SYFY’s Kryptonis set on the titular planet 200 years before Kal-El — aka Clark Kent, aka Superman — is born. The House of El has recently suffered a fall from grace, with Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) eking out a living in Krypton’s lower-class slums after his grandfather Val-El (Ian McElhinney) was sentenced to imprisonment in the Phantom Zone. Seg is visited by a mysterious man named Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos), who tells him that his grandson Kal-El will grow into the greatest hero on Earth and that forces are working to erase Superman’s existence.
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While fighting to keep his grandson alive, Seg learns that Val was sentenced because he learned that there was alien life headed for Krypton, and the corrupt ruling council worked to silence his findings. That alien life is none other than Brainiac (Blake Ritson), the malevolent artificial intelligence who collects information from planets and destroys them in the process; he, too, will become one of Superman’s greatest enemies. On top of that, Seg learns that he is meant to be betrothed to Nyssa-Vex (Wallis Day), the daughter of a high-ranking official on Krypton; however, he is still in love with Lyta (Georgina Campbell), a soldier in Krypton’s military guild.
Aaron Pierre Plays a Character With Major Ties to Superman Lore in ‘Krypton’
So, how exactly does Aaron Pierre fit into Krypton‘s narrative? He plays the soldier Dev-Em, who works with Lyta to fight the terrorist organization known as Black Zero. Complicating matters is the fact that Dev and Lyta used to be betrothed to each other, and while he still has feelings for her, she is wrestling with her own feelings for Seg-El. Matters take a turn for the worse when a mysterious stranger, played by Colin Salmon, appears; the stranger is none other than Dru-Zod, aka General Zod — one of Superman’s worst enemies. Zod reveals that he is the son of Seg and Lyta, further complicating matters between the two and Dev. When Zod becomes the new ruler of Krypton in Season 2, Dev joins a group of resistance fighters led by Lyta’s mother, Jayna (Ann Ogbomo).
Dev-Em has a unique backstory in DC Comics lore; he was one of the few Kryptonians who believed Jor-El’s warning that the planet was doomed for destruction and placed himself in suspended animation. When Krypton exploded, he was sent hurtling to Earth, where he met a young Clark Kent… and threw him into the Phantom Zone! Dev-Em would later become an ally of the Legion of Superheroes and helped them during the “Great Darkness Saga,” where they battled the New God Darkseid. Other versions usually paint Dev-Em as a criminal who was sentenced to the Phantom Zone, with Man of Steelreimagining him as one of General Zod’s fathers. Pierre’s take on the character, however, is rather nuanced and leads to some of Krypton‘s best moments.
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Aaron Pierre Got To Show Off His Dramatic Chops During ‘Krypton’s Run
Official poster for ‘Krypton’, featuring Aaron Pierre’s Dev EmImage via SyFy
Krypton Season 2 is where Pierre’s Dev-Em truly gets his chance to shine. Working with the rebel cells, he finds himself pitted against Lyta, who seems to be willing to carry out any atrocity Zod asks of her (though in true comic book TV fashion, there’s a rather convoluted explanation for this.) Brainiac is also gaining a foothold in his attempts to leech Krypton of its knowledge, possessing various victims while also keeping Seg-El trapped in the Phantom Zone. This leads Dev-Em to make the decision to utilize Doomsday — the monster who will one day kill Superman — as a way to protect Krypton.
Season 2 is a great showcase for Pierre’s dramatic talents, as he paints Dev-Em as a man who will do anything it takes to protect Krypton.He lets Brainiac possess him to spare Lyta from death, and the machine winds up forcing him to try to kill Jayna, which results in Dev losing an arm. Despite Doomsday causing untold damage, Dev sees him as a trump card to keep order on Krypton, showcasing that, like Zod, he is capable of committing horrible acts to keep his planet alive. Pierre infuses Dev with the same kind of calculating fury he brings to Terry Richmond in Netflix’s Rebel Ridge, making what could have been a minor role so much more. Krypton was sadly canceled in 2019, meaning that the plot thread of Dev-Em weaponizing Doomsday never came to pass. Still, it’s worth a watch, both for its fresh take on the Superman mythos and how it proved Pierre could play a major role in the DC Universe.
For a comic strip built around a remarkably small cast, Peanuts went through a surprising number of characters before Charles M. Schulz settled on the ensemble everyone knows today. Charlotte Braun was one of those early experiments — a loud, aggressively confident counterpart to Charlie Brown who arrived in November 1954 and disappeared just 10 appearances later. Her short tenure is barely a footnote in Peanuts history, but the way Schulz handled her exit is almost impossible to forget.
Charlotte’s disappearance was a result of a reader who wrote to the cartoonist complaining about the character, and Schulz decided to take the suggestion. Then he did something considerably more memorable than simply stopping the character’s appearances: he jokingly told the reader she would have to live with Charlotte’s “death” on her conscience and drew the character with an ax stuck in her head. The original letter, now preserved by the Library of Congress, remains one of the strangest pieces of Peanuts memorabilia around.
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Charlotte Braun Was Supposed To Be Charlie Brown’s Opposite
Charlotte Braun’s first Peanuts appearanceImage via Peanuts
Charlotte’s introduction on November 30, 1954, made her purpose fairly obvious. Her name was a play on Charlie Brown’s, and she even introduced herself as “Good ol’ Charlotte Braun.” Where Charlie Brown was timid, anxious, and perpetually resigned to whatever indignity the universe had planned for him, however, Charlotte was loud.
The contrast gave Schulz an easy setup. Charlotte could walk into a conversation, overwhelm everyone with her volume, and leave Charlie Brown to deal with the aftermath. Several of her strips revolve around essentially the same joke: Charlotte speaks at an absurd volume, someone points it out, and Charlotte responds by insisting that she’s entitled to be heard. Sometimes the joke works, but often, it feels like Schulz is still trying to figure out what else she can do. Ultimately, Charlotte had a trait, but she didn’t have much of a character beyond it.
It is important to note that in Peanuts, even the most exaggerated personalities tend to have multiple angles. Lucy can be bossy, cruel, vulnerable, insecure, confident, and surprisingly perceptive depending on the situation; Linus has his blanket, but he’s also philosophical and anxious, imaginative and thoughtful. Even Charlie Brown’s defining misery is practically an entire personality engine. Charlotte, meanwhile, kept turning up the volume.
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Charlotte Braun’s Biggest Problem Was That Lucy Already Worked Better
As Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang looks on, Lucy recounts the history of America.Image via CBS
There was also an unfortunate timing issue. Charlotte was introduced during the period when Schulz was still experimenting with the Peanuts cast, trying different personalities and seeing which ones generated enough material to justify keeping them around. The eventual ensemble wasn’t handed down fully formed.
Charlotte’s loud, bossy personality also pointed toward territory that another character would soon make much better use of. Lucy, who initially had a considerably different personality, developed into one of Peanuts’ defining characters as the strip evolved. Charlotte’s basic function — the loud girl who wasn’t particularly concerned with whether anyone liked her — looked much less necessary, which helps explain why Charlotte feels so thin in retrospect. She was occupying a role that Peanuts would eventually have a more versatile character fill.
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Her final appearance came on February 1, 1955. After only 10 appearances, Charlotte was gone. Schulz didn’t give her a dramatic farewell or establish some elaborate reason she had moved away; she just stopped appearing. Schulz’s correspondence with one reader turned that otherwise forgettable disappearance into an unforgettable experience.
Charles Schulz Gave Charlotte Braun the Axe… Literally
The letter that Charles Schultz wrote to a fan who complained about Charlotte BraunImage via Peanuts Wiki
On January 5, 1955, Schulz responded to Elizabeth Swaim, the reader who had written to complain about Charlotte. He told Swaim that he would eventually discard the character, adding that any further appearances would only come from strips already completed or from someone writing in to say they liked her.
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Schulz told Swaim that she and her friends would have “the death of an innocent child” on their conscience and asked whether they were prepared to accept that responsibility. At the bottom of the letter, he drew Charlotte with an ax embedded in her head. The Library of Congress catalogs the drawing, dated January 5, 1955, as “The ax,” and identifies Charlotte as an ill-fated Peanuts character.
It’s a wonderfully dark joke from a cartoonist whose work is often remembered primarily for its warmth. And it was very much a joke: Charlotte wasn’t literally murdered in a Peanuts storyline. Schulz was playing along with the idea that Swaim had demanded her removal and giving the reader an appropriately theatrical way to imagine what “discarding” a character meant. The letter resurfaced publicly decades later, when Swaim arranged to donate it to the Library of Congress in 2000, shortly after Schulz’s death. Swaim died three weeks later. According to her sister, the framed response had hung in Swaim’s bathroom — a pretty fitting place for one of the most bizarre pieces in Peanuts history.
Swaim apparently wasn’t the only reader who disliked Charlotte. Harry L. Katz, then curator of popular and applied graphic art at the Library of Congress, said other readers had also wanted her gone, criticizing the character for lacking the warmth and humor of the rest of the cast. So, while Schulz gave Swaim the credit — or the blame — for Charlotte’s demise, it’s unlikely that one letter alone determined the character’s fate. Schulz was already experimenting with his cast, and Charlotte hadn’t exactly established herself as essential.
Before Spider-Man: Brand New Daystole all box office headlines and broke countless records, the talk of Tinseltown was Christopher Nolan‘s ambitious adaptation of Homer‘s ancient Greek epic The Odyssey. Called an “unrivaled cinematic spectacle” in Joe Schmidt‘s review for Collider, The Odyssey has become a favorite for prizes at the 2027 Academy Awards, and has already earned almost $1.5 billion in global box office revenue after six weekends in theaters.
Key to the success of The Odyssey is its star-studded cast, led by Matt Damonas the King of Ithaca, and including Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Jon Bernthal, Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson, with this one of the most impressive years in the latter’s career. Before The Odyssey, Pattinson starred alongside Zendaya in The Drama, one of the year’s most underrated movies. Before he leads his next big-screen project of the year, the intriguing A24 feature Primetime, the performance that changed his career forever is about to be available for free.
Nine years ago, Pattinson raced through the gritty streets of New York following a botched bank robbery in Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie‘s Good Time, described as a “heist movie on acid” by Josh Safdie. Pattinson stars as Connie Nikas, who bails his brother out of jail after the aforementioned robbery-gone-wrong, with the film also featuring Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight) as Corey, Buddy Duress (Heaven Knows What) as Ray, Taliah Webster as Crystal, Barkhad Abdi (Blade Runner 2049) as Dash, and Necro (The Super) as Caliph. Starting September 1, 2026, you can stream Good Time for free on Plex.
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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.
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07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
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08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Robert Pattinson Will Return in One of the Year’s Biggest Movies
Zendaya and Pattinson’s third movie of the year, Dune: Part Three, is the final installment in Denis Villeneuve‘s acclaimed adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s Dune novels and is set to be one of the year’s biggest hits. Scheduled to be released on December 18, the same date as Avengers: Doomsday, the film will see Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides face the consequences of his power, two decades after seizing control of the Imperium.
Starting September 1, 2026, you can stream Good Time for free on Plex. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Ah, the ’80s. The decade when the neon was popping, the hair was close to heaven, and we all wanted to “Walk Like an Egyptian” while wearing our parachute pants. It’s no question that the ’80s changed the pop culture landscape, and that included TV as well. From the rich people’s problems of Dallasto saccharine family sitcoms that always strive to teach us a lesson every week, TV in the 1980s was a sight to behold and offered everything to everyone in every genre.
What made TV in the ’80s standout from its decade peers were the iconic casts that brought their own flair to the small screen. Think about it? When was the last time you saw police detectives on TV wearing pastel-colored suit jackets? Only in the ’80s did you see this, and to celebrate the most iconic casts from this decade, let’s rank the best TV casts while rocking out to “Beat It.”
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8
‘Married…. with Children’ (1987–1997)
Al (Ed O’Neill) and Peggy (Katey Sagal) laughing together in Married With Children.Image via FOX
In 1987, the fledgling Fox network took a lot of daring risks with its programming, with one in particular turning the sweet family sitcom trope of the decade upside down. That sitcom was called Married… with Children, which followed the Bundy family in a surreal satire that was an instant hit for the network.
The big reason for Married… with Children’shuge success lies with the hilarious cast. Ed O’Neill as the misanthropic, cynical patriarch Al Bundy may not fly in today’s pop culture landscape, but he changed the way we viewed TV dads with his sarcastic, sometimes cruel wit. Then we have Peggy (Katey Sagal), Al’s self-indulgent wife who was basically the female version of her husband. Rounding things out are their two kids, the promiscuous Kelley (Christina Applegate) and the antagonistic, socially inept Bud (David Faustino). Their next-door neighbor, Marcy Rhoades (Amanda Bearse), represented the typical sweet, wholesome conservative that was widely represented on ’80s television. When you think about it, the cast of Married…with Children was very much antagonistic to everything the ’80s stood for, and we loved it.
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7
‘Miami Vice’ (1984–1989)
Crockett and Tubbs stand next to one another in Miami Vice.Image via NBC
The Miami of the ’80s was well-known for its drug violence, which, for creator Anthony Yerkovic and producer Michael Mann, made for a perfect setting for a great TV show featuring well-dressed cops looking to take down the players funneling drugs onto the streets of Dade County. That show was Miami Vice, which premiered on NBC in 1984, and went on to become a pop culture phenomenon thanks to its two leads, James “Sonny” Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas).
Crockett and Tubb had dynamic chemistry, playing off each other’s strengths as they worked to rid Miami of the drugs pouring into the city, and they completely changed how TV cops looked on the screen. There weren’t your Dragnet “just the facts, ma’am” cops. Crockett and Tubbs were made for the MTV generation, complete with name-brand suits, and ’80s coolness dripping from them on a weekly basis.
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6
‘Who’s the Boss?’ (1984–1992)
Tony pouring coffee for Angela and Mona on Who’s The Boss?Image via ABC
Only in the ’80s would the central figure of a hilarious sitcom be a retired baseball player-turned-housekeeper. That was the premise for Who’s the Boss?, one of the best sitcoms of the decade thanks to its talented cast led by Tony Danza, who played Tony Micelli, a father who looks for a better life for him and his daughter, Samantha (Alyssa Milano). That better life leads them to an upscale suburb in Connecticut, where he works as a housekeeper for a divorced advertising executive, Angela Bower (Judith Light), who has a son, Jonathan (Danny Pinaturo), and a mother who seemingly has a date every week, Mona (Katherine Helmond).
The cast had great chemistry, especially between Danza and Light, who lit up the screen with their on-screen romance and personalities that play off each other well. Also, Mona was a real treat, with her sarcasm and personality that steals the screen every single time, and Samantha’s growth from a witty, tomboyish girl into a teenager dealing with the usual societal norms facing kids in the ’80s, made her one of the decade’s most relatable teen characters. Who’s the Boss?‘s cast is iconic, and the hilarious, heartfelt comedic moments are why it was one of the decade’s most popular shows.
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5
‘The A-Team’ (1983–1987)
The cast of ‘The A-Team’ holding weapons.Image via NBC
In the ’80s, everyone wanted to be like one of The A-Team, as they looked so cool on TV. The NBC action-adventure featured an ensemble cast of U.S. Army Special Force commandos who become soldiers for hire after escaping from a military prison. The characters of The A-Team were legendary, especially Bosco “B.A.” Baracus, played by Mr. T in a career-making role, creating some of the decade’s most iconic catchphrases.
We won’t forget about the rest of the cast, from John “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard), who always had an unorthodox plan, but always worked, Temptleton Peck (Dirk Benedict), who gathered the team’s weaponry, and “H.M.” Murdock (Dwight Schultz), who always went along with the team’s plans. The cast made the cartoonish nature of The A-Team work like a charm, and we sincerely hope there are no plans to reboot it. A classic needs to stay a classic, if you know what I mean.
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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
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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
🔧John McClane
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🎭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.
Rambo
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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
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.
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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.
Ethan Hunt
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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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4
‘Smurfs’ (1981–1989)
The Smurfs together in the 1981 TV showImage via NBC
I know some will find it hard to believe that theSmurfs are considered one of the best TV casts of the ’80s, but the Smurfs were one of the most popular animated sitcoms of the decade, and for good reason. The Smurfs are very well-known and quite diverse. You have Papa Smurf (Don Messick), the elder leader of the clan. Smurfette (Lucille Bliss), the only girl among the Smurf clan and is also one of the main protagonists, and many of the other Smurfs who brought this fanciful world to life.
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Some may criticize why the Smurfs clan is on this list, and, trust me, I get it. However, you can’t argue that Smurfs have made an indelible mark on pop culture, with their iconic look and eclectic personalities that made each episode a treat to watch.
3
‘Family Ties’ (1982–1989)
A promotional image of the ‘Family Ties’ castImage via NBC
The ’80s sitcom landscape was dominated by wholesome family comedies that always managed to solve problems in under a half-an-hour. The family sitcom wouldn’t have boomed in the Regan era without the Keating family ofFamily Ties, a sitcom that was sort of a mirror to what life was like in the ’80s.
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Created by Gary David Goldberg, Family Ties tells the story of the Keatings, led by Steven (Michael Gross) and Elyse (Meredith Baxter), who were hippies in the ’60s and held liberal views, trying to raise children who held more conservative views, chief among them Alex P. Keating (Michael J. Fox), a staunch young Republican, and Mallory (Justine Bateman), a typical ’80s teenage girl who held more traditional and conservative views of womanhood than her mother. Jennifer (Tina Yothers), the youngest of the Keaton clan, was more liberal than her siblings, and watching the family navigate these differences while facing the traditional societal issues facing all families at the time made for must-watch TV.
2
‘Cheers’ (1982–1993)
Cast of Cheers including Ted Danson and Woody HarrelsonImage via NBC
You want to go where everybody knows your name, and Cheers was definitely that place. When you watch Cheers, you feel like you’re part of the bar’s regular clientele, and it was this feeling of relatability that made the sitcom and its characters one of the decade’s most iconic shows.
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Who wouldn’t want to grab a beer with Norm (George Wendt) and Cliff (John Ratzenberger) while watching the budding romance between Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) behind the bar? All with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) serving up drinks and offering her cynical, wisecracking takes on life? Cheers was one of the best character-driven shows on network TV, and the characters remain iconic to this very day.
1
‘The Golden Girls’ (1985–1992)
All the casts listed in this piece have carved out their spot in ’80s television lore, but there is one cast that triumphs over them all, The Golden Girls. First, you can’t talk about The Golden Girls without mentioning the iconic theme song (“Thank You For Being a Friend”), which is bopping in my head right now as I’m writing this.
Second, the cast is similarly iconic, revolving around four older single women who share a house in Miami and navigate their “golden years” together, led by the homeowner, the promiscuous southern belle Blanche (Rue McClanahan), and the wisecracking Dorthy (Beatrice Arthur), the humorous and wholesome Rose (Betty White), and the always sassy Sophia (Estelle Getty). These four women came together and made sitcom magic that is hard to replicate today.
The verbal volleys that they have launched against each other in the last few months didn’t come out of nowhere; star Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott clearly don’t see eye to eye. The problems seemed to escalate when Scott began putting together Gladiator II without Crowe’s involvement. The star, who won a Best Actor honor at the Oscars for his performance in the original Gladiator film, had been trying to mount a sequel for a number of years as well. Scott reasoned that since Crowe’s character died at the end of the first film, he had no reason to be brought back for the sequel. Crowe, on the other hand, expressed annoyance at being excluded from the project when it was being made, and has since criticized it more than once. It has been over 15 years since the two former collaborators worked together, and their parting film is now streaming on Peacock in the United States.
However, the movie in question is about to be removed from the service, leaving audiences with very little time to revisit it. The movie was released in 2010 and was positioned as a return toGladiator-style swords-and-sandals drama for Scott and Crowe. But reviews were mediocre and the box office was underwhelming. It was only a few years later, in 2014, that Crowe starred in what would become his final big-budget studio tentpole as a leading man, Noah. Interestingly, Scott released his own biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, that same year.
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Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You? One Quiz · Ten Questions · Your Fate Revealed
The road goes ever on. From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly — the One Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.
💍Frodo
🌿Samwise
👑Aragorn
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🔥Gandalf
🏹Legolas
⚒️Gimli
👁️Sauron
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🪨Gollum
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01
You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do? The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.
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02
Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You: True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.
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03
Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is: Power corrupts — but only those who reach for it.
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04
What does “home” mean to you? Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.
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05
When a battle is upon you, your approach is: War reveals what we are made of — whether we like it or not.
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06
Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You: Wisdom is not knowing all the answers — it’s knowing which questions to ask.
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07
How do you see yourself, honestly? Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind.
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08
Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world? Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.
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09
You encounter a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You: How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.
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10
When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you? In the end, we are all just stories.
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The Fellowship Has Spoken Your Place in Middle-earth
The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people.
💍 Frodo
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🌿 Samwise
👑 Aragorn
🔥 Gandalf
🏹 Legolas
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⚒️ Gimli
👁️ Sauron
🪨 Gollum
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You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.
You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.
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You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.
You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late.
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Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.
You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
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You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.
You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.
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Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott’s Last Movie Together Is Leaving Peacock
Scott and Crowe worked together on a string of movies across different genres in the 2000s, following up Gladiator with A Good Year, American Gangster, Body of Lies, and the 2010 epic Robin Hood. The movie was put together in the aftermath of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which encouraged Hollywood to be more experimental with grounded takes on classic material. Robin Hood was produced on a reported budget of $200 million, but it only managed to gross around $320 million worldwide. It now holds a 43% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Ridley Scott’s revisionist take on this oft-told tale offers some fine acting and a few gripping action sequences, but it’s missing the thrill of adventure that madeRobin Hood a legend in the first place.” The movie will be removed from Peacock on September 1. The property seems to be cursed, with an action-packed 2018 reboot starringTaron Egertonand a recent character study headlined by Hugh Jackmanboth underperforming. However, an MGM+ series with a more classical tone has emerged as a hit. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Harry Styles made a playful reference to his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s recent wedding during his latest Madison Square Garden residency show.
“New York City — The Big Apple! The city that never sleeps,” Styles, 32, said while interacting with fans on Saturday, August 29, before teasing, “Madison Square Garden… home of the world champion New York Knicks and they also do weddings!”
His joke drew a huge response from the jam-packed crowd, which clearly seemed to delight the “American Girls” singer as he sported a cheeky grin.
Swift and her Kansas City Chiefs star beau, both 36, were recently in the same venue for a very special moment as they tied the knot at Madison Square Garden on July 2. The newlyweds even used MSG’s digital marquee to confirm that they were “JusT&T Married” during the ceremony.
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Styles’ fiancée, Zoë Kravitz, was reportedly in attendance for her friend Swift’s wedding but the former One Direction star had to miss the ceremony because of his London concert residency commitments. (Styles had Together, Together concerts scheduled at Wembley Stadium on July 1 and July 3.)
Styles and Kravitz, 37, seemingly have wedding bells in their future as he popped the question in April after eight months of dating.
Lorel Diamonds jeweler Laura Taylor offered insight on Kravitz’s sparkling diamond engagement ring — which could be worth up to $600,000 — in an exclusive interview with Us in April.
“Zoë’s engagement ring appears to feature an elongated cushion-cut diamond, weighing around 5 to 6 carats, set in yellow gold with a smooth bezel-style setting,” Taylor theorized. “It appears to be very similar in size to the ring she previously wore from Channing Tatum, but with a slightly softer and less elongated shape.”
The jeweler added, “Despite being a similar size, the diamond appears noticeably brighter than her previous engagement ring, which can often be a sign of a very well-cut stone.”
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Meanwhile, Kelce broke his silence about exchanging vows with Swift at MSG during the Kansas City Chiefs training camp on August 12.
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“It was a fun offseason, man,” the athlete quipped. “Wedding was the best night of my life. I appreciate everybody who came out and celebrated and had fun with us. That’s about all I really got from that night. It was a crazy night. It was full of a lot of celebration.”
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Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
As for the iconic venue, Kelce revealed, “MSG, man, I always told myself I’d go for a playoff game when the [New York] Knicks were rocking, and my wife went when I was stuck in minicamp. I didn’t get the opportunity to go then, so it’s kind of cool to get to live out my childhood dream of being in that venue, the mecca of all sports venues, being able to get married in there.”
“I can’t thank the owners of MSG [enough] for allowing us to get the opportunity to do that, knowing that we wanted a private event and everything,” Kelce added. “The A/C was cooking, baby. That was the best part.”
Brittany Cartwright is speaking out for the first time since being granted a temporary restraining order against estranged husband Jax Taylor.
“Thanks [to fans] for the support,” Cartwright, 37, told TMZ while out in Los Angeles on Saturday, August 29.
She offered an update about her condition, assuring fans, “I’m OK!”
The Bravo reality star declined to comment to the outlet on the specifics of her temporary order of protection against Taylor, 47.
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Jax Taylor and Brittany CartwrightKevin Winter/Getty Images
Us reported on Thursday, August 27, that a Los Angeles judge granted Cartwright’s request for a restraining order, thereby requiring Taylor to stay 100 yards away from his estranged wife. Cartwright’s request to gain sole custody of their 5-year-old son, Cruz, was denied pending a court hearing.
In her request for protection, Cartwright accused Taylor of exhibiting “coercive control, financial abuse, emotional and psychological abuse, gaslighting and even physical violence perpetrated” throughout their relationship. (Cartwright and Taylor were married from 2019 to 2024.)
Cartwright claimed that Taylor was physically violent during their marriage and allegedly even once threatened to “gut [her] like a fish.”
The Vanderpump Rules alum also alleged that Cruz’s nanny and future school administrators witnessed Taylor acting “aggressive and hostile” toward her during a school orientation on August 10. She suggested that Taylor “has a tendency of not being able to control his anger and emotions.”
Jax Taylor is officially off the market. The Vanderpump Rules alum, 47, seemingly confirmed his newfound relationship with his publicist, Lori Krebs — who was once his estranged wife Brittany Cartwright’s rep as well — via Instagram. On Wednesday, July 29, a fan commented under one of Jax’s Instagram posts, “Surprised you haven’t got your own […]
“Although Jax and I have now been separated for more than two years, his pattern of committing acts of domestic violence against me has not stopped,” Cartwright wrote in Thursday’s filing. “During our relationship, his abuse included threats of physical violence, actual physical aggression, destruction of my property, degrading and humiliating verbal abuse, controlling behavior, invasion of my privacy and financial abuse.”
Cartwright continued, “As of the date of separation, the manner in which he abuses me has changed, but the pattern of abuse has continued. He now uses our required communications concerning Cruz to harass and threaten me, he makes threats of public humiliation on social media and he continuously confronts me during custody-related interactions as additional means of intimidating, harassing, and disturbing my peace.”
Brittany Cartwright is speaking up about Jax Taylor’s romance with their once-shared publicist, Lori Krebs. Chatting to Zack Wickham on the Friday, July 17 episode of her “When Reality Hits” podcast, Brittany, 37, vowed to share how she really felt about it all when the time was right. “All I’m going to say about this […]
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“I made a lot of mistakes and behaved in ways during that period of my life that I’m truly ashamed of and regret and take full responsibility for,” Taylor told Us. “The person I was in 2024, during the darkest time of my life and at the height of my addiction, is not the person I am today.”
He went on to say, “I got help, went to treatment, and today I’m 1 year and 9 months sober. I’ve remained committed to treatment and therapy, working on myself and changing my life.” (Taylor checked himself into a 90-day treatment program in 2024.)
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Taylor maintained that “there are allegations being made” in his estranged wife’s court petition that he “strongly dispute[s].”
“The full story, context and evidence will be addressed where it belongs — in court. I will respect the court’s orders and the legal process,” he said. “My focus continues to be my sobriety, working on my mental health, being the best father I can be to Cruz and moving forward in a healthy and responsible way.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
Generally speaking, mystery shows thrive on suspense, making audiences wait as long as possible before revealing the answers to their puzzling stories. Some shows push this to the absolute limit by drawing out their mysteries over multiple seasons, but others deliver equally thrilling experiences using just a single season. Unlike longer shows or even their big-screen counterparts, these single-season TV mysteries deliver contained yet satisfying experiences, leaving no loose ends (except for dramatic effect).
Obviously, that doesn’t mean every mystery show with a single-season story is automatically brilliant, but the fact remains that some of the greatest mystery TV masterpieces have delivered thoroughly thrilling journeys in just a few episodes, tickling the little grey cells with their complex puzzles and tight writing. Read on to discover our handpicked selection of some of the greatest single-season mystery TV masterpieces you can watch right now.
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1
‘The Innocent’ (2021)
Mario Casa as Mat and Aura Garrido as Olivia in The Innocent.Image via Netflix
Directed by Oriol Paulo, The Innocent is a Spanish mystery-thriller miniseries adapted from Harlan Coben’s novel, revolving around Mateo, a man whose life is upended after he accidentally kills someone. Nine years later, as Matteo attempts to rebuild his life, a mysterious phone call forces him to revisit his dark past, leading to dangerous consequences. Goya Award-winning Spanish actor Mario Casas stars as Mateo, leading a cast that includes Alexandra Jiménez, Aura Garrido, José Coronado, and Anna Wagener.
The Innocent is a well-written, well-acted, and remarkably shot thriller series that keeps the viewer engrossed with suspended tension until the very end. Mario Casas is brilliant as the complicated protagonist, delivering an emotionally raw depiction of a troubled man. Despite its visual edginess, thematic intensity, and good acting, The Innocent is a very underrated Netflix series, but it is simply a must-watch for fans of complex, psychological thrillers.
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2
‘The Undoing’ (2020)
Image via HBO
Created by David E. Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman, The Undoing is a psychological mystery thriller series adapted from the Jean Hanff Korelitz novel You Should Have Known. The HBO original miniseries follows Grace Fraser, an elite New York therapist, whose seemingly perfect life unravels after her husband, reputed surgeon Dr. Jonathan Fraser, is arrested for murder, leading to shocking revelations. Kidman stars as Grace and Hugh Grant as Jonathan, with Noah Jupe, Lily Rabe, Édgar Ramírez, Donald Sutherland, and Noma Dumezweni in supporting roles.
The Undoing is a great example of how classic whodunit tropes can be spun into a modern murder mystery. The film’s gripping narrative explores complex psychosocial and psychosexual themes, elevated by the performances of Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman as they own the screen with their fiery chemistry. Since its premiere, The Undoing has been critically acclaimed for its performances and thrilling narrative, earning Golden Globe Award nominations for both Kidman and Grant.
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3
‘The Night Of’ (2016)
John Turturro and Riz Ahmed in The Night OfImage via HBO
Created by Richard Price and Steven Zaillian, The Night Of is a crime mystery thriller miniseries based on the first season of Peter Moffat’s BBC show Criminal Justice. Riz Ahmed stars as Nasir “Naz” Khan, a New York City student who wakes up beside a dead woman after a drunken and drug-filled night. With no memory of the night before and evidence stacked against him, things look very bleak for Naz until a resolute lawyer, John Stone (John Turturro), takes his case. The series also features Michael Kenneth Williams, Poorna Jagannathan, Bill Camp, and Payman Maadi in supporting roles.
The Night Of is a perfectly crafted thriller miniseries, though often overlooked, which keeps the audience engaged throughout its eight episodes with its deep, character-driven storytelling. Despite beginning with a familiar premise, the miniseries delivers plenty of unexpected twists and edge-of-the-seat tension, elevated by the fantastic performances and on-screen chemistry of Ahmed and Turturro. On its HBO premiere, The Night Of garnered critical acclaim for the storytelling, cast performances, and direction, and it went on to win five Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor for Riz Ahmed.
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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
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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
🔧John McClane
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🎭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.
Rambo
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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
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.
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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.
Ethan Hunt
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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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4
‘The Outsider’ (2020)
Ben Mendelsohn standing next to Cynthia Erivo, who is staring at him concerned in The Outsider.Image via HBO
Based on the Stephen King novel and developed by Richard Price, The Outsider kicks off with the brutal murder of a young boy in the Cherokee City suburbs of Georgia. The child’s baseball coach (Jason Bateman) soon becomes the main suspect, but when troubled detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) begins investigating the case, he discovers contradictory evidence and bizarre clues, leading him to enlist the help of eccentric savant investigator, Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo). The series also features Bill Camp, Paddy Considine, Julianne Nicholson, and Yul Vaquez in key roles.
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Spine-chilling and relentlessly dark, The Outsider perfectly balances supernatural horror, murder mystery, and psychological thriller elements to create a successful TV adaptation of Stephen King’s original work. Even though the HBO original miniseries feels like a slow burn, the story’s nerve-racking suspense holds the viewer’s attention throughout its 10 episodes. The Outsider has been widely acclaimed for its effective adaptation of the source material, the incredible production quality, and the excellent performances, especially those by Bateman, Mendelsohn, and Erivo.
5
‘Bodies’ (2023)
Shira Haas in BodiesImage via Netflix
Created by Paul Tomalin and based on Si Spencer’s DC Comics series, Bodies is a sci-fi mystery thriller miniseries that follows four London police officers across different timelines, between 1890 and 2053. After discovering the same dead body in the same location in the city in each of their respective time periods, the detectives find baffling clues that lead them to a mind-bending conspiracy that threatens all of history. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Shira Haas, Amaka Okafor, and Kyle Soller star as the detectives, with Stephen Graham, Greta Scacchi, Tom Mothersdale, and Michael Jibson in other lead roles.
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A thoroughly engaging sci-fi thriller series, Bodies is a must-watch for viewers who love genre-blending crime stories with a deeper meaning. The Netflix original miniseries features a healthy mix of time travel, alternate history, tech conspiracies, and murder mysteries, elevated by a well-paced narrative and great cinematography. While critically acclaimed for its high-concept storytelling and anchoring cast performances, Bodies remains an underrated miniseries masterpiece and a hidden gem of the genre.
6
‘The Residence’ (2025)
Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp checks the body of Giancarlo Esposito as A.B. Wynter in The Residence.Image via Netflix
Created by Paul William Davies, The Residence is a mystery comedy drama inspired by journalist Kate Anderson Brower’s book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House. After the sudden death of the White House Chief Usher, A.B. Wynter, during a state dinner, renowned detective and avid birder Cordelia Cupp is called in to investigate, throwing the entire White House staff off their game as she uncovers internal politics and twisted interpersonal conflicts. Uzo Aduba stars as Cordelia Cupp and Giancarlo Esposito as A.B. Wynter, with Randall Park, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Susan Kelechi Watson, Edwina Findley, Ken Marino, and more in key roles.
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The Residence is a simultaneously lighthearted and sophisticated murder mystery with a unique storytelling style, oddball characters, and intriguing plot twists that instantly appeal to genre fans. Centering on an idiosyncratic detective and following an assortment of fun characters, The Residence is quite comparable to television favorites like Elsbeth or Monk, but captures more in its much fewer episodes than those longer shows do across multiple seasons. On its premiere, the Netflix original miniseries was widely praised for its style, tone, and Uzo Aduba’s compelling portrayal of the idiosyncratic sleuth.
7
‘Inside Man’ (2022)
david tennant as vicar henry sitting at a desk in inside manImage via BBC
A British thriller drama series developed by Steven Moffat, Inside Man follows Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), a criminology professor on death row with a penchant for solving mysteries, who is approached by Beth, a British crime journalist who is searching for her missing friend. Jefferson’s investigation intertwines with the story of an English vicar (David Tennant) and his increasingly desperate measures to protect his family. Dolly Wells, Lydia West, Dylan Baker, Kate Dickie, and Lyndsey Marshal star in other lead roles.
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Inside Man is a precisely written and executed exploration of how ordinary people arrive at fateful decisions under extreme circumstances. Although the gripping performances by David Tennant and Stanley Tucci are the heart of the show, Dolly Wells’s nuanced performance is an unexpected highlight, adding to the layered and highly engaging narrative. Interesting and inventive in its storytelling, Inside Man successfully draws the audience into a tense mystery, keeping us completely engrossed throughout its four-episode story.
8
‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’ (2022)
Frankie Derwent (Lucy Boynton) sitting on a couch in a flowery white dress and looking to the left with a dry expression in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?Image via BritBox
Directed by Hugh Laurie, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is a British mystery miniseries adapted from Agatha Christie‘s 1934 novel, which centers on the mysterious death of a strange man on a Welsh golf course. When Bobby Jones hears the man’s titular final words, he sets out to investigate alongside his longtime friend, Lady Frances “Frankie” Derwent, chasing clues and evidence across the Welsh coast and the lofty echelons of British high society as they get pulled ever deeper into a convoluted conspiracy. Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton star as Bobby and Frankie, respectively, with Daniel Ings, Maeve Dermody, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, and Alistair Petrie in key roles.
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Among all four TV adaptations of Agatha Christie’s classic whodunit, the streaming adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is arguably the most charming. The three-part series is a witty, fun, and fast-paced caper with incredible period aesthetics and tone that Christie fans are sure to enjoy. On its premiere, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? garnered critical acclaim and sweeping praise for Poulter and Boynton’s performances, as well as the engaging narrative, earning the highly coveted 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
We live in a time when The Super Mario Bros. Movieand various colorful franchise installments have emerged as the dominant form of animation on the big screen. It seems like eons have passed since one of the most challenging animated movies ever made broke through the clutter and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The movie in question is currently streaming in the United States on Paramount+, but not for much longer. It marked a hotly anticipated reunion between star Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski, who were coming off three blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean movies. In many ways, the animated feature was a blank-check project, and true to form, they used the freedom to push the boundaries of the format.
The movie was inspired not by a children’s novel, but by Western classics such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Depp’s prior work such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. One of the most prominent influences on the film’s story was the classic noir film Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson. Unlike Shark Tale, the DreamWorks movie that borrowed heavily from The Godfather, Depp and Verbinski’s film didn’t exactly target children as its primary audience. The risk paid off, with the movie not only winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but also doubling its budget at the box office.
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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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Here’s How Long You Have Left to Watch the Animated Hit on Paramount+
We’re talking, of course, about Rango. The movie features Depp as a chameleon who becomes the sheriff of a town named Dirt and finds himself in a conspiracy. Other voice actors in the film’s cast include Abigail Breslin, Isla Fisher, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Ray Winstone, Harry Dean Stanton, and Timothy Olyphant. Produced on a reported budget of $135 million — virtually the same as the other Paramount and Nickelodeon animated offering of 2011, The Adventures of Tintin — the movie grossed nearly $250 million at the worldwide box office. It now holds a “Certified Fresh” 88% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Rango is a smart, giddily creative burst of beautifully animated entertainment, and Johnny Depp gives a colorful vocal performance as a household pet in an unfamiliar world.” You can watch the film on Paramount+ until September 1, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
The great Agatha Christie, a pioneer of the murder mystery genre and the mind behind some of its best stories, would’ve turned 136 next month. In anticipation, some tantalizing Christie-based projects are on the way. This includes an exciting new Christie adaptation based on her most famous, moustache-twirling crime-solver. The hugely talented Edward Bluemel, who dazzled in My Lady Jane, is the latest to take on the role of Hercule Poirot in Hercule, which has been described as an “intimate study” of Poirot himself.
As well as this, BritBox is bringing to life a new series that features the great Christie herself as a character, alongside other famed literary minds of the time. The new 10-part mystery series is titled The Detection Club, and features Bryony Hannah as Agatha Christie, Miles Jupp as G.K. Chesterton, and Cara Theobold as Dorothy L. Sayers. Asking the question, “What if the creators of our greatest fictional detectives had the chance to solve murders themselves?” The Detention Club is just one of many ways you’ll be able to celebrate Christie’s birthday, but did you know that there’s another way to celebrate that stars the king of action himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Directed by David Ayer, following his critically acclaimed Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña-led gem End of Watch, the action thriller Sabotage is an unofficial adaptation of Christie’s beloved novel, “And Then There Were None,” as a veteran DEA agent is forced to investigate the one-by-one killing of his teammates. The original title of the film, Ten, was even a nod to Christie’s original book title, further adding to the connection. If this sparks your interest, and you wish to uncover the mystery yourself, then Sabotage will be available to stream for free on Plex, starting September 1, 2026.
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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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Who Else Stars in ‘Sabotage’?
Schwarzenegger alone is usually enough to carry a film. However, he is joined in Sabotage by an eye-catching supporting cast, which includes a star of the blockbuster Avatar series, Sam Worthington. Joe Manganiello, Terrence Howard, Mireille Enos, Josh Holloway, and more also feature in Sabotage, which was co-written by director Ayer and Skip Woods, the latter of whom is also known for penning The A-Team and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
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Sabotage will be available to stream for free on Plex, starting September 1, 2026. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for the latest streaming stories.
Time travel is an incredibly difficult plot device to get right. Science fiction typically has no problem coming up with plausible ways to explain elements that don’t actually exist, but different rules apply to time travel. It’s a concept that completely defies the laws of physics, making it a little too easy for writers who don’t know exactly what they’re doing to create logical paradoxes and inconsistencies that make it hard to fully immerse oneself in a show that incorporates time travel.
Throughout history, however, ten particular sci-fi shows have managed to get time travel right. Perhaps, like Dark, they came up with intricate internal rules that make it so that their time travel elements actually make sense; or perhaps, like Life on Mars, they focus on the more philosophical dimensions of time travel rather than the scientific ones. In any case, these are shows which prove that the genre actually can be done well.
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10
‘Continuum’ (2012–2015)
Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron knocked to the ground, looking back in Continuum.Image via Showcase
Canadian science fiction has produced several of the genre’s greatest shows over the years, the Syfy gem Continuum easily being among the best. It’s one of those sci-fi shows that are criminally forgotten, a must-see both for those who love well-crafted and well-written time travel science fiction, as well as for those who love suspenseful crime dramas.
Whereas many lesser time travel shows try to tiptoe their way around the paradoxes that inevitably come with changing history, the way Continuum gets time travel right is by directly confronting those paradoxes and creating a story where branching timelines are the order of the day. Though the show’s rules start to get messier and more tangled up in its later seasons, the show as a whole manages to make time travel make more sense than it usually does.
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9
‘Life on Mars’ (2006–2007)
Life on Mars’ Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler ready for action.Image via BBC
British science fiction often feels like a genre all of its own, and there are very few British sci-fi shows better than Life on Mars. It’s a true masterpiece of a show, that’s for sure, but it’s probably better-suited for fans of gritty police procedurals than for die-hard sci-fi geeks. That’s because the science fiction in Life on Mars is both subtle and sparse, purely driven by the premise of a cop who’s hit by a car and wakes up in the 1970s.
Driven by that relatively simple high-concept premise, Life on Mars finds space to be one of those mystery shows that are perfect from start to finish, every bit as tense and suspenseful as it is creative. The show makes it delectably ambiguous whether what’s going on is actual time travel; and though its sequel series, Ashes to Ashes, confirms that this ’70s setting was actually a sort of limbo for dead and dying police officers, Life on Mars technically still qualifies as one of the most unique time travel shows out there.
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8
‘Loki’ (2021–2023)
Tom Hiddleston as Loki in the series finale of ‘Loki’Image via Disney+
It was only in 2021 that Marvel Studios started making and releasing shows directly tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and though that wave hasn’t produced all that many truly top-tier MCU products, Lokihas a strong case for being the best of the bunch. After a somewhat slow start, this time travel and multiverse sci-fi extravaganza quickly turned into something far wilder and more creative than most of what the franchise had done before.
The series wisely doesn’t even bother to ground its time travel elements in any sort of scientific rigor, instead establishing a high-concept but perfectly plausible internal logic system and sticking to it. The MCU as a whole hasn’t been the same since. The way it all leads to one of those superhero show endings that are genuine masterpieces only further adds to why Loki is a must-watch for sci-fi fans.
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7
‘The Lazarus Project’ (2022–2023)
Charly Clive, Caroline Quentin, and Paapa Essiedu looking up in The Lazarus Project.Image via Sky Max
Yet more proof that there’s nothing quite like top-tier British science fiction, The Lazarus Project is one of the best Netflix sci-fi shows that are a 10/10. Its approval rating of 100% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes is entirely well-deserved, offering a sky-high-stakes spin on typical time travel tropes by telling a story about an organization having to reset time in order to prevent mass-extinction events.
It’s a clever, unique, airtight concept that results in a show that still feels unlike anything else that time travel sci-fi has produced over the course of the small screen’s history. The strict internal logic that Lazarus Project sets up to make its time travel elements make sense works remarkably well the vast majority of the time, and even though low viewership got the show canceled after two seasons, it still feels like it had plenty of gas left in the tank.
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6
‘The Peripheral’ (2022)
Chloe Grace Moretz in ‘The Peripheral’ as Flynne Fisher strapped to a metal machineImage via Amazon Prime Video
Loosely based on the book by William Gibson, The Peripheralis yet another example of a great time travel show that was tragically canceled well before it had the chance to display its full potential. But though anyone who’d rather not watch a canceled show that ends on a major cliffhanger may prefer looking elsewhere, people who don’t mind an unresolved narrative are guaranteed to fall in love with The Peripheral.
It’s one of the best sci-fi shows with fewer than eight episodes, and also one of the time travel shows that’s smartest about its time travel elements. By avoiding physical travel entirely, instead relying on a data-only model that sidesteps grandfather paradoxes, The Peripheral prevents itself from ever driving itself into an inescapable narrative corner.
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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
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Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
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🚀Star Wars
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01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
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02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
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03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
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04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
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05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
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06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
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07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
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08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
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Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
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The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
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The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
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Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
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Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
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A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
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5
‘11.22.63’ (2016)
A man and woman dance with each other and smile as a crowd cheers in 11-22-63.Image via Hulu
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Stephen King adaptations have produced several exceptional TV shows over the years, but it should come as no surprise that the one that may be the best of the bunch also happens to be based on King’s best sci-fi book. Indeed, 11.22.63is an absolutely phenomenal adaptation, a thriller miniseries executive-produced by J. J. Abrams which is as well-written as it is well-acted and well-directed.
Does the time travel in 11.22.63 make strict scientific sense? Not really, but the miniseries gets time travel right by seeing it as more of a supernatural force, treating the past as a sort of stubborn entity that doesn’t stop resisting change. The result is a series that even die-hard fans of time travel shows should find exquisitely different and unique.
4
‘Steins;Gate’ (2011–2015)
Cast of Steins;Gate looking at a phoneImage via White Fox
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Animation is at times looked down on even by the most passionate of sci-fi fans, despite having provided several of the genre’s greatest shows over the years. Case in point: the anime masterpiece Steins;Gate, based on the 2009 visual novel of the same name. It’s one of the best anime thrillers of all time, also widely considered one of the best anime series ever created by fans and critics alike.
The show’s story follows a strict set of rules and internal mechanics, at times even referencing real scientific theories like Kerr black holes and the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. As such, Steins;Gate should keep fans of both hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi equally satisfied, thanks to its understanding of time travel as a concept that deserves rigor and a focus on entertainment value in equal measure.
3
‘Travelers’ (2016–2018)
Reilly Dolman, Nesta Cooper, Jared Abrahamson, and Mackenzie Porter in an episode of TravelersImage via Netflix
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The Canadian-American co-production Travelersstill holds a 100% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and every single positive review that created that perfect score was well-earned. It is, after all, one of the most addictive sci-fi shows ever created, perfectly blending high-stakes time travel with emotionally compelling and character-driven drama.
With its strict physical rules and its limiting time travel to characters’ consciousness, Travelers creates a fluid yet strict internal system that keeps the plot philosophically engaging while also making sense 99% of the time. That results in some incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking storylines, which makes this one of the best sci-fi shows to rewatch.
2
’12 Monkeys’ (2015–2018)
James Cole (Aaron Stanford) and Cassie Railly (Amanda Schull) pointing guns in ’12 Monkeys’Image via SYFY
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Four-season TV shows that are perfect are a rarity, but they sure do exist, as proven by Syfy’s 12 Monkeys. Loosely based on Terry Gilliam‘s ’90s cult classic film Twelve Monkeys, this criminally underrated masterpiece of a show is far and away one of the best sci-fi TV shows of the 2010s—regardless of subgenre—even if it doesn’t usually get as much recognition as it deserves.
Much like the exceptional film that inspired it, 12 Monkeys relies on a rigid timeline governed by a strict internal logic and closed bootstrap paradoxes. This gets time travel right not only because the show ends up making a surprising amount of sense—despite being just as intellectually challenging as any fan of the subgenre could possibly want—but also because it understands the many fascinating philosophical questions that make time travel interesting to begin with, like matters of predestination and fate.
1
‘Dark’ (2017–2020)
Jonas and Martha in ‘Das Paradies’ from ‘Dark’ staring at each other and surrounded by glowing lights.Image via Netflix
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As the years have passed since its jaw-dropping conclusion, time has been kind to Netflix’s Dark, allowing it to age as perhaps the single most universally acclaimed time travel and multiverse sci-fi series the world has ever seen. For people who love Netflix shows full of shocking plot twists, this one should be considered essential viewing, because it also happens to probably be the most intellectually daunting sci-fi show of the last decade.
As complicated and attention-demanding as it may sometimes feel watching Dark, however, it’s also one of the most immensely satisfying experiences a sci-fi fan can have from the comfort of their living room. That’s largely because the show tends to get time travel exactly right, treating it with both mathematically strict rigor and a supernatural sense of mystery. Time travel shows can often be so confusing that they’re hard to enjoy, but Dark treats its sci-fi elements with such a refreshingly nuanced attention to detail that it becomes abundantly easy to enjoy it on every level.
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