Family movies get underestimated all the time because people confuse gentleness with simplicity. They don’t think that a family watch can be simple yet and extremely profound in different ways for each person. No. They just go for the simplest thing so everybody can understand it. Because it’s an easy thing to get.

These 10 movies on this list, therefore, carry grief, loneliness, class pressure, spiritual healing, childhood confusion, and parent-child wounds without making the room feel heavy in a cheap way. And they are warm, strange, funny, sad, patient, and sometimes almost sacred in how carefully they understand what families give each other, what they fail to give, and what children notice before adults think they do. Let’s get started.

10

‘Holes’ (2003)

Image via Disney

The magic of Holes is that it takes a ridiculous premise and slowly reveals a whole moral universe underneath it. The premise follows Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf), who is a bullied kid from a cursed family who gets sent to Camp Green Lake after being falsely accused of stealing sneakers. The place is run by adults who make boys dig holes in the desert every day, pretending it builds character while secretly searching for buried treasure.

That setup could have been a goofy punishment-camp adventure, yet the movie keeps opening doors into family history, racial injustice, friendship, and fate. Stanley’s bond with Zero (Khleo Thomas) gives the story its heart because both boys have been dismissed by systems that never bothered to understand them. The flashbacks to Kissin’ Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette) and Sam (Dulé Hill) turn the dry lake into a place with blood and heartbreak in the soil. The onions, the peaches, the lizards, the mountain shaped like a thumb, all of it clicks together with storybook satisfaction. Few family films make destiny feel this funny and this wounded at once.

9

‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ (1992)

Image via Walt Disney Pictures

It should be impossible for felt puppets to deliver one of the most emotionally sincere Charles Dickens adaptations ever made, yet here we are. The Muppet Christmas Carol stars Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), with complete seriousness, and that choice lets Kermit the Frog’s Bob Cratchit, Miss Piggy’s Emily (Frank Oz), Gonzo’s Charles Dickens, and Rizzo’s (Steve Whitmire) nervous commentary orbit a real performance instead of a joke machine. The silliness has a spine because Scrooge’s cruelty actually hurts the world around him.

The film has a real family-watch power and better yet, repeat-watch power and it earns that through balance. The songs are warm without turning sticky, the ghosts carry genuine unease, and the Cratchit family scenes understand how poverty changes the temperature of a room. Tiny Tim’s (Jerry Nelson) gentleness would feel manipulative in a weaker movie, but Robin the Frog (Nelson) gives him such plain sweetness that the sadness lands softly and deeply. The Muppet Christmas Carol makes Christmas feel communal, messy, and alive, while Caine gives the regret enough weight to make the redemption feel earned. It is funny, musical, strange, and somehow one of the cleanest family films about moral repair.

8

‘Fly Away Home’ (1996)

Image via Sony

There is a very specific ache in watching a child grieve by caring for something smaller than herself. Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) loses her mother in a car accident and moves to Canada to live with her father Thomas (Jeff Daniels), a free-spirited inventor she barely knows anymore. Then she finds orphaned goose eggs, raises the hatchlings, and becomes the only parent those birds recognize. Suddenly, her healing is tied to getting them safely through migration.

The movie’s beauty comes from how practical the emotion is. Amy and Thomas do not fix their relationship through one perfect conversation and instead build it through work, arguments, experiments, ultralight planes, mud, weather, and the insane commitment of teaching geese how to fly south. That’s the family-watch worthy nuance. The flying scenes feel freeing. Both the actors have depth. The story earns that lift through loss. All in all, Fly Away Home is a family movie about grief learning to move again.

7

‘The Secret Garden’ (1993)

Image via Warner Bros.

The Secret Garden follows Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly) arriving at Misselthwaite Manor after losing her parents in India, and she brings with her the bitterness of a child who has been ignored more than loved. The huge Yorkshire house is cold, quiet, and full of rules, while her uncle Archibald Craven (John Lynch) lives in grief and his sickly son Colin (Heydon Prowse) is hidden away like another family secret. Some movies understand lonely children so well that they feel like they are speaking from inside a locked bedroom. This is that kind.

The garden changes the film because Mary changes while touching the world again. She finds the locked space, meets Dickon (Andrew Knott), pulls Colin out of fear, and slowly turns curiosity into care. The dirt, seeds, robin, old key, and spring air make the healing feel physical. Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith) gives the house its stiffness, but the children keep finding life underneath it. The film is gentle in the best way because it believes neglected people can bloom without pretending the neglect was small.

6

‘The Secret of Roan Inish’ (1994)

Image via The Samuel Goldwyn Company

This is the kind of family film that feels passed down instead of produced. The Secret of Roan Inish circles the story of Fiona (Jeni Courtney) who is sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast, where she hears stories about her family’s ties to selkies and the abandoned island of Roan Inish. Her baby brother Jamie is lost years earlier in a cradle carried out to sea, and the adults carry that story like grief wrapped inside folklore. Literally.

The movie moves with the patience of a remembered tale. Fiona listens, watches, wanders, and slowly begins to believe that the family’s past is still alive in the seals, the water, and the empty homes left behind. The coastline feels like a character because every rock and wave seems to hold something unsaid. What makes it special is how naturally myth and family history sit together. Jamie’s disappearance is painful, yet the film never rushes to turn wonder into explanation. It lets a child’s faith in old stories become a way for a broken family to find its way back.

5

‘A Little Princess’ (1995)

Image via Warner Home Video

In A Little Princess, Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews) walks into a boarding school with an imagination so bright that the building almost seems offended by her. Her father Captain Crewe (Liam Cunningham) leaves her there while he goes to war, and she tries to make life softer for the other girls through stories, kindness, and the belief that every girl deserves dignity. Then word comes that her father is dead, the money disappears, and Miss Minchin (Eleanor Bron) pushes Sara into servitude in the attic.

That is where the movie becomes more than a pretty childhood fantasy. Sara’s imagination is not escapism in the weak sense. It is resistance. She shares food, protects Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester), tells stories when the room is cold, and keeps insisting on humanity even when adults strip away comfort, status, and safety. The film has this nice golden light, Indian storybook images, snowy rooftops, and attic magic, but the film is what it is because it’s emotional. And that emotion stays grounded in Sara’s refusal to become cruel after cruelty finds her. It is a family masterpiece because it treats kindness as strength under pressure instead of mere decoration.

4

‘The Black Stallion’ (1979)

Image via Sony Pictures Entertainment

The island section of The Black Stallion feels almost unreal, like cinema remembering what wonder looked like before words got in the way. Alec (Kelly Reno) is a boy traveling with his father when their ship catches fire and sinks, leaving him stranded on a deserted island with a wild Arabian horse. They do not become friends through cute tricks or easy sentiment. Trust grows through distance, hunger, fear, water, and the slow recognition that both of them survived the same nightmare.

Once Alec returns home, the movie shifts into a different kind of beauty. Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney), an old horse trainer, helps him understand the animal’s speed and spirit without breaking what makes him wild. The racing material has excitement, but the island bond is what gives every later gallop its soul. The film barely explains what Alec feels because it does not need to. The images do the carrying. A boy, a horse, the sea, and a connection too pure to be reduced to dialogue.

3

‘Whale Rider’ (2002)

Image Via Newmarket Films

Whale Rider is about Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes), who is born into a Māori community where leadership is expected to pass through the male line, and her grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene) cannot hide his disappointment that she is a girl. That wound sits at the center of Whale Rider. Pai loves him, respects her culture, and carries the spirit of leadership everyone else keeps trying to look past. The pain is that she has to prove what should have been obvious to the person whose approval she wants most.

Castle-Hughes makes Pai feel brave without turning her into a tiny motivational symbol. She listens, watches, learns, and keeps standing near the tradition that keeps pushing her away. Koro’s lessons with the boys, the broken whale tooth, Pai’s school speech, and the beached whales all build toward a story about inheritance that expands instead of closing ranks. The film is heartbreaking because Koro’s blindness comes from love twisted by expectation. Pai’s strength, however, does not reject her people and reminds them who they were supposed to be.

2

‘The Straight Story’ (1999)

Image via Walt Disney Pictures

A man riding a lawn mower across the Midwest to see his sick brother sounds almost too simple until the movie starts breathing. Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is elderly, stubborn, and in poor health when he learns that his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) has had a stroke. Since Alvin cannot drive a car, he sets out from Iowa to Wisconsin on a small tractor, moving slowly enough that every mile feels like memory catching up to him.

The journey is quiet, but it keeps opening into little human encounters. Alvin talks with a runaway girl, cyclists, veterans, mechanics, strangers who offer help, and people who can sense that this slow trip carries more regret than he says at first. Farnsworth gives him a dignity that feels lived-in, especially when old war pain rises through his voice. David Lynch fills the road with fields, night skies, porches, and silences that feel enormous. The film belongs here because family reconciliation rarely looks dramatic in real life. Sometimes it looks like an old man crossing miles because pride finally got tired.

1

‘Millions’ (2004)

Image via Fox Searchlight.

A child finding a bag of stolen money should lead to a simple wish-fulfillment story, but Millions goes somewhere much stranger and more beautiful. Damian (Alex Etel) is a gentle boy in England who talks to saints after his mother’s death, and when cash literally falls near his cardboard playhouse, he sees it as a gift from God. His older brother Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon) sees spending power. Their father Ronnie (James Nesbitt) sees danger once the money’s criminal origin starts closing in.

The movie is bursting with feeling because Damian’s goodness is never treated as stupidity. He wants to help the poor, ask holy people questions, and make sense of death through generosity. Anthony’s practicality brings the comedy, but his bond with Damian keeps the story from floating away. Not to mention that Danny Boyle has made the suburbs feel magical through trains, saints, Christmas lights, and the strange deadline of Britain changing currency to the euro, which gives the boys only a short window to use the cash. Under all that energy is a child trying to find his mother through kindness. That ache is why Millions deserves the top spot. It is funny, spiritual, chaotic, and quietly devastating in the exact way the best family movies can be.

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Run Time

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1 hr 35 min

Director

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Danny Boyle

Release Date

May 27, 2005

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Actors

Alex Etel, Lewis Owen McGibbon, James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan, Christopher Fulford

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Waynesburg University wrestler Jessie Orbin has died after being involved in a fatal motorcycle accident in Pennsylvania. He was 20. 

Orbin “suffered a severe brain injury that was not survivable” on Sunday, June 14, according to a GoFundMe organized in his honor. He crashed around 10:30 p.m. while driving down Linden Road in North Strabane Township, per the Observer-Reporter. 

He was flown by a medical helicopter to a hospital in Pittsburgh, where he later died. 

Orbin had recently purchased his motorcycle, which was “something he had worked hard for and was incredibly excited about.”

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“He loved that bike and was proud of the accomplishment,” the GoFundMe reads. “More than anything, he wanted to make his father proud and continue the family’s love of motorcycles.”

Orbin’s mother, Brianna, died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 37. 

“Those who knew Jessie will remember him most for his character, his loyalty, his work ethic, and the love he showed to his family, friends, teammates, coworkers, and animals,” the fundraising page continues. “Jessie was deeply loved and will be profoundly missed. We are grateful for any support you can provide during this difficult time. If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this fundraiser and keeping the Orbin family in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you for helping us honor Jessie’s life and support his family as they navigate this heartbreaking loss.”

The GoFundMe had raised more than $36,000 at the time of publication. 

Orbin was a senior at Waynesburg University, located right outside of Pittsburgh. 

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“The Waynesburg University community is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of one of our student athletes,” the university said in a statement on Monday, June 15. “Jessie Orbin will be greatly missed. We are sending prayers for God to lift up and comfort his family at this difficult time.”

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Orbin served as a team captain during the 2025-26 season, during which he led the team in total wins, pins, technical falls and major decisions, which included a 38-match win streak in dual competition that dated back to early in his freshman year.

The late athlete’s high school assistant coach, Ryan Dodd, said Orbin “gave it everything he had in the wrestling room.”

“He was a really good kid and a really good person,” Dodd told the Observer-Reporter. “When my kid was 5 days old, we went to watch Jessie wrestle. We rooted for him. He watched my kid growing up and he talked about coming back and helping the wrestling team after he graduated.”

Young and the Restless reveals Patty Williams using her former shrink to hold Diane Jenkins Abbott (Susan Walters) captive so Patty Williams (Stacy Haiduk) can get with Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman). And Patty is paying Dr. Laurence Markham (Jere Burns) big bucks to do her evil bidding, but she doesn’t have unlimited funds.

So, that has me thinking that Patty may have another partner in crime who is actually bankrolling this whole sick plan of hers and it could be Victor Newman (Eric Braeden).

Y&R: Jack Plays Along with Patty’s Demands

This week, after Patty showed Jack the photo of Diane captive and supposedly locked up in a mental institution, Jack panicked and he realized he’s got to play along with Patty’s demands or else a very bad thing might happen to Diane, even worse than what’s happened already.

At the same time, we all know Victor still hates Jack as much as ever. In a recent interview, Eric Braeden explained the reason behind this unending rage that he has for Jack. And the actor said Victor is certain that Jack and Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott) slept together on that infamous night of debauchery. And considering that Victor hired Patty to kidnap, drug, and molest Jack, I could see a world where he is bankrolling Patty to keep messing with Jack and Diane’s marriage.

Young and the Restless: Jack Loops Kyle in

So this week, Jack tells Kyle Abbott (Michael Mealor) that he has to give Patty the performance of a lifetime. He has got to make her believe that he wants her. And of course, Kyle hates this. But Jack is certain that this is the only way to protect Diane and save her from Patty. And Jack thinks if he’s romancing Patty, it will keep Diane safe. But at the same time, Jack thinks that Patty will relax and drop some hints about where Diane is. And that way, Jack can then send the cops to rescue Diane.

But Jack also knows he’s got to play everything just right with Patty. And boy, is she making some insane demands that Jack doesn’t like, and neither does the Abbott family. But he tells Kyle and Traci Abbott (Beth Maitland) they’ve all got to play along. Jack’s already trying to slow things down between him and Patty.

And so Jack’s trying to slowly romance her and convince her without actually getting in bed with her. So he told Patty that he is committed to her, but it’s just going to take some time to adjust because Diane’s his wife and Jack was trying to explain that this is all brand new to him. But of course, Patty is relentless.

Y&R: Patty’s Escalating Demands

First, she insisted that they take their new romance public and demanded Jack take her out on the town. So, Jack took Patty out for drinks so that everybody would see them together. And then when Kyle approached them, Jack played along with Patty’s demands and actually defended her to Kyle, but he already knows the deal.

And when Jack and Patty showed up at Society, of course, Abby Newman (Melissa Ordway) was appalled to see Jack out with Patty. Now, she knows her uncle Jack loves Diane, and Abby hates Patty as much as the other Abbotts do because she’s the reason her aunt Tracy’s daughter Colleen died. Plus, Patty shot not only Abby’s uncle Jack, but also Abby’s dad, Victor, and she nearly killed him. He needed a heart transplant and almost didn’t survive that. So Abby was absolutely disgusted seeing them together, but Jack pulled Abigail aside and explained the real deal to her about Diane being in danger.

Young and the Restless: Jack Shocks the Abbotts

And later, Jack laid it out to the other Abbotts and told Abby, Bill, and Tracy that he’s got to play along with Patty and give her exactly what she wants or else something terrible could happen to Diane.

So, not only did she want Jack publicly dating her, but Patty wants to move into the Abbott mansion, and she wants all the other Abbotts kicked out. It’s just Jack and Patty playing together, pretending to be girlfriend and boyfriend and more. So, Jack told the others they got to go because he’s got to play house with Crazy Patty or else. This is the only way she’ll believe that Jack is all in and that he actually wants a genuine relationship with her. That tells you how crazy Patty is to think that this is plausible.

Y&R: Victor’s Hidden Hand Behind the Plan

So, Jack thinks that he’s going to get close to her and then turn the tables on Patty, but he’s got to be really convincing. So, Jack’s playing his part, but I do think there may be another shock in store, although he shouldn’t really be surprised if it turns out this way.

Right now, Patty’s paying Dr. Markham to keep Diane. And Patty plans to keep her locked away for years indefinitely so that she can keep Jack. And yes, Victor already gave Patty a whole tote bag of cash. That was her reward for kidnapping Jack. But that bag didn’t have enough money to keep Diane locked away long term. As for Dr. Markham, he’s in it for the money, but I don’t think he is her only co-conspirator.

And already he seems to be a bad shrink because he treated Patty and let her go and she’s clearly still crazy. Plus, Dr. Markham seems to have no moral compass or professional ethics. He’s taking money from somebody he knows is nuts, Patty, and doing bad things to a perfectly sane woman, Diane. So, at this point, I totally suspect that Patty’s real partner in crime is once again Victor Newman.

Young and the Restless Does Damage Control

Also, as I’ve said in recent videos, Young and the Restless is doing all this to clean up the broken plot line that cropped up during that Beyond the Gates crossover. And honestly, I think they’re doing it really badly because there was a spoiler for Tuesday saying Diane meets Patty’s partner in crime, but Diane already met Dr. Markham on Monday’s episode and Diane didn’t meet anybody else on Tuesday’s episode. So, the spoilers honestly are just as sloppy as this plot.

I can see though if Patty brought this wackadoo plan to Victor that he would smile and hand her a big pile of cash to do it because he wants to ruin Jack’s life. And taking Diane from him and sticking Jack with Crazy Patty living in his mansion would be sweet revenge to Victor.

And we know that Jack is living rent-free in Victor’s head even now because when Nikki asked Victor about reconciling, that was in like the last week and a half, I think. He said, “Sure, we can get back together if you cut Jack out of your life.” So, Victor’s not letting go of his grudge against Jack anytime soon. And Victor hates that Nikki is still friends with Jack even now.

Young and the Restless: Victor’s Hatred Explained

That’s also why he went nuclear when Nikki was upset with Victor for aiding and abetting Patty’s plan to kidnap and drug Jack. And Victor went insane when Nikki asked, “Did the other people at the fundraiser survive the tornado?” And Victor assumed she was asking about Jack and he blew up and stormed out.

So, you know, Victor insisted that he had nothing to do with what Patty did to Jack before and that he just made bad choices. But Nikki and everybody else knows Victor’s behind it. And now with Diane going missing, I’m sure it won’t be long until Nikki asks Victor if he’s behind that also. But we know he lies like a rug. So I don’t think he will tell the truth.

But I do think Patty needs somebody to finance her sick scheme. And Victor’s got deep pockets and a deep hatred of Jack. So we’ll see how it works out. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Patty dropping by to give Victor a progress report on their latest partner in crime project.

Andy Cohen is excited about the return of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” The series has been off the air since 2024, and when the Garden State ladies return (likely in 2027), it’ll be must-see television. In a new interview, the Bravo figurehead and father of two opened up about why now was the right time to return the series from hiatus, saying it all had to do with Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga‘s recent reconciliation.

Speaking with Variety, Cohen, who serves as an executive producer of the series, said that “The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s” return has everything to do with Gorga and Giudice finally making up.

“They actually have [reconciled], and I do believe it,” Cohen said. “You know, this happened months ago, and we decided not to film anything because, frankly, we’ve seen Melissa — and we’ve seen Joe and Teresa — make up before. We were like, ‘Great, if you’re going to do this, go do it!’ And they lived in it for many months.”

Gorga and Giudice have fought incessantly on the show for over a decade. Their most recent fallout sent the show into a hiatus. However, they shocked the Bravoverse at BravoCon 2025 when they appeared side by side, telling the fandom they were moving forward as a family.

“I remember talking to Gia at BravoCon [2025], and she looked in my eye, and she was telling me things that they had been doing as a family, and she was emotional about having her uncle back and her cousins back. And I was like, ‘OK, good. This is real,’” Cohen added.

Gorga Says She And Giudice Are In A ‘Different Place’ Than They Were In 2024

At BravoCon, Gorga touched on her newfound relationship with her sister-in-law, admitting that the pair were in a much “different place” than they were in 2024.

“Let’s just say that… everybody’s working on it. We’re working on it. We’re trying to move forward and we’ve, you know, hashed a lot of things out privately without all of this. And I think that’s a good thing,” she said.

Gorga went on to say that she’s always wanted her family to be united while filming the series, and their time away from the show helped them both realize what was most important. “Whatever it takes to wake someone up is, you know, that’s how life goes, right? And you never want it to be a funeral or a wedding or someone in the hospital. Like, that’s not what we want. So, this was a more of a natural reason,” she said.

Andy Cohen Teases The Next Season Of ‘The Real Housewives Of New Jersey’

In addition to Giudice and Gorga making their long-awaited comeback, Bravo mainstay Dolores Catania will also be back in the mix.

While the rest of the cast members have yet to be announced, Cohen teased the next season, saying that the network put together a fantastic group of women.

“We have a great group, and this has been a journey,” he said on “Radio Andy.” “This has been a journey. We have gone through… this has been a long and winding road to get to this place, and I’m very excited. What we owe you is a good show, so that’s what we want to deliver.”

Gorga Says She’s Looking Forward To Everything New

Gorga echoed the exec’s statements during a chat with Us Weekly’s official Instagram account. “I mean, I’m excited,” she shared earlier this year, adding that the cast shakeup was a welcome change. “I love a little freshening up,” she said.

“We’ve done this before. We’ve been on this show for 15 years, so we’ve been through a lot of different people, and I’m excited about this crew,” she added.

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Who Is Leaving The Series?

According to a previous report from The Blast, cast members Jackie Goldschneider, Jennifer Fessler, Rachel Fuda, and Danielle Cabral received their pink slips from the network and won’t be featured in the upcoming season.

Margaret Josephs was also booted from the show after seven seasons, and in her departure video, she told her followers that she was moving in a different direction.

“I think the timing is right. A lot of things have changed in my life. I’ve been blessed to work on a different project. I’m on the set right now,” she said. “I realized I have to spend more time with my family, work on my designing, and just take a break and move on.”

Booted “Love Island” star Sean Reifel has responded to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, mayor William J. Reynolds after the politician blasted the 29-year-old for leaving his job as a cop to film the Peacock reality show. During an episode of “Love Island: Aftersun,” cameras captured Reifel’s reactions to Reynolds’ claims. While discussing the moment with producers, Reifel admitted he was surprised by Reynolds’ words, as he had allegedly had a candid conversation with his employer about his plans.

In the first episode of “Aftersun,” the talk-show component of Peacock’s “Love Island USA,” Reifel broke his silence on Reynolds’ scathing statement about his decision to leave his job as a cop to film the series.

“I guess he’s upset. That’s interesting,” Reifel said.

Later, Reifel expressed his confusion over the mayor’s statements, claiming that he had an open and honest conversation about where he was going.

“I definitely had a sit down with my job and told them exactly where I was going and what was happening, and they asked me to put in for unpaid leave,” Reifel shared.

Reifel Was ‘Bothered’ By The Mayor’s Public Statements About Him

Elsewhere in the episode, Reifel said he was irked by the mayor’s public comments about him, given that he was reportedly praised by the department for his commitment and dedication to the city just before he left.

“It does bother me because they – just before I left – gave me awards for like, with my partners, taking a lady out of a building on fire and talking someone off a roof that was mentally ill. So, to give me those, and then do something like this? I just don’t understand,” said Reifel.

While it appeared Reifel had more to say about the situation, he chose to keep his words to a minimum.

“I don’t want to say anything bad about them. I know things can be taken out of context. Everyone in the department knew where I was going,” he said.

Williams Slammed Reifel For Leaving Post As A Police Officer To Film ‘Love Island’

For those who may be unfamiliar with the mayor’s comments, he alleged that Reifel left the city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, high and dry when he walked away from his job as a police officer to find love on TV.

“Our police department spent a lot of time training and we paid thousands of taxpayer dollars to send him to the police academy. We are disappointed he left as we now have another vacancy in our department that is impossible to fill until next year,” Williams said. “I never thought I’d see the day in America where reality show participation wins out over being a police officer.”

The mayor wasn’t the only public official with something negative to say. Bethlehem police Chief Michelle Kott shared a similar statement, saying that while she’s a fan of Reifel’s, she was “disappointed” in him.

“Just because we work so incredibly hard to try to recruit the best people we can to be part of the Bethlehem Police Department,” she said, according to The Morning Call.

Tragedy Hits The ‘Love Island’ Villa

Speaking of “Love Island,” several outlets, including NBC News, confirmed yesterday, June 15, that one of the show’s executive producers, James Barker, died “after suffering an unexpected medical emergency” while filming in Fiji.

While information about his sudden and unfortunate passing has been kept to a minimum, the streaming giant will dedicate part of tonight’s episode (June 16) to honoring him.

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Peacock also released a statement about Barker following his death, calling the 40-year-old “a beloved and greatly valued member” of the production team. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to James’ family, friends, and colleagues,” the statement continued.

Barker’s Partner Breaks His Silence

Barker’s death has negatively impacted several people, including his partner, Adam Roth. While speaking with NBC News, Roth called Barker “the absolute light and love of my life.”

“He brought joy and brilliance to everything he touched. James was such a champion of the community of young music artists he was able to introduce to audiences on ‘Love Island,’” Roth continued.

Continuing, Roth said he was proud of Barker’s work on the series before adding that he was “thankful for the time we had and the memories we made together.”

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In the City’s Andrea Denver and wife Lexi Sundin are expecting their first baby.

“Last fall, we decided it was time to start trying for a family, something we had always hoped for,” Sundin, 26, said in an interview with People on Tuesday, June 16. “Over Christmas, while we were spending time with family, I realized my period was a few days late and had a feeling I might be pregnant.”

Sundin explained she took a test and once she received the positive result she told Denver, 35, the good news.

“It was one of those moments you wish you could bottle up forever,” she continued. “We were completely stunned in the best way and filled with gratitude.”

The couple revealed to the outlet that they are expecting a baby girl and are excited to meet their little one.

“It’s exciting because every week makes it a little more real, and we’re both counting down the days until we finally get to meet our little one,” they gushed.

Denver and Sundin shared that they told their family and friends about the pregnancy before officially announcing their news to the world. The pair bonded with their In the City costars Yvonne Najor and Danielle Olivera too, as the women are also expecting with their respective partners. (Najor is pregnant with her and husband Nick Barber’s first baby while Olivera is expecting her first baby with boyfriend Eoin Heavey.)

“Telling our friends was just as special. It’s honestly crazy that two of our closest friends and cast mates from In the City, Yvonne and Danielle, are also pregnant, and we’re all due around the same time,” Denver and Sundin reflected. “There’s something really special about experiencing this season of life together. We get to share milestones, swap stories and navigate all the excitement of becoming parents side-by-side, which has made the journey even more meaningful.”

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Related: Why Andrea Denver Kept Engagement News a Secret From ‘Summer House’ Cast 

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Summer House star Andrea Denver pulled off the perfect proposal for his now-fiancée, Lexi Sundin. “It was really romantic. It was by the sea in Italy. It was during sunset,” Andrea, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly at BravoCon on Saturday, November 4. “She didn’t expect [anything]. It was in a really romantic spot and we […]

Denver and Sundin also shared that they cannot contain their excitement as they embark on this next chapter of their lives.

“More than anything, we’re excited for all the little moments that come with becoming parents and building our own family. It’s also incredibly special knowing we’re about to make our parents grandparents,” they said. “We feel incredibly grateful and can’t wait to meet our daughter and begin this next adventure together.”

The pair first met in 2021 and their love story was featured on Summer House when Denver was in the cast from 2022 to 2024. Denver and Sundin tied the knot in June 2024 in Denver’s hometown of Verona, Italy. Since then, the couple have joined the Summer House spinoff, In the City.

By Chris Sawin
| Published 30 seconds ago

The Furious doesn’t quite live up to expectations, and that’s probably weird to hear from someone who was highly anticipating the film and enjoys martial arts films in general. Looking at the likes of who made the film, The Furious is directed by Kenji Tanigaka, the action choreographer of Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, and the stunt coordinator or action director on at least a dozen of Donnie Yen’s films from Blade II to Sakra. The fight choreography in The Furious is credited to Kensuke Sonomura, director of Ghost Killer and action director of all of the Baby Assassins films.

A Basic Setup With Elevated Action

The Furious capitalizes on the action and martial-arts elements of a film of this nature, but everything else is lacking. The story is that some bad guys are human trafficking children, and that’s about as deep as it goes. A journalist disappears while investigating a story, but her husband, Navin (Joe Taslim), continues the investigation, going undercover to locate her.

Meanwhile, a young girl named Rainy (Yang Enyou) is abducted as part of the human trafficking ring.  Her father, a mute handyman named Wang Wei (Xie Miao), attempts to track her down and save her himself when the police turn him away for lack of evidence.

Outside of Navin searching for his wife and Wang Wei looking for his daughter, there’s no character development in The Furious. The human trafficking syndicate is run by Paklung (Joey Iwanaga), who is marrying into a gangster family and whose wife is pregnant. His motivation seems to be that because he’s expecting a child and because he needs to maintain his life of luxury, he needs to turn to doing despicable things to other children to accomplish those goals.

The villains in the film have such strange motivations. What makes the story frustrating at times is that the police chief is corrupt for its own sake. The cops are difficult to work with because he’s in charge. The human trafficking syndicate sells children because they can make money. It’s true that you don’t go into a movie like this for memorable acting or a well-written story, but it should also be considered a hindrance when lackluster film elements are this noteworthy.

A Frenetic, And Phonetic Experience

The film does pack a lot of surprises into its action, though. The Furious seems not to be a huge fan of children, as they’re killed and terrorized throughout the film. It’s borderline ridiculous at times, too, as people never seem to die from lethal injuries. Wang Wei gets hit by a car while running and gets back up like it’s nothing. There’s a climactic bicycle duel in the rain, people bite off fingers unexpectedly, and somebody does a handstand, holds a knife with their feet, and then stabs somebody else with it.  

With foreign films like this, it’s baffling why the filmmakers choose to make the films (mostly) in English. When everyone involved is from Hong Kong or Indonesia and English is clearly their second language, it’s evident in their performances, regardless of how much effort they put into it.

Dialogue takes the biggest hit in The Furious because it is slow and broken up in a way that sounds like it’s being performed phonetically. It’s like it’s done in an effort to appeal to a wider audience, since reading subtitles isn’t for everyone, but the majority of the fanbase of foreign and martial arts films are used to it by now. Unless an actor is fully fluent in the other languages they speak, their performance will be affected. The easiest fix is to allow them to speak in their native language so they can feel more confident, natural, and sound more genuine.

Despite the film featuring wushu, judo, and taekwondo as fighting styles, the action in The Furious is reminiscent of Muay Thai mixed with a lot of grappling; think Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior meets Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. And, for the most part, it’s awesome. But personally speaking, it grew a bit redundant. You can only slide on the ground, hit someone with your back, elbow, or knee, suplex, or use a hammer as a weapon so many times before it feels stagnant.

Hammering Its Way To The Top

To be fair, there are some incredible sequences in The Furious, as well. Wang Wei’s first real use of the hammer is so awesome. He’s trapped in an MMA cage, so he uses a hammer to smack and pull people down to build this unconscious mountain of bodies to jump out of the cage. Xie Miao is a beast throughout the film. He spends the first third of the film either in flip-flops or barefoot running in the streets as he chases the men who take his daughter. The bloody feet T-1000 runs combined with the constant pitter-pattering of his feet smacking against the ground will be playing on repeat in your head for a long, long time.

Before the mountain of dudes sequence in the cage, the club sequence is really awesome as Wang Wei shows up wearing steel-toe boots with a picture of his daughter in his mouth and just annihilates anyone that stands in his way. There’s also a sequence where Wang Wei is riding a motorcycle through a tight hallway as Rainy rides behind him and pummels passersby with a pipe. There’s no doubt that adrenaline-fueled innovation pulses through every frame of The Furious, but it loses its steam the longer the fights last.

Tak (Yayan Ruhian) is Paklung’s right-hand man and is a weapons expert. He uses a bow and arrow for the majority of the film and is just as fast and as wicked as you’d expect him to be. The finale is also ridiculously amazing as it involves five different people using five different fighting styles, and it eats up the last 15-20 minutes of the film so effortlessly.

The Furious is one of the best action films of the year, but not the best of all time. It’s crazy innovative, but its unique nature fades as the film progresses. Its ingenuity is swapped for a fast pace that doesn’t let up, so the action is quick but repetitive. It’s a film that deserves its praise with a slight caveat.

The Furious is pummeling its way through theaters now.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 3 seconds ago

The most dangerous thing in the world is a desperate man who feels like he has nothing left to lose. It makes for inherently compelling cinema, especially when the desperation is played with nuance, like in 2025’s Dead Man’s Wire. Based on the real-life 1977 Tony Kiritsis hostage standoff, Dead Man’s Wire is a fictional retelling of the events depicted in the 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line, written and directed by Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, who consulted screenwriter Austin Kolodney and director Gus Van Sant on the historical context of the nationally broadcast incident.

While I’m not here to nitpick historical inaccuracies, nor do I want to because I’m talking about the film adaptation as a piece of cinematic art, I can confidently say that Dead Man’s Wire is a shockingly immersive period piece. I didn’t stop to verify every car make and model or anything like that, but the movie takes place in 1977, and it convincingly looks like something that came out of that era. While mostly shot through conventional means, we’re also given on-the-street footage that looks like it was pulled directly from police cameras, and there’s even some real archival footage peppered throughout the film in a similar fashion to how Weezer pulled off looking like they were performing in an episode of Happy Days.

And I haven’t even gotten to the best part about Dead Man’s Wire: Bill Skarsgård as the desperate man operating in this lane, and he’s mad as hell!

Make Sure You Get The Apology In Writing

There’s a kind of wish-fulfillment arc that plays out in Dead Man’s Wire that makes it all feel so universal. Tony Kiritsis has a bone to pick with one specific person, M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), who, in a botched real-estate deal, undermined the profitability of Tony’s most recent and valuable investment. Knowing he’s ruined financially if he doesn’t straighten things out, he heads over to Meridian Mortgage Company, where M.L. Hall said he’d be to exchange words, only to find out that he ducked out for vacation early and delegated the meetup to his son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery).

Furious and unable to contain himself, Tony assaults Richard and straps a loaded shotgun to his neck with a wire rig connected to a dead man’s switch. Here’s how it works: if you move enough to trigger the switch, your head will get blown clean off. With Richard and the device in tow, Tony holes up in his apartment and begins making his demands to the authorities. He also places crazed calls to his favorite radio DJ, Fred Temple (Colman Domingo), hoping his story will be broadcast so the public will side with him.

As Dead Man’s Wire slow-burns through its second and third acts, we get a clear glimpse into Tony’s psychology, which, to Bill Skarsgård’s credit, is portrayed with care, nuance, and just the right amount of unpredictable explosiveness lingering beneath the surface. He knows that he’s dead to rights. Everybody saw what he did. But he refuses to buckle under pressure until he’s made whole financially and receives a sincere apology from M.L. Hall, who doesn’t want to kowtow to terrorists and is more than willing to treat his son as collateral if it means he doesn’t have to show any signs of weakness.

Something, Something, Capitalism

While it’s obvious that Dead Man’s Wire is an indictment of capitalism, it’s carefully constructed in a way that allows you to appreciate all of the gray areas. M.L. Hall is your perfect corrupt capitalist, to the point where he’s willing to gamble with his son’s life during a hostage negotiation while sipping mai tais on the beach. But it’s also reasonable to assume that he’s a smart guy who knows he’s crossed every t and dotted every i, legally speaking, and believes people like Tony are all bark and no bite.

Tony, on the other hand, is a loner facing financial ruin who initially only wanted an apology. His whole stunt was orchestrated with the intent of exposing the kind of financial impropriety that happens behind closed doors at Meridian Mortgage. Even if Hall was well within his legal rights to screw Tony over, Tony recognizes that the house always wins and questions the ethics of what happened to him. In his mind, he’s the little guy taking one for the team by hurting the company’s bottom line with bad publicity.

Everybody in Dead Man’s Wire is in the wrong, but it shows just how far a man is willing to go when he’s convinced, without a sliver of doubt, that he was swindled out of his nest egg and the institutions that are supposed to protect him have failed him. It doesn’t condone or condemn the violence, but rather examines the untethered rage that’s unfortunately, and all too frequently, the byproduct of living in a capitalist society where the working man is forever getting screwed by the institutions that run his life.

What’s most telling about this fictional retelling of Tony Kiritsis’ most unhinged moments is how the entire ordeal ultimately resolves. Mental health is brought into question, but it’s a hotly debated topic when discussing the real-life incident. It does make me wonder how unhinged Tony Kiritsis truly was before he decided to take this route. If Bill Skarsgård’s performance is any indication, it certainly feels like an otherwise reasonable man pushed to the brink by a series of personal and financial crises. It’s written all over his face when he has to mean-mug for the camera, but his true personality occasionally slips through the facade when he’s trying to lighten the mood or add some levity to an impossibly high-strung situation.

Dead Man’s Wire offers no easy answers to its unfolding story, but I don’t think it’s supposed to. Its delivery is very much, “this is what happened, as authentically as we could replicate,” forcing the viewer to arrive at their own conclusions after watching the whole thing play out. Like most Gus Van Sant films, this one lingers because it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable, as if you’ve got a dead man’s switch tied to your neck and any sudden movement could end it all.

As of this writing, Dead Man’s Wire is streaming on Netflix.

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Pluribus Season 1 finale.As an alum of The X-Files, Vince Gilligan understands the eternal power of the unknown. By leaving viewers in the dark, you’ll keep them wanting more. The creator of Breaking Bad and theacclaimed Apple TV series Pluribus, Gilligan forces his audience to sit through episodes of methodical plot-building and character development, but he rewards their patience with some of the most intense, probing, and dynamic episodes of television in history. When recommending Breaking Bad to friends, everyone was obligated to preface it by saying, “It starts out slow.” With its spin-off series, Better Call Saul, Gilligan and co-creator Peter Gould upped the ante by crafting multiple deliberately paced seasons without an explosive resolution.

Pluribus, which reunites Gilligan with Better Call Saul breakout star Rhea Seehorn, is the showrunner’s apex as a patient storyteller, so much so that many audiences have turned against it after its first season due to its pacing. However, to suggest that the show is boring, repetitive, or anticlimactic is a grave misreading of Gilligan’s artistic touch that has defined his legendary career in television.

‘Pluribus’ Leaves Most of Its Questions Unanswered

The first episode of Pluribus introduces viewers to Carol Sturka (Seehorn), a cynical author residing in Gilligan’s favorite city, Albuquerque, who finds herself in the middle of a traumatic global takeover by an unknown entity. Like Carol, who witnesses the death of her wife, Helen (Miriam Shor), amid the chaos of the world, viewers are perplexed, if not horrified, at what is occurring. Why are all these people dying? How do all the survivors know Carol’s name, including a White House staff member? Most importantly, why is everyone so peculiarly nice? It’s a dazzling episode that drops viewers into this ostentatious scenario and trusts them to make their own judgments.

As the nine-episode season progresses, the audience is given little crumbs that explain the origin and existence of this hivemind, known as “The Others,” who dutifully serve Carol with the intent of making her happy, something she’s certainly not interested in. She first tries to commission assistance from the remaining people in the world unaffected by the virus. Then she turns to performing her own sleuthing and undermining the hive, which embodies what Artificial Intelligence would look like as a cult. After tiresome resistance, Carol begins exhibiting signs of Stockholm syndrome, learning to accept the comfortable but inhuman lifestyle propagated by the Others.

‘Pluribus’ Carol Sturka Is a More Passive Protagonist Than Walter White or Saul Goodman

After its enticing setup, Pluribus does not indulge the audience with a thrilling second act and conclusion. In Gilligan’s previous shows, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) shaves his head and transforms into the first phase of Heisenberg in Breaking Bad, and in Better Call Saul, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) can’t help but lay the groundwork for his titular alter ego by performing numerous cons. Pluribus, which ends with Carol and fellow immune Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) receiving a package containing an atom bomb (an item that Carol previously asked if she could request from the Others), indicates that the story is only starting. The show more or less remains in the same place from the end of Episode 1 through its finale, drawing the ire of some viewers who felt cheated out of dramatic stakes.

Despite Gilligan’s fascination with change and character evolution, Pluribus deals with a protagonist stubborn to change her pessimistic ways in the face of her perpetually happy neighbors. As a reluctant hero, a woman already stuck in a malaise as a frustrated novelist writing low-brow fantasy books, it would be disingenuous to Carol’s characterization if she solved the world’s problems within a season. While it slows the development of the story, her exasperation at the Others’ robotic friendliness is an essential component to the show’s dark humor and grounded quality. The series may be science fiction, but living with advanced technology with the potential to take over humanity is eerily reflective of our present day.

‘Pluribus’ Proves that Slow-Burn Filmmaking Is Vince Gilligan’s Secret Weapon

Image via Apple TV

Having attained the highest levels of critical adoration during the peak of the prestige television boom, Gilligan has nothing to prove, and Pluribus represents an artist in complete control of his uncompromising vision. Even when Breaking Bad was at its most heart-pounding, Gilligan and his creative team always returned to slow-burn filmmaking, visualized by unbroken wide shots of a sweeping vista. Characters who concoct elaborate schemes, investigate documents, and build machinery complement his love for process and procedure, leaving no stone unturned in the world and story-building department. Preternatural private eye/hitman Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) in the Heisenberg-verse is perhaps the North Star of Gilligan’s style, as both shows depict him laboriously dismantling devices and tailing his enemies.

Gilligan’s love for process comes alive in Pluribus, resulting in low-energy scenes without a direct resolution. However, the series is more suited to slow-burning sequences than Breaking Bad or Saul, as the plot machinations are limited to merely watching Carol try to make sense of her surroundings. The series wisely keeps its scope measured — forcing us to focus on one tiny aspect of this global takeover rather than diving into the life-or-death consequences in its first season.

Although time has passed since the nadir of 2020, the listless nature of Carol’s life recalls how we all hunkered down and dealt with grave uncertainty during the pandemic, and this feeling should resonate with all audiences. Interstitials track the progression of time since the Others’ takeover, yet nothing has changed. Slow-burn pacing is not just an artistic flex on the showrunner or director’s part, but also an actor’s showcase. Off the momentum as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul, Seehorn uses the narrative flexibility of Pluribus to express a wide range of emotions, starting with disdain towards Carol’s audience to a strange affection for her chaperone, Zosia (Karolina Wydra).

Pluribus is never boring, but it refuses to hold the audience’s hand — a challenge for those engaging in passive or second-screen viewing. The series taps into your feelings of being stuck in a dead end. First, you try to fight against it, then you begrudgingly accept these circumstances after futile efforts, and then you find yourself longing to stay in a place of eternal comfort. Rather than conveying these ideas out loud, Gilligan uses methodical pacing to track Carol’s psychological status, which has devolved from a noble rebel to being romantically involved with her captor. For some, Pluribus perhaps just hits too close to home as a reflection of recent history and our attachment to technological assistance that enables loneliness.