The Alien franchise has always understood something most sci-fi releases eventually forget: space should feel terrifying. Not adventurous, not hopeful, but terrifying. Across nearly five decades and nine films, the franchise has built one of the most instantly recognizable worlds in genre cinema, filled with corporate greed, synthetic paranoia, biomechanical horror, and people making catastrophically bad decisions the second they encounter something beyond their comprehension that they should not touch.
That atmosphere is exactly why the franchise works so well as a weekend binge on HBO Max. Watching all nine films together, including the questionable Alien vs. Predator crossovers, highlights how flexible Alien became without ever fully losing its identity. The series shifts between survival horror, war movie chaos, existential sci-fi, gothic tragedy, and creature feature insanity while still feeling tied to the same cold industrial nightmare. And that clarity of identity is easier to appreciate when the films are watched as closely together as possible.
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The Original ‘Alien’ Movies Still Feel Untouchable, And Probably Always Will
Alien and Aliens remain one of the strongest back-to-back combinations in sci-fi history because the movies compliment each other rather than competing with one another. Ridley Scott approaches Alien like a haunted house story trapped inside a rust-covered freight ship drifting through deep space, while James Cameron turns Aliens into a full panic spiral built around military escalation and collapsing control. Watching the two films close together makes the franchise’s range immediately obvious. The original thrives on silence, dread, and slow-building inevitability, while Aliens pushes in the exact opposite direction without weakening the tension. The xenomorph becomes more aggressive, the scale becomes larger, and the violence becomes louder, but the fear still comes from how fragile humanity looks against something designed purely to survive and spread.
Even the later sequels become more compelling during a marathon because they are willing to get stranger and meaner than most modern studio franchises. Alien 3 strips the series down into something bleak and fatalistic, while Alien Resurrection fully embraces grotesque sci-fi weirdness. Neither movie is as universally beloved as the first two, but both benefit from the franchise’s willingness to let different filmmakers push the mythology into uncomfortable territory rather than endlessly recreating the same film.
The most infamous crossover in sci-fi is trending.
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The Prequels and ‘Alien vs. Predator’ Movies Are More Fun Than Their Reputations Suggest
The xenomorph drools and prepares to attack in ‘Alien: Covenant.’Image via 20th Century Studios
One of the best parts of binging the entire franchise is realizing how much easier it becomes to appreciate the weirder entries once they are viewed as pieces of a much larger mythology instead of standalone disappointments weighed down by release expectations. Prometheus and Alien: Covenant become especially interesting in that context because they lean harder into existential horror than straightforward creature terror. Instead of simply repeating the structure of the earlier films, the prequels focus on creation, artificial life, and humanity’s obsession with reaching beyond limits it does not fully understand. Michael Fassbender‘s performance as David ends up becoming one of the franchise’s strongest connective threads because his fascination with perfection and authorship feels fundamentally tied to Alien‘s larger themes.
Then there are the Alien vs. Predator movies, which honestly become pretty entertaining once the pressure of taking them overly seriously disappears. Alien vs. Predator understands the basic assignment of smashing together two iconic monster franchises and letting the spectacle carry the fun. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem leans fully into chaotic creature horror in ways that feel messy but undeniably memorable. Neither movie reaches the highs of the core Alien films, but they still fit naturally into a franchise built around hostile creatures, bad corporate choices, and escalating biological disasters.
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The ‘Alien’ Franchise Still Feels Completely Unique
Part of what keeps Alien so bingeable is that no other sci-fi franchise really feels like it, including even the latest film release, Alien: Romulus. The series has such a specific visual and thematic identity that even weaker installments remain compelling to look at. H.R. Giger‘s biomechanical designs still feel invasive and deeply upsetting decades later, and the franchise’s industrial environments continue to influence horror games, sci-fi films, and television across the genres. The xenomorph also remains one of the greatest movie monsters ever created because the horror surrounding it never feels shallow, and the continued use of practical effects for the perfect organism delivers an unsettling tangibility. Every stage of the xenomorph’s life cycle is built around bodily violation, infection, and loss of control, which gives the franchise a physical discomfort many creature features never achieve. The xenomorphs evolve constantly, but the underlying horror always stays recognizable.
That atmosphere is ultimately what makes the Alien series such a satisfying weekend binge. These movies are not just connected through lore or recurring creatures, though they have plenty of both to provide. The movies are connected through tone, texture, and a shared understanding that humanity keeps walking directly into nightmares it was never prepared to survive. By the end of the marathon, the franchise leaves behind one of sci-fi horror’s harshest and clearest truths: in the Alien universe, humanity’s greatest threat has never been space itself, but the belief that any nightmare can be controlled once it becomes profitable.
Jason Statham on the red carpetImage via PA Images/INSTARimages
2026 hasn’t exactly been a picture-perfect start to the year so far for Jason Statham, who began with his latest action thriller, Shelter. In the days before its arrival in theaters, Shelter was backed by the best reviews of any Statham-led action thriller in 10 years, but the film grossed only $54 million at the box office against a $50 million budget, making it one of the bigger flops of Statham’s career. It has since found redemption as one of the most popular movies in the world on streaming VOD platforms like Prime Video, but it likely isn’t enough to recover from its underwhelming box office performance. Statham will have a shot at redeeming himself this summer when his new action thriller, Mutiny, hits theaters on August 21. The film also features Peaky Blinders star Annabelle Wallis. At the start of 2027, Stathan will also return in the highly anticipated sequel to The Beekeeper.
Fans could spend hours arguing about which Jason Statham movie is the best, but one that’s undeniably one of the most entertaining is Hobbs & Shaw, the Fast & Furious spin-off that co-stars Dwayne Johnson. The film premiered back in 2019, and after several appearances from Statham and Johnson as Deckard Shaw and Luke Hobbs in previous Fast & Furious movies, it was clear the duo was ready to expand the franchise with its first big blockbuster spin-off. The film was a massive hit, grossing $760 million at the box office against a $200 million budget, and earning scores of 67% from critics and 88% from audiences on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Hobbs & Shaw is no longer on streaming anywhere in America, but the film is still one of the most popular VOD purchases in several countries around the world.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
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🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
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Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
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Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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What Is ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw’ About?
Hobbs & Shaw follows the two titular characters as they reluctantly agree to team up and take down the cybernetically enhanced Brixton (played by Idris Elba), who wants to wipe out humanity under the guise of helping it evolve. Along the way, the duo teams up with Deckard Shaw’s sister, Hattie (played by Vanessa Kirby), and reunite with Luke Hobbs’ older brother, Jonah (played by Cliff Curtis). David Leitch directed Hobbs & Shaw with a script from Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce.
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Check out Hobbs & Shaw on VOD platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV, and stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates and coverage of Statham’s future projects.
Everyone needs a good laugh in times of crisis. If therapy doesn’t quite cut it, comedy shows can be a cheaper way to get your daily dose of laughter. While comedy is often associated with sitcoms, it has evolved over the years, branching into various genres and subgenres — from obvious prank shows to more sardonic, self-deprecating, and dark humor.
Of course, everyone’s taste in comedy is different, but one thing’s for sure: some shows do it better than others, leaving you wanting more. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that everyone’s laughing while watching the shows below. Without further ado, here are comedy shows that will keep you hooked from start to finish.
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10
‘The Boys’ (2019–Present)
Homelander stands between The Deep and Black Noir, smirking in The BoysImage via Prime Video
With all the gore, blood, and brutal killings, The Boys might not be the most obvious choice for a comedy. But with its absurd lineup of morally declining Supes, the series flips the traditional superhero trope on its head, turning heroism into shallow hedonism. They’re the antithesis of idealized American values, with powers that could annihilate anyone in seconds.
Still, in between the chaos, the show delivers plenty of dark comedy that can make audiences laugh and cringe at the same time. The humor ranges from sharp satire—like A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) “charity” trip to Africa as a PR stunt—to outright absurdity, such as The Deep’s (Chace Crawford) borderline romantic relationship with an octopus. The constant twists and over-the-top moments make The Boys incredibly easy to binge.
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9
‘Archer’ (2009–2023)
The main characters of Archer are standing in an office, one holding a letter and one holding champagne.Image via FX
When audiences think of spies, they usually picture the suave James Bond or the rugged Ethan Hunt. But Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is neither. Sure, he wears the suits and carries the guns in Archer, but he’s also everything a spy shouldn’t be—someone with alcoholism, a womanizer, and loaded with unresolved mommy issues.
The funniest part is that he has zero interest in fixing any of it. Still, despite his immaturity and complete lack of regard for other people’s feelings, he’s actually great at his job. With a new mission in almost every episode, Archershows just how capable he can be—and how badly he can mess things up thanks to his childish temperament. Archer is a comedy show that stays so bingeable because every mission somehow spirals into an even bigger disaster thanks to the team’s ridiculous decisions.
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8
‘The Eric Andre Show’ (2012–2023)
Image via Adult Swim
Forget The Late Show andThe Tonight Show—these coveted staples have nothing on The Eric Andre Show. Using the traditional talk show format as a setup, Eric Andre’s run as a chaotic host gleefully shatters every rule, throwing his guests—ranging from real celebrities to obscure Z-listers—into bizarre and often uncomfortable situations.
There’s no predicting what might happen mid-conversation. One moment, they’re discussing terrorists; the next, Andre has his nips out, and while one of his co-hosts crashes through the wall. It’s anti-television at its finest, mixing the absurdity of MADtvwith the inappropriateness of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The sheer unpredictability of The Eric Andre Show is what makes it so addictive, since every interview feels seconds away from complete chaos.
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7
‘Schitt’s Creek’ (2015–2020)
When the ultra-wealthy Rose family suddenly loses everything, their fall from luxury becomes comedy gold. Johnny (Eugene Levy), Moira (Catherine O’Hara), David (Dan Levy), and Alexis (Annie Murphy) find themselves stuck in Schitt’s Creek—a town Johnny once bought as a joke. Completely out of their element, they’re useless without money, yet still cling to the idea that they’re somehow above everyone else.
It might sound like an exhausting premise, but Schitt’s Creek quickly softens their arrogance through the warmth of the townsfolk around them. To grow, the Roses are forced to adapt to “regular” life—whether that means figuring out how to “fold in the cheese” or holding down a basic receptionist job. This, of course, leads to hilarious shenanigans. Between the lovable townspeople and the family’s gradual growth, Schitt’s Creek is the kind of sitcom that only gets better as it goes.
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6
‘Fleabag’ (2016–2019)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge smiling in a red dress outdoors in Fleabag.Image via Prime Video
Across the years, audiences have encountered plenty of frazzled English woman archetypes, but Fleabagfully embraces the bad choices. Its titular heroine, Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), is all kinds of chaos: she runs a struggling guinea pig café, constantly butts heads with her tightly wound sister, and drifts through messy, guilt-ridden relationships.
One misstep leads to another, resulting in an avalanche of morbidly embarrassing situations—the kind where audiences can’t bear to watch but can’t help but stick around for the aftermath. However, for all of her dysfunction, Fleabag isn’t all that annoying. Her coping mechanism for grief is humor, even if it’s the painfully sardonic type. Even at its most uncomfortable, Fleabag has a sharp honesty that makes it hard to look away from.
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Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs
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Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.
🚨The Pitt
🏥ER
💉Grey’s
🔬House
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🩺Scrubs
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01
A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.
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02
Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.
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03
What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
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04
You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.
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05
How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
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06
How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
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07
What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?
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08
At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.
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Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…
Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.
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Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center
The Pitt
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.
You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.
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County General Hospital, Chicago
ER
You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.
You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.
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Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle
Grey’s Anatomy
You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.
You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.
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Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ
House
You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.
You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.
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Sacred Heart Hospital, California
Scrubs
You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.
You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
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5
‘Jury Duty’ (2023–Present)
Anthony Norman surrounded by actos in ‘Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat’Image via Prime Video
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Built on staged scenarios that play out in real time, Jury Duty is unlike any other prank show. Ronald Gladden believes he’s serving on an actual jury, unaware that everyone around him—from fellow jurors to the judge—is an actor. Its more corporate successor, Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, takes it to another level, following a temp worker, Anthony Norman, at an outdoor retreat gone wrong.
Although each episode finds ways to mess with the main subject’s mind, the Jury Duty franchise has no intention of humiliating them. Gladden and Norman were specifically chosen because of their outstanding personality. Although their patience is constantly tested due to zany situations, the two are more than willing to face it, despite having no clue that it’s all fake. Every episode raises the absurdity even more, making it hard not to immediately jump to the next one.
4
‘Impractical Jokers’ (2011–Present)
The Jokers are hidden as they set up a joke on ‘Impractical Jokers.’Image via TBS
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When a group of high school best friends decides to make a prank show in their early 40s, you get Impractical Jokers. Instead of targeting strangers, the show flips the concept by having Joe Gatto, James Murray, Brian Quinn, and Sal Vulcano prank—and sabotage—each other in very public places, from supermarkets to Central Park.
In the beginning, the pranks seem fairly simple, ranging from the infamous “Strip High Five” to being controlled by your friends through an earpiece. But the punishments are a whole other story. Whether it’s searching for your phone in a trash yard or legally marrying a fellow member’s sister, the limits are practically nonexistent. Even after years on the air, the show still finds new ways to embarrass its cast in increasingly absurd fashion.
3
‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ (2005–Present)
When you bring together five of the worst human beings in a failing pub, you get the gang in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There’s no overarching story—just a group of people constantly trying (and failing) to make money. When they’re not cooking up questionable marketing schemes or outright scams, they’re busy indulging their bizarre impulses. Part of the fun is watching the characters create problems that could have been avoided with even a tiny amount of common sense.
There’s really no limit to where the jokes go, and as a subversive take on more polished sitcom predecessors, IASIP at its peak delivered some of the nastiest humor on television—jokes that feel almost guilty to laugh at today. While the newer seasons have toned things down, the show still offers a glimpse into a time when comedy pushed boundaries with far less concern for social sensitivity.
2
‘Abbott Elementary’ (2021–Present)
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY – “Picture Day” – When picture day catches the teachers at Abbott by surprise, chaos ensues. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28 (8:30-9:02 p.m. EST) on ABC. (Disney/Gilles Mingasson) SHERYL LEE RALPH, TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS, QUINTA BRUNSON, JANELLE JAMES, LISA ANN WALTER, CHRIS PERFETTIImage via Disney/Gilles Mingasson
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Set in a cash-strapped public school in West Philadelphia, Abbott Elementaryshows the hard work and the wild situations teachers have to face every day. Mainly told from the POV of Janine Teagues (Quinta Brunson), the overly optimistic wholeheartedly believes that the school has so much potential. However, whether the other teachers want to be on board with her wild schemes is a different story.
From handling out-of-pocket attitudes from preschool kids to pushing back against the school district, Abbott Elementary reflects today’s troubled education system. It takes a huge amount of selflessness to give their all to these kids, and even if the teachers don’t always have the answers, they’ll always try. Beneath all the comedy, Abbott Elementary works because audiences genuinely care about the teachers and their students.
1
‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ (2013–2021)
The cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on a cruise.Image via FOX
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The feds got nothing on the detectives from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. By day, they’re arresting bad guys. By night, they’re still catching bad guys. Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and his motley crew are some of the most dedicated people in the field. But they also know how to have fun on the job—even if it’s highly inappropriate.
Whether it’s petty theft or murder,Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s police procedural premise keeps each episode exciting. At the same time, the show’s offbeat characters make you wonder how they’re even allowed to work in the precinct in the first place. Then again, the funniest people often turn out to be the best detectives.
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Release Date
2013 – 2021-00-00
Directors
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Michael McDonald, Claire Scanlon, Linda Mendoza, Dean Holland, Beth McCarthy-Miller, Victor Nelli Jr., Craig Zisk, Tristram Shapeero, Rebecca Asher, Eric Appel, Maggie Carey, Alex Reid, Giovani Lampassi, Nisha Ganatra, Ryan Case, Trent O’Donnell, Matt Nodella, Jamie Babbit, Ken Whittingham, Max Winkler, Akiva Schaffer, Fred Goss, Jaffar Mahmood, Julie Anne Robinson
Writers
Gabe Liedman, Phil Augusta Jackson, Tricia McAlpin, Justin Noble, Lakshmi Sundaram, Andrew Guest, Matt O’Brien, Jeff Topolski, Lang Fisher, Gil Ozeri, Brian Reich, Matt Murray, Andy Gosche, Brigitte Liebowitz, Alison Agosti, Nick Perdue, Beau Rawlins, Aeysha Carr, Andy Bobrow, David Quandt, Matt Lawton, Vanessa Ramos, Kylie Condon, Stephanie Amante-Ritter
Britney Spears flashed back to her iconic “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance while offering an update on her state of mind following her DUI plea deal.
“Went to the pet store with my kids and look at what a beautiful baby snake this is,” Spears, 44, wrote alongside an Instagram photo of her handling a snake on Saturday, May 89. “Snakes are symbolic of good health, higher consciousness, and pure luck…”
The baby snake had similar coloring to the 7-foot, yellow albino Burmese python that Spears draped around her neck during her legendary 2001 MTV Video Music Awards performance.
In her latest post, the singer also reflected on the “spiritual journey” she has taken in recent weeks.
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“I’m so damn thankful to my friends and so many new beautiful people I have met through my spiritual journey… all a blessing in disguise,” she wrote. “I still have to learn how to be kind to myself and the way I speak to myself… It’s a never ending journey and sometimes I just stop, look up and say wow God I think that was you and smile on!!!!”
Spears was arrested near her home on March 4, with a test determining that her blood alcohol content was .06, or under the legal limit. (The blood alcohol limit in California is 0.08% or higher for drivers 21 and older.)
“This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable,” Spears’ spokesperson said in a statement to Us Weekly on March 5. “Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law, and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life. Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time.”
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Britney Spears performing with a snake at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Her rep indicated that Spears would be “spending time” with the two sons — Sean Preston Federline, 20, and Jayden James Federline, 19 — whom she shares with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.
“Britney went to rehab after several conversations with both of her sons,” an insider told Us. “They expressed concern about her recent behavior and urged her to seek professional help, which has been long overdue, to get her back on track. All they’ve ever wanted for their mom is health and happiness, even during the years they were estranged. They hope she’ll take it seriously.”
Britney Spears‘ loved ones want the pop star to get help following her arrest for driving under the influence. “I hope this is a wake-up call for her,” a family source exclusively tells Us Weekly. Spears, 44, was arrested near her home in Ventura County, California, on Wednesday, March 4, at 9:28 p.m., according to […]
While she was seeking treatment, Spears was officially charged with one count of “vehicle code section 23152” a.k.a. driving under the influence on April 30.
A spokesperson for the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Spears would be “extended” a “wet reckless” plea offer, where she would be “placed on probation for 12 months” and receive “credit for any time spent in custody [and be] required to complete a DUI class, and must pay state-mandated fines and fees.”
“This DUI case will be handled according to our standard protocols. For defendants without a prior DUI history, a low blood alcohol level, and where there is no crash or injury, prosecutors typically offer what is known as a ‘wet reckless,’” the DA’s office told Us in a statement at the time. “This law allows a defendant to plead guilty to reckless driving involving alcohol and/or drugs. This type of resolution is common, particularly when a defendant demonstrates self-motivation to address underlying issues through rehabilitation or a drug and alcohol treatment program.”
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Spears left rehab that same day and ultimately agreed to plead guilty to “wet reckless driving” at a May 4 hearing. As a result of her plea, the previous charge of one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol was dismissed.
Britney Spears is back on Instagram three weeks after her DUI arrest. Spears, 44, took to the social media site on Friday, March 27, with a video featuring her son Jayden, 19, whom she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline. (The pair are also parents of son Sean Preston, 20.) The montage featured several clips of […]
She was sentenced to 12 months of probation and one day in jail, with credit given for the time she spent in custody. Under the terms of her plea deal, Spears is required to complete a DUI class and pay $571 in state-mandated fees, in addition to seeing a psychologist once a week and a psychiatrist twice a month.
“Through her plea today, Britney has accepted responsibility for her conduct,” Spears’ attorney, Michael Goldstein, told the New York Times after the May 4 hearing. “She has taken significant steps to implement positive change which is clearly reflected in the Ventura County District Attorney’s decision to reduce the charge in this case and dismiss the DUI. Britney appreciates this discretion and is also grateful for the outpouring of support she has received.”
Anya Taylor-Joy on the red carpetImage via Doug Peters/PA Images/INSTARimages
2026 is quietly angling to be one of the most productive years of Anya Taylor-Joy’s career, and it’s not just because of her role as Princess Peach in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which is set to be the first $1 billion feature film of 2026. She’s set to make her long-awaited return to Apple TV this summer with Lucky, the new crime drama premiering on July 15 that also stars Timothy Olyphant. ATJ previously starred in The Gorge for Apple TV, which is still one of the platform’s most popular movies, now more than a year removed from its streaming debut. Later this year, on December 18, Taylor-Joy will also return to Arrakis to star opposite Robert Pattinson and Jason Momoa in Dune: Part Three. The third and final Dune movie in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy may yet be one of the most successful sci-fi movies of the year.
It’s no easy task pinpointing the exact project that turned Anya Taylor-Joy into the star she is today, but there is one that deserves the bulk of the credit. Back in 2020, when the entire world was on shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Netflix released all episodes of The Queen’s Gambit onto its platform. The show didn’t just take over Netflix streaming charts, it took over the world, dominating every water cooler conversation and group chat, spreading like wildfire. Netflix was already the biggest streaming service in the world at the time thanks to other hits like Stranger Things and Ozark, but The Queen’s Gambit solidified it as the go-to streamer for fans looking for bingeable content. Nearly six years later, it’s still one of the platform’s most popular watches.
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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
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🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
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01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
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02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
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03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
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04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
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05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
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06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
Advertisement
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
Advertisement
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
Advertisement
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
Advertisement
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
Advertisement
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Advertisement
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Advertisement
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Advertisement
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Advertisement
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
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No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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What Is ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ About?
The Queen’s Gambit follows the young introverted prodigy Beth Harmon (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), who discovers and masters the game of chess in America in the 1960s. However, becoming a massive star at such a young age comes at a cost she couldn’t have possibly predicted. The Queen’s Gambit won a remarkable 11 Emmys, yet somehow one didn’t go to ATJ for her lead performance. Her co-star Moses Ingram, who plays Reeva in the Star Wars Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, was recognized by the TV academy for her performance in the show.
Check out all episodes of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of all the hottest projects on streaming.
It’s only May, and Taylor Sheridan has already released multiple new projects with more on the way later this year. His first two endeavors of the year were The Madison and Marshals, and while both contain all the Sheridan cliques that fans have come to expect, they scratch vastly different itches. The Madison is a more original Western, akin to the first season of Yellowstone, and the show features some big stars like Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer. Meanwhile, Marshals is a direct spin-off of the flagship Yellowstone show, and it brought back Luke Grimes to play Kayce Dutton. Sheridan has another Yellowstone spin-off, Dutton Ranch, confirmed to release later this month. Fans have already been speculating about a potential crossover between Dutton Ranch and another popular Sheridan series to emerge in the last few years, Landman.
While Sheridan is mostly known for his legendary TV exploits, such as the vast and expansive Yellowstone universe, he’s also written and even directed some famous movies over the years. One of the more infamous projects he’s attached to, though, is the adaptation of Tom Clancy’sWithout Remorse, which stars recent Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan. After a troublesome road to release, Without Remorse landed as a straight-to-streaming premiere on Prime Video in 2021, where the film is still one of the most popular watches on the platform in several countries around the world. While Sheridan opted not to direct the film, he did write the script and ideate the story, along with Will Staples. Stefano Sollima, who also directed Sheridan’s polarizing Sicario sequel, Day of the Soldado, helmed Without Remorse back in 2021. The film also stars Jodie Turner-Smith (The Acolyte), Guy Pearce (Killing Faith), and Jamie Bell (All Of Us Strangers).
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Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
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Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
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01
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Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
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Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
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Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
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Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
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How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
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What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
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How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
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Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
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What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
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When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
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The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
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🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
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You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
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You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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What Is ‘Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse’ About?
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse follows an elite Navy SEAL, John Kelly (played by Michael B. Jordan), who goes on a mission to avenge his wife’s murder. However, it doesn’t take long for him to find himself inside a much larger conspiracy. Sheridan famously made changes from Tom Clancy’s book to the Without Remorse script, which led to the film being panned by critics and audiences. It holds poor scores of 45% and 41% from both reviewers and fans on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Without Remorse has shades of another Sheridan classic, Sicario, but it also has DNA from the legendary Jason Bourne franchise.
Check out Without Remorse on Prime Video, and stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates and coverage of Sheridan’s future projects.
Jennifer Fessler’s 27th wedding anniversary tribute to her husband, Jeffrey Fessler, has resurfaced amid the rumors about her involvement with Summer House star West Wilson.
“Happy 27,” Jenn, 57, wrote to her husband via Instagram on April 10. “You could sleep with West or Amanda and I’d still stay!”
At that time, the Bravoverse had been rocked by the revelation that West was in a relationship with Summer House costar Amanda Batula, following her recent separation from Kyle Cooke. Jenn also offered supportive words for West during an appearance on former Real Housewives of Miami star Ana Quincoces Rodriguez’s “Reality Court” podcast on April 30.
Earlier this week, Jenn unexpectedly found herself in the middle of Wilson’s beef with his ex-girlfriend Ciara Miller when the RHONJ alum defended him at the Vulture‘s The Masterminds of Reality TV event.
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“[West] is the cutest, sweetest golden retriever puppy dog. He does not mean any harm. He didn’t mean it,” Jenn said on the red carpet on Thursday, May 7. “He’s just trying to have a good time. He doesn’t wanna hurt anyone. Give him a break.”
Ciara responded to a clip of those comments with a shocking accusation, writing via Instagram on Friday, May 8, “Lol, because they slept together too.”
She later doubled down on her accusation by sharing a Summer House meme of Amanda via Threads, along with the cryptic caption, “If I send this to you I’m about to lie straight to your face.”
Ciara Miller held her tongue about her ex West Wilson’s new romance with her onetime best friend, Amanda Batula, for weeks. When she finally spoke out, she didn’t hold back. Ciara broke her silence on the Summer House dating drama in a wide-ranging Glamour interview published April 17, 2026. “It’s one thing to experience hurt […]
West brushed off the controversy by writing via Instagram that Ciara’s allegation was “news to me.” (A source close to West exclusively told Us Weekly that Ciara’s claim was “absolutely not true,” dismissing it as “such a silly accusation.”)
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Jenn initially offered a light-hearted response, telling Page Six, “It’s flattering that anyone would think someone who slept with Ciara Miller would be interested in sleeping with me.”
By Saturday, May 9, the Real Housewives of New Jersey star took a much more stern stance while denying that she’d ever hooked up with West.
“In all seriousness, and while I can’t help but be a little flattered, it is not nice nor is it OK to post something categorically untrue and defamatory on social media,” she wrote via Instagram. “Regardless of whatever rumors or apparent ‘evidence’ led you to that conclusion, that is the definition of libel.”
Jenn Fessler; West WilsonBravo (2)
Her statement continued, “If it were true, I would have no recourse. Because it’s a lie, this can get more complicated. Having said that, I hope we can rectify this. It’s enough now.”
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Jenn and West previously went viral in 2024 when she nicknamed him “Messy Wessy” during a boozy livestream. She exclusively told Us a few weeks later that she “didn’t realize at the time” that West was “America’s sweetheart.”
“I feel terrible because my best friend who was there, she took it,” Jennifer told Us in June 2024. “There are times where I just think I’m so funny, and I just think everyone would think that I’m so funny. … He’s just like a golden retriever puppy. He’s the cutest. He looks kind of confused and cool. We met each other and he was so adorable — and then we got smashed. So, everything was just so funny.”
Jenn has been married to her husband Jeff since 1999 and they share two children, son Zachary and daughter Rachel.
Give Mel Gibson a period drama, costume, and a weapon of the time, and he’s in. During the celebrity’s lengthy career in Hollywood as both an actor and director, he’s flipped through the pages of history to take on some of his most demanding performances. Several of these types of genre projects have stood out as highlights of his career, whether the title be his ode to one of the most important and exhilarating chapters in the history of Scotland with Braveheart or his turn as a soldier fighting for the United States during some of the most brutal days of the Vietnam War in Randall Wallace’s We Were Soldiers.
Easily standing out as one of the very best not just in Gibson’s catalog but in historical epics in general is the actor’s 2000 vehicle The Patriot. Helmed by Roland Emmerich, in a departure from the director’s frequent go-to of survival dramas, the movie uncovers one family’s ups and downs during the United States’ Revolutionary War. With the backdrop of the fields of South Carolina, the film centers on a colonist named Benjamin Martin (Gibson), who, along with his family, is doing the best he can with the promise of a fresh start on new land. While the war for independence rages around him, Benjamin stays out of it, standing by his belief that war should be avoided at all costs. But, after his son is murdered in cold blood by a British officer, Benjamin finds himself fighting despite his initial hesitancy.
With a production budget of $110 million, The Patriot went above and beyond at the box office, where it raked in a staggering $215.3 million. For the most part, the film landed praise from critics, even going so far as to land three Academy Award nominations. While it may be one of the war stories now buried in time, intrigued parties can check out The Patriot when it rides onto Tubi on June 1.
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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
Advertisement
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
Advertisement
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
Advertisement
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
Advertisement
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
Advertisement
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
Advertisement
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
Advertisement
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
Advertisement
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
Advertisement
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
Advertisement
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
Advertisement
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
Advertisement
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Advertisement
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Advertisement
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Advertisement
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Advertisement
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
Advertisement
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Advertisement
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‘The Patriot’s Casting Dispute
In addition to Gibson, The Patriot’s call sheet also includes performances from Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus), Joely Richardson (Event Horizon), Chris Cooper (American Beauty), and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton). Initially, Gibson pushed back on the casting of Ledger, as, according to Emmerich, the Lethal Weapon star threw a small tantrum when it was decided that the team would go with the up-and-comer. Eventually, Gibson came around to Emmerich’s choice, even going so far as to say that Ledger was destined for stardom.
Head over to Tubi on June 1 to stream The Patriot.
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