When the 2015 Oscar nominations were announced last week, I put "the parade of accolades for American Sniper" at the top of my list of poor decisions the Academy voters made this year.

Two movies in and Angelina Jolie the director seems to have already developed a speciality. Her debut In the Land of Blood and Honey was about a Bosnian prisoner of war.

How many Oscar nominations did The Lego Movie get? One, for Best Original Song. That's a joke. Academy Awards voters, sort this mess out, writes Chris Schulz.

The influential Sundance Film Festival opens in the US tomorrow (New Zealand time) with a sizeable Kiwi contingent in attendance and international movies made here featuring in its competitions.

A patient watchfulness and an often exquisite visual sensibility distinguish the first film outside his native Norway by writer director Poppe.

A searching examination of middle-class complacency and gender roles in an age of us-or-them individualism, this assured Swedish drama is the kind of film that's hard to watch and harder still to tear your eyes away from.

There are not too many people defending Bruce Jenner these days as his appearance morphs into a more feminine one.

The actor who played Chewbacca in the Star Wars films has been taken to hospital suffering from pneumonia.

As writers, actors and directors jostle for favour following the Oscar and Bafta award nominations, scientists have discovered the true measure of a film's worth is not how many gongs it wins, but how many times later film-makers reference it.

It's nominated for six Oscars but American Sniper has become a laughing stock for its use of a fake baby.

It feels like every big-name actor out there has been fitted out with super-snug spandex and played a superhero.

A petition has been created calling for Scarlett Johansson to be replaced by an Asian actress for the big-screen adaptation of Japanese comic series Ghost in the Shell.

A lost documentary Alfred Hitchcock made about the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps during World War Two has finally reached screens thanks to movie mogul Brett Ratner.

Moviemaker George Lucas has blasted the Academy Awards as a political campaign which does not recognise real artistic talent after Selma star David Oyelowo and director Ava Duvernay were shut out of the Oscars nominations.

Music, not the movies, will always be Johnny Depp's first love.

No child was hurt in the making of this mini-series. But Zachary Quinto has admitted that repeatedly filming the critical scene for NBC's new drama, The Slap, in which he hits a child who is behaving badly at a BBQ, turned into a bonding moment.

I've been trying hard to resist the feel-bad urges of outrage, particularly when they come from a predicable source.

Outspoken newsman Piers Morgan and actor Alec Baldwin have clashed on Twitter over Oscar nominated movie Birdman.

Reese Witherspoon is back in awards contention having put the perky romcoms behind her -- and reinvented herself as a Hollywood mogul, writes Kate Bussmann.

An American substitute teacher could face jail time after showing teenage high school students the New Zealand-produced horror film, The ABCs of Death.

Film and television incentives have lifted the screen production industry out of the doldrums, prompting the Auckland Council to back new studios in West Auckland.

It's been a while since Kiwis have been up for Oscars for something other than technical or musical work.

As Michael Keaton becomes the toast of the town for his comeback turn in Birdman, Dominic Corry looks back at the best Hollywood comebacks.

Eddie Redmayne speaks in commas. The response to a question will start, be amended by a clarification, never an aside, and then another.

An Auckland toymaker has produced the ultimate plaything for young Jedi knights. Steve Coupe of Steve's Wooden Toys has hand-crafted a wooden X-wing starfighter rocker.

The story of Chris Kyle - the "Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History" as his autobiography described him - might have been another kind of movie.

Given the backstory of the main character in this film, it's hard to avoid thinking of Icarus, who, became the epitome of ambition thwarted by hubris.

The nominations for the 2015 Academy Awards will be announced in the wee small hours tomorrow, New Zealand time. Here's 10 points to look out for ...

A film project dramatising the "Black Widow" murder case of Helen Milner, who poisoned her husband, has received taxpayer funding.