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Entertainment

Only These 8 ‘90s Action Movies Can Be Considered True Masterpieces

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The T-800 aiming a rifle while John Connor sits in front of him in Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The 1990s were a decade that produced many of the most iconic movies ever made — films that defined many of the genres that are still highly popular with audiences today. Action was certainly one of them. The action movies of the ’90s started as an extension of the ’80s’ one-man army formula, but as the decade progressed, so did its action filmmaking, embracing new technologies to create greater, more spectacular movies than ever before.

Now, to be fair, not all the action movies of the ’90s were that great, and many of them have aged quite poorly. But the true masterpieces of the decade are all still widely respected and have had a significant impact on modern cinema. So, without further ado, here’s a look at some of the ‘90s action movies that can be considered true masterpieces, including some of the most memorable blockbusters of all time.

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1

‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)

The T-800 aiming a rifle while John Connor sits in front of him in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The T-800 aiming a rifle while John Connor sits in front of him in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Image via Tri-Star Pictures

A sequel to 1984’s The Terminator, directed by James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgement Day continues the story of the war between the evil artificial intelligence Skynet and the human resistance, with Skynet sending a new and advanced killing machine to 1995 to kill a young John Connor. In response, a future John Connor reprograms the cyborg T-800 and sends it back to the same year to protect his younger self. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as the titular machine, alongside Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, with Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong, Earl Boen, and Joe Morton in supporting roles.

While The Terminator was a groundbreaking sci-fi action thriller, the sequel re-established both Cameron’s filmmaking genius and Schwarzenegger’s action hero image, turning the films into a worldwide action phenomenon that continues through the 21st century. Terminator 2 is memorable for its high-end action pieces designed with practical stunts and cutting-edge CGI, which make the second film an even better experience than the first. With bigger stakes, high-octane action, and explosive battle scenes, Terminator 2 is easily one of the best action sequels ever made.

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2

‘Speed’ (1994)

Sandra Bullock as Annie driving the bus in 'Speed'
Sandra Bullock as Annie in ‘Speed’
Image via 20th Century Studios

Directed by Jan de Bont in his feature film debut and written by Graham Yost, Speed follows a city bus full of passengers rigged with a bomb, which is set to explode if the speed drops below 50 miles per hour or if the passengers are offloaded. Jack Traven, an LAPD officer, sets out to stop the impending disaster, while Annie, a passenger on the bus, rushes to help him. The film stars Keanu Reeves as Jack and Sandra Bullock as Annie, with Jeff Daniels, Dennis Hopper, Joe Morton, and Alan Ruck in supporting roles.

True to its title, Speed delivers a high-speed, high-tension virtual ride that is sure to keep the adrenaline rushing. The film’s core premise, action sequences, and elements like the runaway vehicle and bomb-on-board, are largely inspired by 1985’s Runaway Train and 1975’s The Bullet Train, swapping the train-based thrills with a bus on the streets of Los Angeles. Speed is not only a perfectly-made action film but also a quintessential ’90s blockbuster that has had a lasting impact on pop culture.

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3

‘Heat’ (1995)

Robert De Niro smirking in Heat
Robert De Niro smirking in Heat
Image via Warner Bros.

Written and directed by Michael Mann, Heat follows LAPD detective Vincent Hanna on a mission to catch career criminal Neil McCauley, who is planning one last big heist before he retires. As Hanna and McCauley go head-to-head in a battle of wits and tricks, it starts to take a toll on their professional lives and personal relationships. Al Pacino stars as Vincent and Robert De Niro as Neil, with Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, and Ted Levine in supporting roles.

Heat is a genre-defining ’90s classic boasting some of the best action scenes seen in 20th-century films, featuring thunderous shootouts and realistic fight sequences. The film is also noted for De Niro and Pacino’s first-ever on-screen appearance together, which resulted in some intense moments between the two stalwarts of Hollywood, making Heat a masterpiece in both action and character drama at the same time. The film has since become a major influence on crime action thrillers, setting new standards for tactical action and fight choreography.











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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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4

‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)

Tom Cruise holding a disc in Mission: Impossible
Tom Cruise holding a disc in Mission: Impossible
Image via Paramount Pictures
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Starring and produced by Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible is an espionage thriller directed by Brian De Palma and based on the 1966 TV series that follows Ethan Hunt, an Impossible Missions Force (IMF) spy, who is framed for the murder of his team members. Ethan then embarks on a high-stakes solo mission to prove his innocence and bring the truth to light. Besides Cruise as Hunt, the film also stars Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Mission: Impossible launched the titular film series, which has since evolved into a three-decade-spanning multimedia action franchise that redefined Tom Cruise’s image as an action superstar. While the film received mixed reviews for its plot and narrative in its day, it was highly praised for the action choreography and stunts, many of which were performed by Cruise himself. The film’s high-tension action sequences, like the CIA vault heist and the spectacular train tunnel climax scenes, are considered iconic of the genre, and the movie has been an inspiration to many subsequent spy action thrillers.

5

‘Independence Day’ (1996)

Image from the final battle scene from 'Independence Day' (1996).
Image from the final battle scene from ‘Independence Day’ (1996).
Image via 20th Century Studios
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A landmark sci-fi film directed and written by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day explores a worldwide attack by an alien race, destroying major civilizations with advanced weaponry and tactics. A disparate group of people, including the President of the United States, assemble in the Nevada desert in the aftermath to launch a counterattack on the titular day to save mankind. The film boasts an ensemble cast, featuring Bill Pullman, Will Smith, Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, and Randy Quaid in lead roles.

Independence Day is a legendary disaster film that cemented Emmerich’s mastery of the genre, and it’s considered a major turning point in the history of action blockbusters. With its high-stakes action spectacles (especially the aerial dogfights), large-scale destruction, and maverick heroes, it led to a resurgence of sci-fi disaster thrillers in the mid to late ’90s. The award-winning special effects and action choreography of Independence Day were groundbreaking for its time, surpassing the popularity of other successful films like Twister and Mission: Impossible.

6

‘Face/Off’ (1997)

Nicolas Cage yelling while in prison in Face/Off (1997), directed by John Woo
Nicolas Cage yelling while in prison in Face/Off (1997), directed by John Woo
Image via Paramount Pictures
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A ’90s cult classic action thriller directed by John Woo, Face/Off follows FBI agent Sean Archer as he obsessively hunts for a terrorist named Castor Troy after Troy inadvertently kills Archer’s son. When Troy is injured and goes into a coma, Archer undergoes an experimental surgery to look like Troy and takes his identity to infiltrate his life and criminal network. John Travolta stars as Archer and Nicolas Cage as Troy, with Gina Gershon, Alessandro Nivola, Colm Feore, Thomas Jane, and CCH Pounder in supporting roles.

Face/Off is an archetypal action blockbuster of the ’90s, defined by its gun-fu action and explosive fight sequences. The movie is stylish, campy, and high-octane all at once, remembered and lauded for Woo’s signature style of action choreography and stunts. Despite all its absurdity and impossibility of plot, concept, and narrative, Face/Off has aged surprisingly well as an action classic, and it’s often noted as one of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage’s best films of their respective careers.

7

‘Rush Hour’ (1998)

Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan with their hands up in 'Rush Hour'
Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan with their hands up in ‘Rush Hour’
Image via New Line Cinema
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A buddy cop action-comedy directed by Brett Ratner, Rush Hour follows Lee, an inspector of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, who arrives in Los Angeles to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Chinese diplomat and is forced to partner with fast-talking LAPD detective James Carter. The two cops navigate their cultural and personality differences in the most hilarious ways while trying to save the girl. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker star as Lee and James, respectively, with Tzi Ma, Ken Keung, Tom Wilkinson, Chris Penn, and Elizabeth Peña in supporting roles.

A ’90s comedy classic, Rush Hour is an electrifying blend of high-stakes action set pieces and authentic buddy humor arising from Lee and James’ opposites-attract chemistry, which is also the biggest highlight of the film. The movie is also considered to be one of Jackie Chan’s best Hollywood projects, especially since he also did the action choreography and performed many of the dangerous stunts himself. While it’s not a rich cinematic or narrative work, Rush Hour remains an iconic action masterpiece that defined the late ’90s.

8

‘The Matrix’ (1999)

Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, freezes flying bullets with his hand outstretched in The Matrix.
Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, freezes flying bullets with his hand outstretched in The Matrix.
Image via Warner Bros.
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Written and directed by The Wachowskis, The Matrix is a cyberpunk action classic set in a dystopian future where most of humanity has been trapped inside the titular simulation. A computer hacker named Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, learns of this secret when he’s recruited by a group of rebels led by the mysterious Morpheus, joining their rebellion against the machines to free humanity from the Matrix. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano star in the main roles.

The Matrix was a highly innovative film for its time, blending hard-core action, science fiction, philosophy, and mythology, and it cemented Keanu Reeves’ status as an action star. The film is a definitive example of cutting-edge visual effects and action choreography that remarkably blends Hong Kong cinema-style choreography, martial arts, and gun-fu. With inventive techniques like “bullet time” and groundbreaking practical and CGI effects in action sequences, The Matrix revolutionized the genre, becoming a benchmark for sci-fi action and cyberpunk films of the future.


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Release Date

March 31, 1999

Runtime

136 minutes

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Producers

Andrew Mason, Barrie M. Osborne, Bruce Berman, Erwin Stoff

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Entertainment

The Only TV Show Siskel & Ebert Ever Reviewed Is a 2-Part Hidden Gem Worth Revisiting

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The-Critic-siskel-ebert

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel are often considered to be among the top tier of film critics, particularly their TV series At The Movies (originally known as Siskel & Ebert & the Movies). The duo was known for their scathing sense of humor when it came to their reviews, along with their famous “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down” system (long before Rotten Tomatoes was a thing). In all that time, Ebert and Siskel never reviewed a television series — except for one major occasion. That review was for the short-lived animated series The Critic, which was ironically about a movie critic’s life.

Created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, The Critic follows New York movie critic Jay Sherman (Jon Lovitz). Much like Siskel and Ebert, Sherman hosted his own television series where he delivered takedowns of movies — most of them parodies of popular or classic films. He even had his own catchphrase: “It stinks!” But what did Siskel and Ebert think of the show? The answer’s a bit complicated.

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It Took Siskel and Ebert Time To Warm Up to ‘The Critic’

Siskel and Ebert would review the first three episodes of The Critic, and their initial reactions were mixed. Siskel felt that The Critic had far fewer memorable characters than The Simpsons, which Jean and Reiss previously worked on. Ebert, on the other hand, felt that the show should focus on Jay’s job rather than his personal life. But the mix of Jay’s personal and professional life is what makes The Critic such a great watch. His interactions with his friends led Jean and Reiss to provide commentary on Hollywood, and he was a single father — a rarity in a sitcom, let alone an animated one.































































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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

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☢️Oppenheimer

🐦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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Once Season 1 of The Critic found its groove, Ebert would eventually write a glowing review on his website. He thoroughly enjoyed it, saying that it was “impossible” not to like Jay, while praising executive producer James L. Brooks‘ work in balancing the show’s humor with character development. Ebert even delivered one of his signature witty observations regarding the pilot, which opens with a beautiful actress turning on Jay after he negatively reviews one of her movies: “In real life (in my experience of it, anyway), critics are never offered bribes for good reviews, and never wind up in bed with movie stars.”

‘The Critic’ Eventually Had an Episode Guest Starring Siskel and Ebert

It might have taken Siskel and Ebert a while to warm up to The Critic, but no one could have predicted that the duo would actually guest star on the series. In the Season 2 episode “Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice,” Jay gets invited to the Academy Awards alongside a select group of critics that includes Siskel and Ebert. But Siskel and Ebert get into a fight on the trip back, and eventually split up; Jay tries to partner with both of them before seeing how much they miss each other, and decides to repair their friendship.

Siskel and Ebert fully lean into the humor of The Critic, riffing on the fact that Jay ripped off the climax of Sleepless in Seattle to bring them together. It’s no wonder Jean and Reiss consider this to be one of their favorite episodes of The Critic.

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30 Years Later, ‘The Critic’ Has Become a Classic

The-Critic-siskel-ebert Custom Image by Annamaria Ward

The Critic weathered some rough storms during its brief run; it moved from ABC to Fox, and a crossover with The Simpsons led to series creator Matt Groening denouncing said episode. It was cancelled after two seasonsbut earned a reappraisal years later. Even the cast loved it! Maurice LaMarche, who provided a multitude of voices for The Critic, says that it and Pinky and the Brain were two of his favorite projects. Lovitz had a similar reaction when conducting an interview celebrating The Critic‘s 30th anniversary:

It’s very flattering, but at the same time, it’s frustrating, because I wish the show would have kept going. It was a hit show, and they just canceled it. So it’s one of those regrets, like: What would five years’ worth of shows that should have been, instead of just 23 [episodes], look like? I’ve been trying to do it again ever since, and they tell me it’s complicated.

The Critic, along with Siskel and Ebert’s work, helped shed light on how film criticism really worked. It’s rather fitting that it was the only TV show they ever reviewed and guest-starred in.

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The Critic is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.


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Release Date
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1994 – 2001-00-00

Directors

Bret Haaland, Lauren MacMullan, Alan Smart, Rich Moore, Dan Jeup, Brian Sheesley, David Cutler, Steven Dean Moore, Susie Dietter, Chuck Sheetz

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Writers

Jon Vitti, Steve Tompkins, Ken Keeler, Patric M. Verrone, Tom Brady, Jennifer Ventimilia, Joshua Sternin, Steven Levitan, Max Pross, Nell Scovell

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  • instar52967163.jpg

    Jon Lovitz

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    Jay Sherman (voice)

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Christine Cavanaugh

    Marty Sherman (voice)

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Entertainment

The Best Crime Shows From Every Year of the 2000s

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Jorja Fox and Ted Danson stand outside a house at night in CSI.

Launching off the platform of prestige television drama set in the latter part of the 1990s, small-screen entertainment in the 2000s is arguably the best it has ever been. This notion is well-supported by the litany of incredible crime series the decade has to offer, with everything from decades-spanning cop shows to serialized dramas revolving around organized crime debuting throughout the era.

Each year of the 2000s flaunts its own array of incredible crime drama, be it in the form of medium-defining classics that continue to be revered among the greatest TV shows of all time to this very day or criminally underrated gems of small-screen suspense that never got the credit and fanfare they so thoroughly deserve. Regardless of their standing in pop culture, all of these series were instrumental in making the 2000s such a golden period of television and have gone a long way to defining crime excellence in the format.

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10

‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ (2000–2015)

Jorja Fox and Ted Danson stand outside a house at night in CSI.
Jorja Fox and Ted Danson stand outside a house at night in CSI.
Image via CBS

2025 marked the first year of the 21st century that no new episodes of any CSI series were released. It represented a sad end to what had become an iconic staple of modern crime television, one that spanned well over 20 years and included five separate series. 2000’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was the one that started it all, running as a sharp and scientific police procedural following forensic investigators in Las Vegas as they use advanced technology to analyze evidence and solve heinous crimes.

An award-winning hit, a critical darling, and one of the greatest ratings successes in CBS’ history, the series ran for a whopping 16 seasons and was frequently praised for its gritty and graphic realism, bold storytelling prowess, and its gripping sense of urgency that made every episode an engrossing viewing experience. Also bolstered by its assembly of unforgettable characters and its process-driven procedural structure, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a true landmark of modern crime television.

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9

‘Messiah’ (2001–2008)

Messiah
Ken Stott as DCI Red Metcalfe marches through a whitened shot in ‘Messiah’ (2001-2008).
Image via BBC

An underrated gem of British crime television, Messiah ran for five seasons through the 2000s but produced just 10 episodes in total, opting for concise narrative suspense and atmospheric thrills over elongated, meandering drama. It stars Ken Stott as DCI Metcalfe, a veteran homicide detective who investigates some of the nation’s most horrific and disturbing murders. As the cases unfold, Metcalfe often finds himself having to brave nightmarish evils in order to find the truth and ensure that justice is carried out.

The first season particularly finds incredible dramatic weight and depth in its implementation of religious factors, with the serial killer at large targeting people with some link to the twelve apostles. While Season 1 is the series’ strongest, ensuing seasons feature similarly resonant thematic ideas, be it the miscarriage of justice or the circles of Hell depicted in Dante’s Inferno. Messiah’s focus, visceral might, and consistent sense of suspense make it not only a great police drama, but an obvious precursor to hit series like Luther that came in the following years.

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8

‘The Wire’ (2002–2008)

Michael K Williams looking to the side with a serious expression in The Wire.
Michael K Williams looking to the side with a serious expression in The Wire.
Image via HBO

It is incredibly easy to mount a case that The Wire stands not only as the best crime series to debut in 2002, but as the finest feat the genre has seen in the history of television as well. Strengthened by a visceral sense of realism—courtesy of the writing of Baltimore crime reporter David Simon and police veteran Ed Burns—the masterful HBO series serves as both an exploration of the hierarchy of Baltimore’s drug trade and a scathing examination of the inefficiency of the police force, the corruption of politics, and the tragic ineffectiveness of integral social institutions.

Each of The Wire‘s five seasons broadens its scope magnificently, allowing what begins as an ambitious though contained narrative of police probing and organized crime to spiral into a city-spanning epic of systemic failure and violence that is undercut by the moral complexity of every single one of its major characters. 2026 marks 24 years since the classic crime series debuted on television, and yet its central message of broken social systems failing the people that depend on them the most remains bitterly poignant and painfully real.

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7

‘NCIS’ (2003–Present)

Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) in NCIS.
Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) in NCIS.
Image via CBS

There is perhaps no greater testament to the enduring appeal and cultural impact of NCIS than the fact that it now stands as the longest-running series of any genre that debuted in the 21st century. A police procedural with an enrapturing spin, it follows an elite squad in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as they employ their expertise and experience to investigate crimes connected to Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

It strikes a perfect balance for 21st-century audiences, juggling the thrills of mystery drama with the fascinating scientific allure of modern police procedurals while still wielding a powerful and resonant family dynamic between the core characters. It is exciting and snappy, and often prepared to venture to dark places, but it is also comforting and cozy. Its long-standing success is evidenced not only by the original NCIS series’ 23-season run (with more on the way), but also by the growing franchise of the show through spin-offs like NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: Sydney.

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6

‘Veronica Mars’ (2004–2007; 2019)

Kristen Bell in her classic camera pose in 'Veronica Mars.'
Kristen Bell in her classic camera pose in ‘Veronica Mars.’
Image via Hulu

Wonderfully clever in how it blends teen schoolyard drama with neo-noir mystery intrigue, Veronica Mars is a cherished cult gem of crime television that thrives on the back of Kristen Bell’s lead performance. She stars as the eponymous Veronica Mars, the daughter of a detective who leans on her father’s tutelage as she moonlights as a private detective. The first two seasons see Veronica tackle a multitude of cases while investigating overarching mysteries, while Season 3 embraces a more episodic approach.

In addition to featuring arresting characters and a faultless balance of episodic and serialized cases, Veronica Mars also soars with its sharp social commentary, with its setting in the fictional Californian town of Neptune having a stark contrast between the wealthy and the working class. The series was abruptly axed following its third season, but its fan following remained and even grew, with the enduring popularity of the series inspiring a 2014 film and even a revival series in 2019.













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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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5

‘Criminal Minds’ (2005–Present)

Thomas Gibson, Matthew Gray Gubler, Shemar Moore, Joe Montagna, Ian Anthony Dale looking at an interrogation mirrored glass in Criminal Minds
Thomas Gibson, Matthew Gray Gubler, Shemar Moore, Joe Montagna, Ian Anthony Dale in Criminal Minds
Image via CBS

Another long-running gem of American television that has become a defining backbone of crime drama, Criminal Minds has continuously enthralled viewers with its emphasis on psychological profiling and the inviting dynamic of its central characters. It follows a team of investigators in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit as they delve into the minds of the most evil and sadistic criminals in order to identify their trigger points, reveal their identities, and apprehend them before they can strike again.

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It finds a somewhat counter-intuitive yet absorbing balance between the formulaic comfort of police procedural drama and the confronting, realistic details of the cases the team investigates. Its endeavor to pry beyond the simple “how” of the crimes they work and delve into what compels a human being to carry out such heinous acts is a defining point of difference that makes Criminal Minds more enticing than the average cop show. With 19 seasons thus far, and more on the way, the hit CBS series is one of the biggest crime series of all time.

4

‘Psych’ (2006–2014)

Shawn and Gus making growl faces with hands up in Psych
Shawn and Gus making growl faces with hands up in Psych
Image via USA Network

The marriage of traditional crime elements and fun, inviting comedy has become something of a trend in 21st-century television, from early series like Monk to modern sensations like Only Murders in the Building. A pioneering triumph of this niche is USA Network’s irreverent hit series Psych, which follows a police consultant with such acute observational instincts that he is viewed by many to be psychic as he works for the Santa Barbara Police Department alongside his reluctant partner and childhood friend.

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Remarkably accessible, the handling of its crime mystery elements is joyfully light-hearted, with its warm tone of good-natured fun beautifully complementing its focus on the bromance dynamic between Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and Burton “Gus” Guster (Dulé Hill). Referential, absurd, and laced with delightful celebrity cameos, Psych’s magnetic eight-season run is the pinnacle of buddy cop exuberance, making it a beloved cult hit of 2000s television that not only ran well into the 2010s but spawned three follow-up films as well.

3

‘The Killing’ (2007–2012)

The Killing
Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) stands in a field on an overcast day, scanning the area while surveying her map in ‘The Killing’ (2007-2011).
Image via DR1

Throughout the 2010s in particular, the international subgenre of “Nodic noir” television grew from being a relatively niche category of bleak mystery suspense to one of the defining trends in cop drama on the small screen. The first season of The Killing was instrumental in developing this wave of interest. It follows Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) as she, on the cusp of relocating to a small town with her young family, finds herself growing obsessed with a case with political connections revolving around the discovery of a teenage girl’s body in the trunk of a car.

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Both of the subsequent seasons also follow Lund as she investigates murder cases with ties to governmental figures while making excellent use of Nordic noir’s trademark air of cold hostility and grim brutality to conjure an atmosphere of captivating drama. Its slow-burn approach also proved to be ahead of its time, with its structure—seeing an investigation unfold over the course of a season—allowing for more methodical and measured pacing at a time when mystery drama television was largely defined by episodic procedural series.

2

‘Breaking Bad’ (2008–2013)

Walter White faces Jesse and looks emotional in Breaking Bad.
Walter White faces Jesse and looks emotional in Breaking Bad.
Image via Netflix

Throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, television saw the rise of the anti-hero protagonist, complex and morally flawed leads whose high-stakes lifestyles led them down a path of corruption and compromise. Breaking Bad is one of the greatest examples of this, any form of storytelling that has ever been seen, following high school teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he starts cooking methamphetamine to accrue money for his family after being diagnosed with inoperable cancer. As he becomes more embroiled in the drug trade, however, his admirable motives give way to a ruthless lust for power and moral decay.

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The series evolves magnificently throughout its five-season run, starting as a compelling and deeply relatable character drama laced with dark comedy before gradually turning into one of the most relentlessly suspenseful and confronting series television has ever seen. Complemented by its note-perfect series finale, Breaking Bad is one of the most rewarding and engrossing TV shows of all time, a defining masterpiece of crime drama that continues to stand as one of the most revered stories of the 21st century thus far.

1

‘Southland’ (2009–2013)

Southland cast in a poster for the series walking together in a city parking lot
Southland cast in a poster for the series
Image via TNT

While it was perhaps too derivative of series like The Shield to truly thrive at the time, Southland can still be considered one of the most underrated and sorely forgotten crime series of its time. Starting off strong and only getting better throughout its five-season run, it follows the work and lives of cops in the LAPD, exploring their career aspirations and obstacles in their personal lives while delivering an unflinching look at the nature of policing.

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Even as it steered away from the serialized format of its first season in Season 2 and beyond, the series stayed true to its realistic and raw approach to its story, striving to show how the exhausting tension and morally challenging nature of law enforcement have a serious impact on cops. It is humane and sympathetic, but it never shies away from depicting its integral characters as deeply flawed people who change drastically over time. It was sadly canceled after its fifth season, but it remains a hidden gem of crime television that thrives with its air of authenticity and litany of brilliant performances.


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Southland


Release Date
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2009 – 2013-00-00

Directors

Christopher Chulack, Nelson McCormick, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, Allison Anders

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Writers

Ann Biderman, Dee Johnson, Mitchell Burgess, Robin Green, Diana Son, Angela Amato Velez

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Hulu’s 7-Part Psychological Thriller Is Perfect To Binge This Weekend

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Murder_At_The_End_Of_The_World_Scariest_Character

November 2023 saw the debut of A Murder at the End of the World, starring Emma Corrin as amateur detective and true crime writer Darby Hart. When the series begins, Darby is invited to a mysterious billionaire’s private retreat at a remote hotel in Iceland. What begins as a thrilling opportunity, however, soon turns unexpectedly deadly. The OA creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij craft a shocking yet oddly intimate modern take on the traditional murder mystery, making A Murder at the End of the World the perfect weekend binge.

What Is ‘A Murder at the End of the World’ About?

Shortly after the publication of her first book, Darby is invited to a retreat hosted by tech billionaire Andy Ronson (Clive Owen). She’s joined by a diverse group of celebrities, artists, activists, and inventors, including city architect Lu Mei (Joan Chen), doctor Sian Cruz (Alice Braga), and filmmaker Martin Mitchell (Jermaine Fowler). Ronson’s retreat aims to bring this eclectic collective of original thinkers together to find solutions to the climate crisis. Also at the retreat is Ronson’s wife, the once-famous hacker and Darby’s personal idol, Lee Andersen (Marling), and their young son, Zoomer (Kellan Tetlow). Darby’s ex-boyfriend, Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson), even joins the retreat later on for vague reasons. However, Darby’s luxurious getaway quickly becomes a nightmare when someone in the group is murdered, and it’s up to this amateur sleuth to figure out why before the killer can strike again.

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There’s a ‘Babygirl’/’Nosferatu’ Team-Up You Probably Didn’t Know About

This FX murder mystery stars both Harris Dickinson and Emma Corrin.

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The series’ cast is fantastic, made up of interesting, well-rounded characters that modernize the classic whodunit. Owen plays Ronson with intriguing charisma and cunning aloofness, somewhere between Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Corrin brings both an extraordinary relatability and distinctive punk-rock energy to their performance, creating a compelling Gen Z update for the classic detective protagonist.

‘A Murder at the End of the World’ Takes Place in a Chilling Setting

A huge part of what makes A Murder at the End of the World so exciting is the show’s primary setting, with the title itself referring to Ronson’s remote hotel in Iceland. Its eerily secluded location, far from civilization, makes it the perfect setting for a murder mystery, and the state-of-the-art fortress also houses Ronson’s new digital AI assistant, Ray (Edoardo Ballerini). The high-tech environment highlights how the more intimate sense of humanity gets lost amid new and improved digital comforts.

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Early in the retreat, Ronson expresses his hope of solving the climate crisis while there is still time, estimating that catastrophic events will occur by 2050 — and giving dual meaning to the show’s title. The hotel comes to represent a type of sanctuary, which takes on a much more ominous definition after a murder occurs within its walls. While the series’ setting is awe-inspiring, lavish, and futuristic, it’s also hiding dark secrets of its own, making it the perfect location to solve a mystery.

‘A Murder at the End of the World’ Utilizes an Intriguing Dual Narrative

Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in A Murder at the End of the World
Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in A Murder at the End of the World
Image via FX

A Murder at the End of the World‘s primary mystery unfolds in its present timeline, but Marling and Batmanglij opt for a twisty dual narrative with flashbacks to a previous case, which Darby eventually writes about in her first book, The Silver Doe. The flashback scenes also provide more context for Darby and Bill’s relationship, which often shares surprising parallels to the present-day mystery. At times, Darby’s “Silver Doe” case is just as, if not more, exciting than the investigation unfolding in Iceland.

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Each episode of A Murder at the End of the World nicely escalates the tension and suspense, with a shocking reveal in the final act. Thanks to its format, the characters and their various subplots have more room to breathe than a typical murder mystery movie. As a result, Marling and Batmanglij’s series is more reminiscent of a complex novel with long chapters rather than a summary of the main bullet points, making the expertly crafted 7-part psychological thriller the perfect weekend binge.

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After 7 Years, Apple TV’s Grounded Space Epic Is Struggling To Keep American Audiences Hooked

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For many Apple TV shows, a premature cancellation is rare. High-quality storytelling and proper endgames mean that most shows get to tell their stories to their natural conclusions. Still, some shows do suffer from external factors such as cast changes, production delays, and shifts in storytelling. The latter can be catastrophic when viewers realize that the product they currently have is not what they signed up for, and it can lead to decreased viewership, something that is becoming evident for one of Apple TV’s oldest shows.

The sci-fi drama has been one of the streamer’s top performers since it launched in 2019. The series was among the shows that introduced viewers to the fledgling service, which has since made a name for itself by delivering high-quality shows that have attracted award nominations and wins. Apple TV is also building its library, and competition is stronger than ever. This explains why the show in question, For All Mankind, is struggling to hold viewers’ attention seven years later.

The new season has underperformed on streaming, being overtaken by more popular titles like Your Friends & Neighbors and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The show is barely making the top five globally according to FlixPatrol’s streaming data, and in some countries where it used to perform well, viewers don’t seem as invested. In America, For All Mankind is ranked eighth at the time of writing, a sign that viewers prefer fresher offerings. Despite a 90% critics’ score on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, viewers are not impressed with For All Mankind Season 5, giving it a mere 46% on the same site.

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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz
Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like?
Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky

Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🏜️Paul Atreides

🖖Capt. Kirk

Princess Leia

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🔦Ellen Ripley

🔥Max Rockatansky

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01

How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher?
The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.





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02

What is your greatest strength in a crisis?
The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.





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03

What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for?
Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.





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04

How do you relate to the people around you?
Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.





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05

You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do?
How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.





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06

What has your heroism cost you personally?
Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.





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07

How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in?
Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?





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08

When everything is on the line, what keeps you going?
The answer is the most honest thing about you.





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Your Hero Has Been Identified
Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…

Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.

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Arrakis · Dune

Paul Atreides

You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.

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  • You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
  • You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
  • Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
  • That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.


USS Enterprise · Star Trek

Captain Kirk

You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.

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  • You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
  • Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
  • Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
  • That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.


The Rebellion · Star Wars

Princess Leia

You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.

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  • You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
  • You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
  • Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
  • That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.


The Nostromo · Alien

Ellen Ripley

You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.

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  • You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
  • Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
  • You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
  • When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.


The Wasteland · Mad Max

Max Rockatansky

You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.

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  • You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
  • Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
  • Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
  • That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.

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What Did Critics Say About ‘For All Mankind’ Season 5?

The score on Rotten Tomatoes is a clear sign that most critics were impressed by the show’s recent jump as it introduces new conflicts and characters. Collider’s Therese Lacson praised it for delivering a clean transition to the new generation. “As the show weaves together original characters with new arrivals, For All Mankind makes it clear that this is not only a multi-generational story, but one that thrives on the unlikely connections between people,” she wrote in her review of For All Mankind Season 5. Ben Gibbons called the season a “wonderful entry” in his review for Screen Rant while Katie Doll of CBR called it the “riskiest era” yet for the show, anticipating that “a lot of fans aren’t going to like [it].

New episodes of For All Mankind Season 5 stream on Apple TV on Fridays. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date

2019 – 2027-00-00

Network
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Apple TV

Directors

Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Andrew Stanton, Meera Menon, Dan Liu, Allen Coulter, Craig Zisk, Dennie Gordon, John Dahl, Lukas Ettlin, Wendey Stanzler, Seth Gordon, Sylvain White, Michael Morris, Maja Vrvilo, Sarah Boyd

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Writers

Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, Ben Nedivi, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Nichole Beattie, Joe Menosky

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Bethenny Frankel Hard Launches New Boyfriend With PDA Photo

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Bethenny Frankel Through the Years

Bethenny Frankel has officially hard-launched a relationship with her new boyfriend Shane Campbell.

“If a launch 🚀 is hard this is a diamond…,” the Real Housewives of New York City alum, 55, revealed via Instagram on Saturday, May 9, alongside a PDA-filled photo with her new beau.

Several Bravoverse favorites celebrated Frankel’s hard launch and her kiss with her new boyfriend under a glittering disco ball.

“Launch it baby !!! ONE LIFE,” Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga encouraged Frankel, with Orange County alum Gretchen Rossi sharing multiple heart-eye emojis.

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Page Six reported in April that Frankel was dating Campbell, a Miami-based investment banker. They stepped out together at the Global Champions Arabians Tour in Miami Beach that same month.

Us Weekly has reached out to Frankel’s spokesperson for comment.

Frankel was first married to entertainment executive Peter Sussman from 1996 to 1997 and later chronicled her courtship with her future second husband, Jason Hoppy, on her RHONY spinoff Bethenny Ever After. Hoppy, 54, and Frankel’s March 2010 wedding at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City was filmed for the Bravo special Bethenny Getting Married.

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The couple welcomed a daughter, Bryn, in May 2010. After Frankel filed for divorce from Hoppy in January 2013, a custody battle dragged on for nearly a decade before it was finally resolved in January 2021.

During a December 2025 appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Frankel insisted that her divorce from Hoppy was the most painful experience of her life.

Bethenny Frankel Through the Years


Related: Bethenny Frankel Through the Years

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Bethenny Frankel has made contestant headlines ever since she got her start in reality TV. Frankel made her first reality TV appearance in 2005 on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. She finished as the runner-up in the competition for her BethennyBakes business, which made egg-free, wheat-free and dairy-free cookies and meal delivery in New York. Following […]

“I have seen my mother slit her wrists. I have lived my whole life chasing her into bathrooms, trying to catch her throwing up. I’ve been around guns, the mafia, the race track. I’ve been through everything,” Frankel explained to host Alex Cooper. “I have seen everything. Nothing compares to what my divorce was for 10 years.”

She continued, “It was so traumatic. It was 10 years of my life. I lost hair. I thought I would never survive it. I didn’t want to. I had to because of my daughter. I literally thought I’ll never be happy again.”

Frankel explained to Cooper that she managed the trauma one day at a time in order to navigate years of courtroom showdowns with her ex.

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“I treated it like a marathon, and I went one mile at a time, and I checked every box,” she said. “It was fraud, it was stealing, it was hacking, it was harassment, it was abuse.”

(Hoppy has denied any wrongdoing towards Frankel.)

GettyImages-2238186094 Bethenny Frankel Hard Launches New Boyfriend With PDA Photo

Bethenny Frankel walks the runway in Paris.
Francois Durand/Getty Images

Following Frankel’s divorce, Real Housewives of New York City viewers got rare glimpses into the Skinnygirl mogul’s on-off romance with Dennis Shields, who died at age 51 in August 2018 from a suspected drug overdose.

Frankel has continued to pay touching tribute to Shields in the years since his death, including with a 2020 memorial on his birthday.

“Happy Birthday Dennis … Thinking of you today and every day,” she wrote via Instagram in February 2020. “It’s been tough recently because the world lost another legend and so many innocent lives. You are gone but never will be forgotten. You are missed. You are constantly quoted. You are one of a kind. … We miss you.”

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‘Baby Reindeer’ Creator’s New 6-Part HBO Max Series Is Quietly Taking Over Streaming

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Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell in Half Man

When Richard Gadd‘s Netflix thriller Baby Reindeer first debuted on Netflix in 2024, no one could have expected the phenomenon it would become. In fact, even after its first week, many still couldn’t have predicted its success, with the show earning a 49% viewership surge in its second week as the world continued to talk about it. The show broke into the Top 10 most-viewed English TV series of all time, earning roughly 90 million views in just 90 days. It’s safe to say that Baby Reindeer is one of the biggest breakout hits on Netflix ever.

Gadd, who wrote and starred in the series based on his own tragic experience, also became a breakout star thanks to Baby Reindeer‘s success, with many waiting patiently to see what he could conjure up next. That next project, Half Man, was picked up by HBO instead of Netflix, and already seems like a smart acquisition that aligns neatly with the streamer’s recent move to the UK and Ireland. The series follows two half-brothers, Niall (Jamie Bell) and Ruben (Gadd), as an explosion of present-day violence transports us back through the most pivotal moments in their lives.

Baby Reindeer was a tough act to follow, and Half Man might not quite live up to its predecessor. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, this new series has earned a respectable 76% from critics, falling far short of the near-perfect 99% earned by Baby Reindeer. In a review by Collider’s Therese Lacson, she dubbed the series “masterfully tense,” adding that “the themes of obsession, guilt, addiction, and a desperate search for peace in a life full of chaos have become Gadd’s calling card.”

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Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz
Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In?
The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey’s

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🔬House

🩺Scrubs

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01

A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct?
Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.





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02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place?
The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.





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03

What do you actually want from the people you work with?
Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.





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04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it?
Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.





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05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work?
Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.





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06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure?
Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.





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07

What does this job cost you personally?
Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?





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08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back?
The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.





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Your Assignment Has Been Made
You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

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Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.

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  • You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
  • You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
  • You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
  • Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.


County General Hospital, Chicago

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

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  • You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
  • You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
  • You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
  • ER is television about endurance. You have it.


Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle

Grey’s Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

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  • You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
  • Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
  • You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
  • It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.


Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

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  • You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
  • You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
  • Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re smart enough to keep up.
  • The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.


Sacred Heart Hospital, California

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

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  • You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
  • You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
  • You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
  • Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

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‘Half Man’ Is a Global Hit on HBO Max

Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell in Half Man
Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell in Half Man
Image via HBO

At the time of writing, Half Man is the fourth most-watched show on HBO Max in the world, scoring top ten spots across the globe from Brazil and Italy to Switzerland and the U.S. Just three shows are currently proving more popular on the streamer, including the third-placed smash-hit medical drama The Pitt, which won five Primetime Emmy Awards for its opening season. Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage is keeping the world laughing in second place, with the controversial third season of Euphoria topping the global charts.

Half Man is streaming now on HBO Max. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.


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Release Date

2026 – 2026-00-00

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Network

BBC One

Directors
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Alexandra Brodski, Eshref Reybrouck

Writers

Richard Gadd

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Jason Statham’s 138-Minute Action Frenzy Is Officially Taking Over Streaming Worldwide

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Jason Statham on the red carpet

2026 hasn’t exactly been a picture-perfect start to the year so far for Jason Statham, who began with his latest action thriller, Shelter. In the days before its arrival in theaters, Shelter was backed by the best reviews of any Statham-led action thriller in 10 years, but the film grossed only $54 million at the box office against a $50 million budget, making it one of the bigger flops of Statham’s career. It has since found redemption as one of the most popular movies in the world on streaming VOD platforms like Prime Video, but it likely isn’t enough to recover from its underwhelming box office performance. Statham will have a shot at redeeming himself this summer when his new action thriller, Mutiny, hits theaters on August 21. The film also features Peaky Blinders star Annabelle Wallis. At the start of 2027, Stathan will also return in the highly anticipated sequel to The Beekeeper.

Fans could spend hours arguing about which Jason Statham movie is the best, but one that’s undeniably one of the most entertaining is Hobbs & Shaw, the Fast & Furious spin-off that co-stars Dwayne Johnson. The film premiered back in 2019, and after several appearances from Statham and Johnson as Deckard Shaw and Luke Hobbs in previous Fast & Furious movies, it was clear the duo was ready to expand the franchise with its first big blockbuster spin-off. The film was a massive hit, grossing $760 million at the box office against a $200 million budget, and earning scores of 67% from critics and 88% from audiences on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Hobbs & Shaw is no longer on streaming anywhere in America, but the film is still one of the most popular VOD purchases in several countries around the world.

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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

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🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





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02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





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04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





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05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





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07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





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08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





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09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

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Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

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Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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What Is ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw’ About?

Hobbs & Shaw follows the two titular characters as they reluctantly agree to team up and take down the cybernetically enhanced Brixton (played by Idris Elba), who wants to wipe out humanity under the guise of helping it evolve. Along the way, the duo teams up with Deckard Shaw’s sister, Hattie (played by Vanessa Kirby), and reunite with Luke Hobbs’ older brother, Jonah (played by Cliff Curtis). David Leitch directed Hobbs & Shaw with a script from Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce.

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Check out Hobbs & Shaw on VOD platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV, and stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates and coverage of Statham’s future projects.


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Release Date
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August 2, 2019

Runtime

137 minutes

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10 Comedy Shows That Will Keep You Hooked From Start to Finish

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Homelander stands between The Deep and Black Noir, smirking in The Boys

Everyone needs a good laugh in times of crisis. If therapy doesn’t quite cut it, comedy shows can be a cheaper way to get your daily dose of laughter. While comedy is often associated with sitcoms, it has evolved over the years, branching into various genres and subgenres — from obvious prank shows to more sardonic, self-deprecating, and dark humor.

Of course, everyone’s taste in comedy is different, but one thing’s for sure: some shows do it better than others, leaving you wanting more. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that everyone’s laughing while watching the shows below. Without further ado, here are comedy shows that will keep you hooked from start to finish.

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10

‘The Boys’ (2019–Present)

Homelander stands between The Deep and Black Noir, smirking in The Boys
Homelander stands between The Deep and Black Noir, smirking in The Boys
Image via Prime Video

With all the gore, blood, and brutal killings, The Boys might not be the most obvious choice for a comedy. But with its absurd lineup of morally declining Supes, the series flips the traditional superhero trope on its head, turning heroism into shallow hedonism. They’re the antithesis of idealized American values, with powers that could annihilate anyone in seconds.

Still, in between the chaos, the show delivers plenty of dark comedy that can make audiences laugh and cringe at the same time. The humor ranges from sharp satire—like A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) “charity” trip to Africa as a PR stunt—to outright absurdity, such as The Deep’s (Chace Crawford) borderline romantic relationship with an octopus. The constant twists and over-the-top moments make The Boys incredibly easy to binge.

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9

‘Archer’ (2009–2023)

The main characters of Archer are standing in an office, one holding a letter and one holding champagne.
The main characters of Archer are standing in an office, one holding a letter and one holding champagne.
Image via FX

When audiences think of spies, they usually picture the suave James Bond or the rugged Ethan Hunt. But Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is neither. Sure, he wears the suits and carries the guns in Archer, but he’s also everything a spy shouldn’t be—someone with alcoholism, a womanizer, and loaded with unresolved mommy issues.

The funniest part is that he has zero interest in fixing any of it. Still, despite his immaturity and complete lack of regard for other people’s feelings, he’s actually great at his job. With a new mission in almost every episode, Archer shows just how capable he can be—and how badly he can mess things up thanks to his childish temperament. Archer is a comedy show that stays so bingeable because every mission somehow spirals into an even bigger disaster thanks to the team’s ridiculous decisions.

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8

‘The Eric Andre Show’ (2012–2023)

Eric André's arm on fire in The Eric Andre Show Image via Adult Swim

Forget The Late Show and The Tonight Show—these coveted staples have nothing on The Eric Andre Show. Using the traditional talk show format as a setup, Eric Andre’s run as a chaotic host gleefully shatters every rule, throwing his guests—ranging from real celebrities to obscure Z-listers—into bizarre and often uncomfortable situations.

There’s no predicting what might happen mid-conversation. One moment, they’re discussing terrorists; the next, Andre has his nips out, and while one of his co-hosts crashes through the wall. It’s anti-television at its finest, mixing the absurdity of MADtv with the inappropriateness of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The sheer unpredictability of The Eric Andre Show is what makes it so addictive, since every interview feels seconds away from complete chaos.

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7

‘Schitt’s Creek’ (2015–2020)

Schitt's Creek Cast

When the ultra-wealthy Rose family suddenly loses everything, their fall from luxury becomes comedy gold. Johnny (Eugene Levy), Moira (Catherine O’Hara), David (Dan Levy), and Alexis (Annie Murphy) find themselves stuck in Schitt’s Creek—a town Johnny once bought as a joke. Completely out of their element, they’re useless without money, yet still cling to the idea that they’re somehow above everyone else.

It might sound like an exhausting premise, but Schitt’s Creek quickly softens their arrogance through the warmth of the townsfolk around them. To grow, the Roses are forced to adapt to “regular” life—whether that means figuring out how to “fold in the cheese” or holding down a basic receptionist job. This, of course, leads to hilarious shenanigans. Between the lovable townspeople and the family’s gradual growth, Schitt’s Creek is the kind of sitcom that only gets better as it goes.

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6

‘Fleabag’ (2016–2019)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge smiling in a red dress outdoors in Fleabag.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge smiling in a red dress outdoors in Fleabag.
Image via Prime Video

Across the years, audiences have encountered plenty of frazzled English woman archetypes, but Fleabag fully embraces the bad choices. Its titular heroine, Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), is all kinds of chaos: she runs a struggling guinea pig café, constantly butts heads with her tightly wound sister, and drifts through messy, guilt-ridden relationships.

One misstep leads to another, resulting in an avalanche of morbidly embarrassing situations—the kind where audiences can’t bear to watch but can’t help but stick around for the aftermath. However, for all of her dysfunction, Fleabag isn’t all that annoying. Her coping mechanism for grief is humor, even if it’s the painfully sardonic type. Even at its most uncomfortable, Fleabag has a sharp honesty that makes it hard to look away from.











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Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz
Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In?
The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs
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Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey’s

🔬House

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🩺Scrubs

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01

A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct?
Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.





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02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place?
The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.





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03

What do you actually want from the people you work with?
Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.





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04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it?
Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.





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05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work?
Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.





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06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure?
Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.





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07

What does this job cost you personally?
Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?





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08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back?
The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.





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Your Assignment Has Been Made
You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

Advertisement


Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.

  • You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
  • You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
  • You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
  • Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

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County General Hospital, Chicago

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

  • You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
  • You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
  • You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
  • ER is television about endurance. You have it.

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Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle

Grey’s Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

  • You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
  • Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
  • You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
  • It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

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Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

  • You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
  • You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
  • Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re smart enough to keep up.
  • The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

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Sacred Heart Hospital, California

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

  • You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
  • You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
  • You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
  • Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
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5

‘Jury Duty’ (2023–Present)

Anthony Norman surrounded by actos in 'Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat'
Anthony Norman surrounded by actos in ‘Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat’
Image via Prime Video
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Built on staged scenarios that play out in real time, Jury Duty is unlike any other prank show. Ronald Gladden believes he’s serving on an actual jury, unaware that everyone around him—from fellow jurors to the judge—is an actor. Its more corporate successor, Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, takes it to another level, following a temp worker, Anthony Norman, at an outdoor retreat gone wrong.

Although each episode finds ways to mess with the main subject’s mind, the Jury Duty franchise has no intention of humiliating them. Gladden and Norman were specifically chosen because of their outstanding personality. Although their patience is constantly tested due to zany situations, the two are more than willing to face it, despite having no clue that it’s all fake. Every episode raises the absurdity even more, making it hard not to immediately jump to the next one.

4

‘Impractical Jokers’ (2011–Present)

The Jokers are hidden as they set up a joke on 'Impractical Jokers.'
The Jokers are hidden as they set up a joke on ‘Impractical Jokers.’
Image via TBS
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When a group of high school best friends decides to make a prank show in their early 40s, you get Impractical Jokers. Instead of targeting strangers, the show flips the concept by having Joe Gatto, James Murray, Brian Quinn, and Sal Vulcano prank—and sabotage—each other in very public places, from supermarkets to Central Park.

In the beginning, the pranks seem fairly simple, ranging from the infamous “Strip High Five” to being controlled by your friends through an earpiece. But the punishments are a whole other story. Whether it’s searching for your phone in a trash yard or legally marrying a fellow member’s sister, the limits are practically nonexistent. Even after years on the air, the show still finds new ways to embarrass its cast in increasingly absurd fashion.

3

‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ (2005–Present)

The gang of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cowers behind the shelves at a quickmart
The gang of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia cowers behind the shelves at a quickmart
Image via Patrick McElhenney / ©FXX /Courtesy: Everett Collectionf
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When you bring together five of the worst human beings in a failing pub, you get the gang in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There’s no overarching story—just a group of people constantly trying (and failing) to make money. When they’re not cooking up questionable marketing schemes or outright scams, they’re busy indulging their bizarre impulses. Part of the fun is watching the characters create problems that could have been avoided with even a tiny amount of common sense.

There’s really no limit to where the jokes go, and as a subversive take on more polished sitcom predecessors, IASIP at its peak delivered some of the nastiest humor on television—jokes that feel almost guilty to laugh at today. While the newer seasons have toned things down, the show still offers a glimpse into a time when comedy pushed boundaries with far less concern for social sensitivity.

2

‘Abbott Elementary’ (2021–Present)

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY – “Picture Day” – When picture day catches the teachers at Abbott by surprise, chaos ensues. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28 (8:30-9:02 p.m. EST) on ABC. (Disney/Gilles Mingasson) SHERYL LEE RALPH, TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS, QUINTA BRUNSON, JANELLE JAMES, LISA ANN WALTER, CHRIS PERFETTI
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY – “Picture Day” – When picture day catches the teachers at Abbott by surprise, chaos ensues. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28 (8:30-9:02 p.m. EST) on ABC. (Disney/Gilles Mingasson)
SHERYL LEE RALPH, TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS, QUINTA BRUNSON, JANELLE JAMES, LISA ANN WALTER, CHRIS PERFETTI
Image via Disney/Gilles Mingasson
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Set in a cash-strapped public school in West Philadelphia, Abbott Elementary shows the hard work and the wild situations teachers have to face every day. Mainly told from the POV of Janine Teagues (Quinta Brunson), the overly optimistic wholeheartedly believes that the school has so much potential. However, whether the other teachers want to be on board with her wild schemes is a different story.

From handling out-of-pocket attitudes from preschool kids to pushing back against the school district, Abbott Elementary reflects today’s troubled education system. It takes a huge amount of selflessness to give their all to these kids, and even if the teachers don’t always have the answers, they’ll always try. Beneath all the comedy, Abbott Elementary works because audiences genuinely care about the teachers and their students.

1

‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ (2013–2021)

The cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on a cruise.
The cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on a cruise.
Image via FOX
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The feds got nothing on the detectives from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. By day, they’re arresting bad guys. By night, they’re still catching bad guys. Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and his motley crew are some of the most dedicated people in the field. But they also know how to have fun on the job—even if it’s highly inappropriate.

Whether it’s petty theft or murder, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s police procedural premise keeps each episode exciting. At the same time, the show’s offbeat characters make you wonder how they’re even allowed to work in the precinct in the first place. Then again, the funniest people often turn out to be the best detectives.


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Release Date

2013 – 2021-00-00

Directors
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Michael McDonald, Claire Scanlon, Linda Mendoza, Dean Holland, Beth McCarthy-Miller, Victor Nelli Jr., Craig Zisk, Tristram Shapeero, Rebecca Asher, Eric Appel, Maggie Carey, Alex Reid, Giovani Lampassi, Nisha Ganatra, Ryan Case, Trent O’Donnell, Matt Nodella, Jamie Babbit, Ken Whittingham, Max Winkler, Akiva Schaffer, Fred Goss, Jaffar Mahmood, Julie Anne Robinson

Writers

Gabe Liedman, Phil Augusta Jackson, Tricia McAlpin, Justin Noble, Lakshmi Sundaram, Andrew Guest, Matt O’Brien, Jeff Topolski, Lang Fisher, Gil Ozeri, Brian Reich, Matt Murray, Andy Gosche, Brigitte Liebowitz, Alison Agosti, Nick Perdue, Beau Rawlins, Aeysha Carr, Andy Bobrow, David Quandt, Matt Lawton, Vanessa Ramos, Kylie Condon, Stephanie Amante-Ritter

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Britney Spears Says She’s on Spiritual Journey Amid DUI Plea

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GettyImages-80192602 Britney Spears Says Shes on Spiritual Journey Amid DUI Plea

Britney Spears flashed back to her iconic “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance while offering an update on her state of mind following her DUI plea deal.

“Went to the pet store with my kids and look at what a beautiful baby snake this is,” Spears, 44, wrote alongside an Instagram photo of her handling a snake on Saturday, May 89. “Snakes are symbolic of good health, higher consciousness, and pure luck…”

The baby snake had similar coloring to the 7-foot, yellow albino Burmese python that Spears draped around her neck during her legendary 2001 MTV Video Music Awards performance.

In her latest post, the singer also reflected on the “spiritual journey” she has taken in recent weeks.

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“I’m so damn thankful to my friends and so many new beautiful people I have met through my spiritual journey… all a blessing in disguise,” she wrote. “I still have to learn how to be kind to myself and the way I speak to myself… It’s a never ending journey and sometimes I just stop, look up and say wow God I think that was you and smile on!!!!”

Spears was arrested near her home on March 4, with a test determining that her blood alcohol content was .06, or under the legal limit. (The blood alcohol limit in California is 0.08% or higher for drivers 21 and older.)

“This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable,” Spears’ spokesperson said in a statement to Us Weekly on March 5. “Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law, and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life. Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time.”

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GettyImages-80192602 Britney Spears Says Shes on Spiritual Journey Amid DUI Plea

Britney Spears performing with a snake at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

Her rep indicated that Spears would be “spending time” with the two sons — Sean Preston Federline, 20, and Jayden James Federline, 19 — whom she shares with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.

A source exclusively revealed to Us that Preston and Jayden “played a big part” in getting their mom to check into rehab on April 12.

“Britney went to rehab after several conversations with both of her sons,” an insider told Us. “They expressed concern about her recent behavior and urged her to seek professional help, which has been long overdue, to get her back on track. All they’ve ever wanted for their mom is health and happiness, even during the years they were estranged. They hope she’ll take it seriously.”

Britney Spears


Related: How Britney Spears’ Family Feels About Pop Star’s DUI Arrest

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Britney Spears‘ loved ones want the pop star to get help following her arrest for driving under the influence. “I hope this is a wake-up call for her,” a family source exclusively tells Us Weekly. Spears, 44, was arrested near her home in Ventura County, California, on Wednesday, March 4, at 9:28 p.m., according to […]

While she was seeking treatment, Spears was officially charged with one count of “vehicle code section 23152” a.k.a. driving under the influence on April 30.

A spokesperson for the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Spears would be “extended” a “wet reckless” plea offer, where she would be “placed on probation for 12 months” and receive “credit for any time spent in custody [and be] required to complete a DUI class, and must pay state-mandated fines and fees.”

“This DUI case will be handled according to our standard protocols. For defendants without a prior DUI history, a low blood alcohol level, and where there is no crash or injury, prosecutors typically offer what is known as a ‘wet reckless,’” the DA’s office told Us in a statement at the time. “This law allows a defendant to plead guilty to reckless driving involving alcohol and/or drugs. This type of resolution is common, particularly when a defendant demonstrates self-motivation to address underlying issues through rehabilitation or a drug and alcohol treatment program.”

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Spears left rehab that same day and ultimately agreed to plead guilty to “wet reckless driving” at a May 4 hearing. As a result of her plea, the previous charge of one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol was dismissed.

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Britney Spears and Son Jayden


Related: Britney Spears Returns to Instagram With Son Jayden After DUI Arrest

Britney Spears is back on Instagram three weeks after her DUI arrest. Spears, 44, took to the social media site on Friday, March 27, with a video featuring her son Jayden, 19, whom she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline. (The pair are also parents of son Sean Preston, 20.) The montage featured several clips of […]

She was sentenced to 12 months of probation and one day in jail, with credit given for the time she spent in custody. Under the terms of her plea deal, Spears is required to complete a DUI class and pay $571 in state-mandated fees, in addition to seeing a psychologist once a week and a psychiatrist twice a month.

“Through her plea today, Britney has accepted responsibility for her conduct,” Spears’ attorney, Michael Goldstein, told the New York Times after the May 4 hearing. “She has taken significant steps to implement positive change which is clearly reflected in the Ventura County District Attorney’s decision to reduce the charge in this case and dismiss the DUI. Britney appreciates this discretion and is also grateful for the outpouring of support she has received.”

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6 Years Later, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Career-Defining Netflix Hit Doesn’t Have a Bad Episode

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Anya Taylor-Joy on the red carpet

2026 is quietly angling to be one of the most productive years of Anya Taylor-Joy’s career, and it’s not just because of her role as Princess Peach in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which is set to be the first $1 billion feature film of 2026. She’s set to make her long-awaited return to Apple TV this summer with Lucky, the new crime drama premiering on July 15 that also stars Timothy Olyphant. ATJ previously starred in The Gorge for Apple TV, which is still one of the platform’s most popular movies, now more than a year removed from its streaming debut. Later this year, on December 18, Taylor-Joy will also return to Arrakis to star opposite Robert Pattinson and Jason Momoa in Dune: Part Three. The third and final Dune movie in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy may yet be one of the most successful sci-fi movies of the year.

It’s no easy task pinpointing the exact project that turned Anya Taylor-Joy into the star she is today, but there is one that deserves the bulk of the credit. Back in 2020, when the entire world was on shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Netflix released all episodes of The Queen’s Gambit onto its platform. The show didn’t just take over Netflix streaming charts, it took over the world, dominating every water cooler conversation and group chat, spreading like wildfire. Netflix was already the biggest streaming service in the world at the time thanks to other hits like Stranger Things and Ozark, but The Queen’s Gambit solidified it as the go-to streamer for fans looking for bingeable content. Nearly six years later, it’s still one of the platform’s most popular watches.

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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

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🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

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01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





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02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





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03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





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04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





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05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





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06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





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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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What Is ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ About?

The Queen’s Gambit follows the young introverted prodigy Beth Harmon (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), who discovers and masters the game of chess in America in the 1960s. However, becoming a massive star at such a young age comes at a cost she couldn’t have possibly predicted. The Queen’s Gambit won a remarkable 11 Emmys, yet somehow one didn’t go to ATJ for her lead performance. Her co-star Moses Ingram, who plays Reeva in the Star Wars Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, was recognized by the TV academy for her performance in the show.

Check out all episodes of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of all the hottest projects on streaming.


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Release Date

2020 – 2020-00-00

Showrunner
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Scott Frank

Directors

Scott Frank

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Writers

Scott Frank

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