have worked together
• AV Club our era of famous faces being paid lots of money for those faces to be buried / unrecognizable under prosthetics continues with Sean Penn in a Watergate thriller

Vanessa Bayer, Ewan McGregor, Anne Hathaway, and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Vote on the new Smackdown. Meet your fellow panelists.

A new season of the Supporting Actress Smackdown is upon us. We'll begin with the current season, honoring the films of 2021.

• Buckley, The Lost Daughter
• DeBose, West Side Story
• Dench, Belfast
• Dunst Power of the Dog
• Ellis, King Richard

So email your votes ranking each nominated Supporting Actress performance on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (perfection) by this Sunday March 20th. Your votes will count toward the final outcome. Now, let's meet your fellow voters who we'll be chatting with you on the podcast.

Click to read more ...

The Honoraries: Liv Ullmann in "Persona"

We're celebrating each of the upcoming Honorary Oscar winners with a few pieces on their careers.

by Cláudio Alves

Sometimes, a film is so great that it robs you of words, leaves you speechless, struck dumb with awe. It's been a bit over two years since I've started writing for The Film Experience and, in that time, it's been a privilege to write about some of the best works of cinema I've ever seen. Ingmar Bergman's Persona tops them all and, when facing its wonder, it's hard to articulate anything. Perhaps no other film has been as tirelessly examined in the history of criticism, making it impossible to bring anything new to the discussion. And yet, it remains mysterious, as beguilingly unknowable as when it premiered in 1966. To try and write about it is a maddening exercise.

Even so, a celebration of Liv Ullmann wouldn't be complete without mentioning the first work in the artistic collaboration that forged her legend, that's at the center of her legacy…

Click to read more ...