Australian cult classic Wake in Fright To Get The Masters of Cinema Release In UK.

Eureka! Entertainment are delighted to announce the theatrical and home video releases of Ted Kotcheff's cult classic Wake in Fright (1971) as part of The Masters of Cinema Series, a fascinating rediscovery of a key work of the "Australian New Wave" and so-called "Ozploitation" movement, which was nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes film festival.

Neglected for decades, Wake in Fright was expertly restored in 2009 by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive and hand-selected by legendary film director Martin Scorsese to screen at Cannes once more. Wake in Fright's reputation as a brutally haunting, psychologically gripping one-off has been growing exponentially since, and we are proud to be able to bring this seminal shocker to audiences in the UK and Ireland.

Wake in Fright's theatrical run will be co-ordinated by Eureka! Entertainment with screenings in selected cinemas nationwide in early 2014, following a première at the Film4 FrightFest fantasy and horror film festival in London, August 22–26, 2013.

Blu-ray/DVD releases will follow, in very special editions with a raft of special features to be announced nearer the release date, as part of Eureka! Entertainment's award-winning The Masters of Cinema Series.

Wake in Fright is based on the 1961 novel by Kenneth Cook and stars Gary Bond and Donald Pleasance. It was first released under the title Outback, describing the film's arid, sweltering, wasteland setting of Bundanyabba ("The Yabba"), an earthy mining town where schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) descends into a living hell when he is stranded on his way to meet his girlfriend in Sydney. Struggling to escape a men-gone-wild nihilistic world of binge drinking, habitual gambling, and senseless violence, Grant plunges headlong towards his own destruction, joined for the ride by alcoholic doctor "Doc" Tydon (masterfully played by Donald Pleasance).

Ron Benson, head of Eureka! Entertainment, comments: “This once-feared-lost Australian cult classic is a hugely welcome rediscovery, a film that is at once both grimly horrific and frightfully compelling.”


"Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have a taste of dust and sweat, mate? There's nothing else out here."

Boardwalk Empire – Season 3 Blu Ray Review

Rating: 15
DVD/BD Release Date: 5th August 2013 (UK)
Creator: Terence Winter
Cast:  Steve Buscemi, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Bobby Cannavale
Buy Boardwalk Empire Season 3: [DVD] / [Blu-ray]
Boardwalk Empire – the winner of 12 Emmy Awards – finally sees its third season released on DVD and Blu-ray, and fans of complex television drama will not be disappointed. Picking up sixteen months after season 2’s shocking finale, this latest season kicks off on New Year’s Eve 1923. Nucky (Steve Buscemi) and Margaret’s (Kelly Macdonald) marriage is tense at best, and there is a new high profile bootlegger in town, in the form of Bobby Cannavale’s Gyp Rosetti.

As can be expected, HBO has once again delivered a first rate show; one which not only rivals, but surpasses in quality most Hollywood films right now. In many ways, parallels can be drawn between Boardwalk Empire and The Wire (another much-praised HBO series). Each episode requires the viewer’s utmost attention if they mean to understand the plot fully, for there is a large amount of characters – residing in a variety of US states – for us to follow. This factor has both its upsides and downsides. On the one hand, this means that each individual storyline cannot be given as much air time as – I for one – would like them to; but on the other, this does result in the few moments we have with them seeming all the more exciting. This is none more true than in the case of the excellent Michael Shannon’s government agent turned outlaw Nelson Van Alder, a truly fascinating character, whose narrative I hope will be given more attention next season.

With season 3, Boardwalk creator Terence Winter has delivered a beautifully constructed period piece, filled with impressive performances from its cast, and outstanding production values which really bring the roaring twenties to life. While many of the show’s themes – loss and loneliness for example – are sombre in tone; these are alleviated by a quirky, upbeat jazz soundtrack and magical photography work. Not to be missed.

★★★★★

Sophie Stephenson

FrightFest, Horror Channel & Movie Mogul reveal their top six finalists for 666 Short Cuts To Hell

FrightFest and Movie Mogul, in association with Horror Channel, challenged aspiring filmmakers all over the country to make a short horror film, but 666 Short Cuts To Hell was no ordinary film competition. Entrants had to follow a series of 'killer' restraints such as a maximum of 6 lines of dialogue, a maximum of 6 cast and crew members and a maximum budget of £666.

A staggering 157 entries made the grade and the overall winner will be announced at FrightFest 2013 on Sunday Aug 25 after the screening of all six films. On hand to congratulate all six finalists will be the distinguished judging panel; Horror Channel presenter Emily Booth, FrightFest director Paul McEvoy, Movie Mogul’s John Shackleton, Filmmaker Paul Hyett and journalist Rosie Fletcher. Tom Six is planning to attend subject to his commitments on Human Centipede 3.

Apart from the honour of being showcased at the UK’s biggest genre festival, the six finalists will also have their films screened on Horror Channel, with the overall winner receiving £6,666 courtesy of Horror Channel and the opportunity to develop a feature film under mentorship from Movie Mogul.

Chris Sharp, Chief Programming Officer, Chello Zone, said today:: “The film industry has some incredible talent emerging as seen in our inaugural 666 Short Cuts To Hell competition. It’s been a huge but highly enjoyable task to watch all 157 entries and a very difficult decision process to select the final six. Many more of the short films deserve recognition and exposure so we pledge to broadcast as many as we can on the channel. I’m proud Horror Channel is a platform for rising stars in the industry and we will continue to do all we can to support young talent.”

John Shackleton, M.D of Movie Mogul added: ".This competition exceeded our expectations by a long way. So many terrific short films, but so little space in the top 6! I'm thrilled with the final selection and can't wait to see who wins!"

Here are the six films…

Six Degrees of (Limb) Separation.
Directed by Mikel Iriarte Cast: Leo Charlton, Madeleine Dunbar, Sam Atkind.

6 Seconds To Die.
Directed by Rick James. Cast: Emma Drysdale, Emily Petrolo & John Rackham

6 Shooter
Directed by David Wayman. Cast: Ed Judd, Aston Fisher, Tom Murton, Teya Simone, Kym Chapman, Dan Lord.

6th Sense
Directed by Alice Moet, CAST: Ellie Manson, Bethany Jackson, Oanne Mitchell, Angela Beadle, Dominic Brunt, Mark Newby.

6 Feet Under
Director: Weronika Tofilska. Cast: Harriet Neville. Jon Readwin, Ewan Stewart, Stephanie Blake & Agis Pitlis.

Six Feet Under
Directed by Joe & Lloyd Stas. Cast: Helen Booden, Tom Stas, Lloyd Stas, Ben Galler

Blancanieves Blu-Ray Review

Rating: 12
DVD/BD Release Date:
5th August 2013 (UK)
Director:
Pablo Berger
Cast:
Maribel Verdú, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Ángela Molina
Buy Blancanieves:
Blancanieves - Collector's Edition [DVD]

Somewhat unfairly lumbered alongside The Artist as a Spanish retort to Michel Hazanavicius’ neo-silent award-guzzler, Blancanieves is proof that merely appearing in black and white does not a mimic make. This year alone sees a host of new features, from Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, through Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England to the upcoming Alexander Payne feature Nebraska that revel in the majesty of monochrome to tell a host of tales, ranging wildly in both style and story. Director Pablo Berger’s feature utilises the format to bring us an inventive and incredibly stylish take on the Brothers Grimm classic Snow White – the title being the literal Spanish translation and the name given to our heroine by her accompanying dwarves.

Turning the familiar fairytale on its head Berger relocates the tale of fair-skinned beauty to the home of a more sun-kissed disposition, setting the film in Spain at the heart of its cultural tapestry– the bullfighting ring. Born the daughter of the renowned matador Antonio Villalta, Carmencita is forced to live with her grandmother after her mother dies during childbirth and the subsequent heartache forces her paralyzed father (gorged in the ring at the hands of a ferocious bull) to reject the newborn. Before long her famed father remarries the conniving money-grabbing nurse who manipulatively aided his recovery. Their lavish lifestyle is light-years away from the humble yet happy existence she carves out in the rural countryside until her doting grandmother suffers a sudden and fatal heart attack, forcing the young Carmencita to become the unwanted house guest at her father’s vast new marital home.

Ably pulling off a tonal shift, Berger transports our young lead from warm, jovial, sun-drenched villas and plunges her into a Dickensian, chore-laden life under long shadows and dark surroundings. It’s one of the many impressive visual touches pulled off by Berger and his cinematographer who manage to seamlessly sit handheld close-ups comfortably alongside long range, held shots of sweeping vista’s, rolling Iberian countryside and quaint villas. Taking their lead from the greats of cinematic history the pair create a nuanced and knowing visual display, even recollecting the matchstick men communities of Lowry in the communal procession to the dominating bullfighting coliseums.

Eventually Carmencita inadvertedly finds herself on the strictly out-of-bounds second floor of the palatial pad where she chances upon her father for the very first time – his wheelchair bound slumped figure contrasting greatly to the powerful image in the grand foyer painting. The two bond instantly and secretly, away from the prying eyes of Encarna and before long Carmencita learns the ways of the matador under the expert tutelage of her esteemed father.

Years pass and Encarna’s disdain for her adoptive child grows, hatching a plan to rid her of this burden for good, a plan that, once thwarted, leads Carmencita to her six (not seven) minutely proportioned saviours, travelling Toledo’s who entertain the crowds at ramshackle bullfighting outposts battling against the less fearsome, but equally sized, calves.

Berger directs with a trained eye on the classic tale and another firmly on the stylistic touches of film-makers down the years. The dreaded apple is presented with knowing significance, brandished like a gun while elsewhere shadows and score create suspense akin to Hitchcock. Not that everything on show trawls through the past. The returning theme of fame trickles through the film with each of the leads having their own, ultimately doomed, brush with the limelight suggesting Berger has as much to say on this modern obsession as he does it’s genesis. One particular public mourning resembles a disturbing scene at Madame Tussards and there’s a nod too to the prized cover-shoot of Hello-like magazines thrown in for good measure while the freak show ending signals a bleak parallel with what we view as entertainment and those who peddle it.

So no, not merely a reactionary piece jumping aboard the Artist bandwagon (although there are similarities - for Uggie the dog, see Pepe the chicken) but Blancanieves has more up its sleeve to be written off so easily. A silent triumph in its own right.

★★★★☆

Matthew Walsh

Berserk Movie 2: Battle For Doldrey Blu-Ray Review

Rating: 15
BD Release Date: 12th August 2013 (UK)
Director:Toshiyuki Kubooka
Cast: Hiroaki Iwanaga, Toa Yukinari, Takahiro Sakurai
Buy:Berserk: Movie 2 - The Battle For Doldrey [Blu-ray]
Griffith's words about true friends still resound in Guts' head. They haunt him on the battlefield and in his downtime, making him question his moves and motivation. This doesn't stop him from fighting for Griffith as the Band of the Hawk joins the other forces of the king to take down Doldrey, a nigh impregnable fortress that has never been successfully besieged. In between battles, Guts continues to ponder where his life is headed if he sticks with the Band of the Hawk, strengthens his bond with woman warrior Casca, and ultimately makes a decision that will have a great impact not only on his future, but on the rest of the Hawks' as well.

I first encountered Berserk when I picked up a copy of it in my library and I remember how different it was to other manga’s. It was more violent and graphic than other manga’s I had encountered (I had still to discover things like Ninja Scroll and Fist of the North Star) and I went to great lengths to acquire the other volumes. I then discovered that there was an anime of Berserk and since these were the dark ages before internet shopping became so easy to use (yes I am that old now shush) I had to scour DVD shops, HMV’s, charity shops and Forbidden Planet’s to find a boxset. But eventually I acquired it and myself and some other anime obsessed mates sat down to watch it. Wow were we disappointed! It was just a bit pathetic compared to the excellent manga we had all been reading.

Years later in 2012 I would go to the Scotland Loves Anime festival in Edinburgh where they were showing the new Berserk OVA’s and I will admit I was not that excited about these films. However I was blown away by not only the quality of the animation but the skill and time taken to properly translate Kentaro Miura’s manga to anime. Studio 4˚C brought their unique animation style that had been used to great success on their previous film Steamboy and from what I heard in the interviews after the films they went to great lengths to honour the original manga, including visiting Edinburgh to get a feel of medieval cities (shameless flattery to the Edinburgh fanbase I think though). The animation style is a mixture of CGI and hand drawn styles. Now this works for most of the film with the bodies and action being mostly CGI but the faces and emotions all being hand drawn but occasionally you will see the two styles clash with one another but this rarely happens and so the action scenes and battles look amazing and you get amazing characterisation and emotion from the animation. However many of the battle scenes do seem to be fought by armies of clones and so there is often very little variety in some of the larger battles and since this film focuses on a major battle it is slightly disappointing.

This film focuses on the interaction between two of the main characters Guts and Casca and the development of their friendship while fighting in the Band of the Hawk. These two characters form the basis of the Berserk series and it is their interactions and what happens to them that progresses the story. Casca is a great character and moves away from the standard warrior woman in manga and anime by having actual motives to fight alongside men rather than just being the regular chain mail bikini clad warrior. Saying this though her design does slightly drop her into this trope as she rides into battle with thigh high boots and armour that has its own cleavage.

Guts is a rather simple character but this is what drives him. He spends the film questioning what he is doing and if it is what he wants in life. He is left with a choice that means either staying with Band of the Hawk or trying to make his own life by himself. His growing friendship with Casca makes him want to stay but his desire to make his own life away from Griffith conflicts with this and the ending is suitably tragic for them all.

The voice acting of the Japanese actors is brilliant with Hiroaki Iwanaga, Toa Yukinari and Takahiro Sakurai as voices of Guts, Casca and Griffith. The English voice work is good but doesn’t sound as good as the Japanese. It’s not because they are bad but mainly because the Japanese language suites the melodrama of the series over the English.

Now the film is very good but what lets it down is the editing. Every so often there are scenes that seem to be missing. You will be watching it then suddenly the characters will have changed location or something would have been said that makes little sense. Overall this doesn’t affect the plot but affects the viewing experience and makes it look rather sloppy.

Overall though it is a great film for fans of the manga or any other anime fans.

★★★☆☆

Adam Cook

Terry Gilliam's The Time Bandits Will Be Stealing Your TV Screens This Month

Release Date:
26th August 2013 (UK)
Stars:
Craig Warnock, David Warner, John Cleese, Ralph Richardson
Buy The Time Bandits:
DVD or Blu-ray

To millions he was one member of the iconic comedy team of Monty Python, but to the rest of us The Time Bandits was the film that established Terry Gilliam as more than the Python's resident animator. This month Arrow Video are releasing The Time Bandits digitally remastered on DVD & Blu-Ray chock full of extras too!

Time Bandits is a delightfully inventive children’s fantasy about young Kevin (Craig Warnock) who finds himself travelling through holes in the space-time continuum in the company of half a dozen fractious dwarfs.

Along the way, he encounters Agamemnon (Sean Connery), Robin Hood (John Cleese), Napoleon (Ian Holm) and winds up as a passenger on the Titanic, although not necessarily in that order. But is this just random entertainment laid on for history fan Kevin’s benefit, or part of a wider struggle between the forces of good (Ralph Richardson) and evil (David Warner)?

At the time, this was a rare example of a small-budget British film successfully taking on American blockbusters. Now, it's a much-loved fantasy classic bursting with inspired images and ideas: Gilliam and co-writer Michael Palin (who also appears) are clearly enjoying themselves as much as their audience.



Seeing this is about to get released has unleashed some nice childhood memories and yes kids I'm old enough to remember watching this.Whilst it was typical Gilliam style surreal, silly, fantastical it a Time Bandits essentially a kids film. Though it officially released July 1981 in UK depending where you lived it could take upto 2 years for it to arrive in your local cinema sometimes even longer for the home release! So kids and cinephiles of today you don't realise how lucky you are withing months cinema then home release!

Special Features

- Brand new 2k-resolution restoration of the film from the original camera negative, approved by director and co-writer Terry Gilliam
- Original uncompressed PCM Stereo 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio options
- Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Chasing Time Bandits: A new interview with Terry Gilliam
- Writing the Film that Dares Not Speak its Name: A new interview in which Michael Palin discusses co-writing and acting in Time Bandits
- The Effects of Time Bandits: A new interview in which Kent Houston, founder of the Peerless Camera Company, discusses Time Bandits’ optical effects
- Playing Evil: A new featurette in which actor David Warner remembers producer George Harrison and playing Evil in Time Bandits
- The Costumes of Time Bandits: A new interview with costume designer James Acheson
- The Look of Time Bandits: A new interview with production designer Milly Burns
- From Script to Screen – A new animated featurette in which Milly Burns takes us through her production notebooks, locations photographs and storyboards revealing how twentieth century Morocco was transformed into Ancient Greece
- Original Trailer
- Restoration Demonstration
- Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic James Oliver


The Time Bandits is also getting a limited cinema re-release on Friday 9th August, here's where you can catch it:

Prince Charles Leicester Square
Harbour Lights Picturehouse, Southampton
The Belmont Picturehouse, Aberdeen
Cameo Picturehouse, Edinburgh
Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool
Hackney Picturehouse
Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton
Exeter Picturehouse
Cinema City, Norwich
City Screen Picturehouse, York
Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge
Dukes at Komedia, Brighton
Curzon HMV Wimbledon

The Time Bandits will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 26th August.

Watch UK Trailer For Ain't Them Bodies Saints

David Lowery‘s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints festival award winning film we told you about during Cannes next month is to get to get UK cinema release  and thanks to The Works we now have the film's UK trailer.

Ain't The Bodies Saints Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) & Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) a young impoverished couple  who find themselves involved in a shootout with the local police.When Ruth a police man is shot by Ruth the pair give up and  Bob taking the blame and is sent to jail. Sveral years later Bob escapes prison in search of Ruth whom he learns he has a daughter however  she has gotten closer to a  local man Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), but as Bob the  unexpected reunion gets closer it looks like a reunion that will be doomed.

 Ain't Them Bodies Saints is been ear marked for director David Lowery  looks his break out film, scoring impressive reviews during the festival season (100% at Rotten Tomatoes) and this is probably why the film is getting released here in blighty. The trailer is a lot shorter from the trailer we showed you during Cannes but delivering a slow brooding character drama, fantastic cinematography and its great to see something with substance and quality.



Ain’t them Bodies Saints  also stars Keith Carradine, Rami Malek and Nate Parker, with the film arriving in UK&Ireland on 6th September (16th August USA)

source:The Peoples Movies

BFI To Screen Claude Sautet's Classe Tous Risques (The Big Risk) This September

Highly rated by Jean-Pierre Melville, Robert Bresson and Bertrand Tavernier, Classe tous risques is a truly great, astonishingly neglected French crime movie, deserving of far wider renown. The dazzling directorial debut of Claude Sautet (1924 - 2000), better known for his later films Un Coeur en hiver (1992) and Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995), it will be released in cinemas nationwide on 13 September.

Classe tous risques stars the great Italian-born character actor Lino Ventura as Abel Davos, a once powerful Parisian gangster, convicted of multiple crimes in France and sentenced to death in absentia, who has grown weary of his Italian exile and longs to return home with his wife and two small children. In order to finance this ambition, he decides to pull one last job  boldly executed in broad daylight on the streets of Milan  before heading in the direction of Nice. The getaway proves highly perilous, and Abel realises that he will never make it to Paris without a little help from his friends. But his old pals and partners-in-crime despite the incredible debt they all owe him  are reluctant to risk their own safety. Instead they send a complete stranger, the fresh-faced Eric Stark (the young, still unknown Jean-Paul Belmondo), to escort their former comrade from Nice to Paris.

Scored by Georges Delerue and shot in expressive black and white by Ghislain Cloquet (who was to win an Oscar for Tess), Classe tous risques is based on a novel by death-row-inmate-turned-writer José Giovanni (Le trou, Le deuxième souffle) whose intimate knowledge of the underworld helped steer him away from cliché. Brilliantly suspenseful and surprisingly moving, it is a devastating study of loyalty and betrayal, distinguished by a bleak, incisive psychological realism.

The relative obscurity of Sautet’s superb thriller is in many ways an accident of history. It was simply swept away in the frenzy of excitement generated by the Nouvelle Vague which made its classical virtues appear old-fashioned. Released in Paris in March 1960, it was almost immediately overshadowed by Godard’s Breathless (Belmondo’s international breakthrough) which opened a week later.

Now, more than half a century on, the mists which obscured Sautet’s achievement have cleared. In the words of Tavernier: “We’ve come to understand that Classe tous risques … was just as revolutionary as Breathless … Sautet was renewing the genre, profoundly, from the inside, instantly turning dozens of contemporary films into dusty relics.” The BFI’s release will enable cinema audiences to relish in full this wonderful rediscovery.



The film’s nationwide release will coincide with a month long retrospective of Claude Sautet’s work at BFI Southbank from 11 September until 7th October.Check your local independent/Arthouse cinema for listings

BFI Announces It's DVD & Blu Ray Releases For Remaining Part of 2013

This autumn the BFI will make available on DVD a superb collection of rare and previously unseen ghost and horror titles from the BBC archives. Released as part of the BFI’s GOTHIC: THE DARK HEART OF FILM blockbuster project (www.bfi.org.uk/gothic), these long-unseen gems will delight many fans of British horror and classic TV drama.

Highlights in October include:

• The legendary Play for Today drama Robin Redbreast (1970) – an unsettling tale of ‘folk horror’ that’s considered a precursor to 1973’s The Wicker Man (DVD)
• The three surviving, terrifying episodes of the long-unseen 1972 ghost story anthology Dead of Night (DVD)
• Classic Ghost Stories (1986), five spine-tingling tales from the pen of MR James, presented by Robert Powell (DVD)
• An extended six-disc repackage of the best-selling BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas (DVD)

Highlights in November include:

• A BFI Flipside Dual Format Edition presentation of the BBC’s Schalcken the Painter (1979). This highpoint of BBC arts filmmaking will be presented in High Definition from a rare 16mm source recently discovered in the BFI National Archive
• The 1977 BBC gothic horror anthology Supernatural starring a host of British acting legends including Billie Whitelaw, Robert Hardy, Denholm Elliot and Jeremy Brett (DVD)

Other Gothic releases include:

• Scary Stories – a collection of creepy films from The Children’s Film Foundation featuring The Man From Nowhere (1976), Haunters of the Deep (1984) and Out of the Darkness (1985) (September 2013, DVD)
• A three-disc Dual Format special edition of Rupert Julian / Lon Chaney’s original The Phantom of the Opera (1925) (November 2013)
• The BFI National Archive digital re-mastering of Thorold Dickinson’s dark psychological drama Gaslight (1940) (November 2013, Dual Format Edition)

October also sees the long-awaited Blu-ray premiere of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) – presented as a steelbook exclusively at www.zavvi.com .

Rescheduled releases for December include the previously announced Dual Format Editions of Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950) and Journey to Italy (1954), and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Trans-Europ Express (1967) and Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974).

Click here to see a picture gallery of packshots along with the news: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/bfi-dvdblu-ray-releases-announced-autumn-2013

The Rise and Rise of Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling is one of films most sought after actors. With raw talent and a passion for every role he takes on, this four time Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee shows no signs of slowing down. This summer, Gosling is taking on another challenging role as Julian, a respected drug dealer and boxing club owner looking to seek vengeance for his brother’s murder. To honour the release of Only God Forgives, we decided to chronicle Goslings most notable roles.

The Mickey Mouse Club (1993-1995)

Ryan Gosling started his career as a fresh faced tween on Disney’s revamp of The Mickey Mouse Club. Convincing his mom to move from Canada to Florida, Gosling appeared in three episodes before the show was cancelled in 1995.

The Believer (2001)

Portraying a Jewish Neo-Nazi in his first lead role in film, Gosling shattered his child star image in The Believer. Although the film was considered a failure in terms of profit, his performance received rave reviews from critics. Gosling credits this role as his stepping stone into the career he has today.

The Notebook (2004)

The Notebook is the film that made Ryan Gosling a household name. His first leading role in a mainstream movie, Gosling made girls everywhere swoon as the passionate Noah Calhoun. The film was a box office success making over $115 worldwide. As the first person cast, Gosling got to help select his leading lady Rachel McAdams. The pair later dated after the film wrapped.

Half Nelson (2006)

Gosling earned his first Academy Award nomination as a drug addicted middle school teacher in Half Nelson. To prepare for the role, Ryan moved into a small Brooklyn apartment to shadow an 8thgrade teacher for a month. The next year Gosling was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, solidifying his legitimacy as an actor.

Blue Valentine (2010)

After a three year hiatus from acting, Gosling burst back onto the scene making five movies in 2010 and 2011. His first, an indie film called Blue Valentine, was a box office and critic success and earned him his second Golden Globe nomination. Gosling and his co-star, Michelle Williams, were instructed to improvise their parts as they played a married couple struggling with their relationship.

Drive (2011)

Gosling gave a genuine and chilling performance as a mysterious getaway car driver in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. This thriller had critics commending Gosling on his constant ability to deliver fantastic performances, with Roger Ebert stating that he [Gosling] could achieve anything.

Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

Seriously, he has to be photo shopped. Ryan Gosling showed off his comedic talents and unwavering charm in the romantic-comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love. As Jacob Palmer, Gosling played the smooth talking ladies man looking to help out his fellow single men in need. Known for normally playing darker characters, Gosling stunned audiences and critics alike with his performance, earning him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a musical or comedy.

Only God Forgives

In his second collaboration with director Nicolas Winding Refn, Gosling takes on a darker role in the revenge thriller Only God Forgives. As one of the most anticipated films of the summer, Ryan is sure to deliver another heart-stopping performance with intensity and style.

Only God Forgives opens in UK cinemas 2 August.