Latest news with #politicalthriller
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's new political thriller series looks more intense than I expected — here's the first trailer
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Netflix has just dropped the first trailer for 'Hostage,' its upcoming political thriller series landing on August 21, and it adds new weight to what was already shaping up to be an intriguing watch. A few weeks back, I wrote about the first-look images and said it looks like a compelling binge watch, and now, with the trailer in hand, that impression only deepens. Created by Matt Charman (the mind behind 'Bridge of Spies' and 'Treason'), the limited series stars Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy as two world leaders caught in the middle of a high-stakes crisis during a global summit. One moment, they're preparing for diplomacy; the next, they're forced into a deadly game of control and survival. It's tense stuff. The trailer opens with a personal crisis at the heart of a political storm: the British Prime Minister's husband has been kidnapped, and things escalate quickly from there. Suranne Jones (who also executive produces) plays PM Abigail Dalton, shown grappling with the weight of national duty while her personal life unravels. We see flashes of mounting pressure, coded threats and tense stand-offs as a visiting French President becomes the target of a separate blackmail plot. The two leaders are thrust into a serious rivalry, each forced to make impossible decisions. Whether the two women can trust each other or whether they're being played against one another remains the central question. By the end of this short teaser, Jones's character delivers a steely statement of intent: 'They have weaponized my family. I will not be threatened. I will not negotiate. My loyalties are to this country, I will not allow it to be held to ransom.' Safe to say, she's not here to play games. Rather than going for explosive action, 'Hostage' appears to favor slow-burning psychological tension. If you're into character-driven thrillers that take their time, 'Hostage' might just be one to watch when it premieres in August. What to expect from 'Hostage' on Netflix While the trailer sets the mood with its clipped dialogue and cold tension, 'Hostage' looks set to dig even deeper into the emotional and political fallout of a crisis at the highest level. Netflix said to expect a 'political thriller with a captivating performance from Jones at its center.' Jones told Netflix: 'I'm thrilled to be on Netflix, in something I'm really proud of. It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time. We'd talked about projects previously, but for me, it was about finding the right thing. 'Hostage' was perfect — me and Matt together, backed up by this brilliant, supportive team. I loved it.' Charman also said, 'I've been dying to find the right story to tell with Suranne and I honestly believe what she's done with this character is going to blow the Netflix audience away. An embattled British PM in the middle of a fight for her country and her family — she's fierce, ruthless, and you can't take your eyes off of her.' Behind the scenes, the creative team brings a sterling pedigree. Backed by Charman's writing and the directorial vision of Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil, 'Hostage' is likely to channel the same high-gloss tension seen in 'Treason' and 'Vigil.' The supporting cast is strong too, with actors like Corey Mylchreest and Lucian Msamati expected to add some juicy drama. Filmed across the U.K. and France, the series already feels stylistically self-assured. With only five episodes, this definitely feels like a thriller most viewers will eat up once it lands (including me). Political thrillers usually aren't my first choice, but 'Hostage' has definitely caught my attention. A big part of that is the cast, but also how the story doesn't focus on being explosive or full of unnecessary action. Now, having seen the first trailer, I'm even more hyped. I'm also confident this thriller will deliver because Suranne Jones is at the center of it. With her proven track record in gripping dramas like 'Doctor Foster' and 'Gentlemen Jack,' she brings enough intensity to elevate any story. Having her both star and executive produce gives me faith that this series has been crafted with care. Reminder: you can stream all five episodes of 'Hostage' on Netflix starting August 21, 2025. In the meantime, see what's new on Netflix this week. More from Tom's Guide Netflix just added a wild buddy-cop action-comedy movie Netflix drops new trailer for an action-thriller series that has me hooked Netflix's new mystery thriller series has already broken into the top 10
The Sun
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Noel Edmonds reveals bonkers health secrets behind his surprisingly ripped body at age 76
NOEL EDMONDS makes his TV comeback tomorrow with his Kiwi Adventure – and the telly titan is more than ready for his close-up. The series delves into his new life in New Zealand with wife Liz, it sees them run a pub, explore the country and get up to all sorts of high jinks. And it looks into the crazy regime that, at 76, saw him named 'Torso of the Week' by gossip mag Heat. Noel shares: 'The exercise I do, I call tranquil power. It's about quiet and slow. You hold it (the weight), you feel the muscle burn and then let go. 'I normally have a warm shower in the morning and wash it off with a cold shower. 'And then a sauna, infra red. 'It's proven science and very good for you.' If it gets me looking as fit as Noel, then I'll be tuning in. Noel Edmond's Kiwi Adventure starts tomorrow at 9pm on ITV1. Noel Edmonds' most bizarre moments - from 'dead parent' orbs and 'electro smog' to Candice the mannequin and bid to buy the BBC SURANNE IS IN HER PRIME 5 5 The political thriller sees the actress transform into politician Abigail Dalton, forced to work together with her rival, the French President, after her husband is kidnapped and world leaders are blackmailed. In a first look at the five-parter, Suranne is seen outside No10, with on-screen hubby Ashley Thomas and daughter Isobel Akuwudike. She's later joined by the French President, played by Julie Deply, as they go head-to-head in Downing Street, before a champagne-fuelled soirée that sees Queen Charlotte actor Corey Mylchreest getting close with Sophie Robertson. Hostage will air on August 21 MARTIN'S OUT FOR REVENGE 5 MARTIN COMPSTON is swapping bent coppers for broken hearts in his new thriller. The Revenge Club will see the Line Of Duty actor joined by Slow Horses actress Aimee-Ffion Edwards as his on-screen wife as they attend a dysfunctional divorce support group. The group quickly ditches the tissues and tea for cold-blooded retribution, which spirals from mischievous pranks to deadly 'accidents'. The duo will be joined by Meera Syal, Sharon Rooney, Douglas Henshall and Chaneil Kular as group members, while Aoife Kennan and Rob Malone play a pair of nosy detectives. Based on upcoming novel The Othello Club, the TV adaptation comes from the director of BBC comedy Fleabag and the writer of Netflix hit Lupin. Production is currently under way and the series will air on Paramount+. ERIN IN CARAVAN CHAOS THE BBC has assembled some of the biggest names in telly for a new series based in a caravan park. Love Actually actor Bill Nighy and The Crown's Helena Bonham Carter will be joined by Adolescence actress Erin Doherty and Mad Max's Tom Burke in California Avenue, a six-part series about a mother and son who shake up a quiet canal-side holiday destination. The mum, played by Erin, and her son head to the caravan park while on the run. A show synopsis teases: 'Ghosts and demons will firmly be put to rest, and an expected love forged.' Filming for the BBC One series begins later this summer in Hertfordshire. VINNIE JONES In The Country will be back for a third series on Discovery+. The six new episodes will see the former footballer working hard on his long-awaited lake house renovation at his Sussex estate. Plus he has plans for another building project – a grand manor house. FORMER Corrie star Beverley Callard, band Hear'Say's Suzanne Shaw and singer Gary Numan are all set to appear n the new series of Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted. Returning in November, the six-parter will see stars uncovering the secrets lurking in their homes.
BBC News
01-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
'When the other side declares war on you, you still have to do the job': Clinton on being president and his new thriller
Former US President Bill Clinton and best-selling author James Patterson sat down with the BBC to discuss how real life informed their new political thriller, The First Gentleman. What happens when the president's husband is put on trial for murder? That's the conundrum at the heart of former US President Bill Clinton and thriller maestro James Patterson's latest collaboration, The First Gentleman. It's a novel that only those two could conjure up, after the huge success of their earlier books, 2018's The President Is Missing (three million copies sold) and The President's Daughter (2021). Patterson is as big as they come in the thriller world (with more than 230 million books sold worldwide) but as Clinton, a long-time fan of the genre, tells the BBC: "it was just an adventure in my old age" when they first collaborated. And it's clear while speaking to them in person just how much fun they're still having together. Their gripping new novel centres on US President Madeline Wright and husband, Cole Wright, a former professional American football star. He still carries the scars of his career and is looking for a purpose in the White House, as he fights to clear his name in a trial for the murder of a cheerleader more than 20 years ago. It's a classic police procedural-meets-courtroom drama, as journalists, detectives and political operatives all work to uncover the truth behind who killed the cheerleader and to exonerate the First Gentleman – or to destroy him – and his wife's political agenda. And, of course, the role of First Gentleman is one that President Clinton might have found himself taking on in 2017 if his wife, Hillary Clinton, had won the 2016 election against US President Donald Trump. It's clear that Bill Clinton's presidency is still with him as he writes. "There were times in the White House, and not just when the Republicans were trying to impeach me, but when we were going through really controversial hard things, where I had the feeling that I was – in the minds of those covering me – more a storyline than a story. We tried to get all that in there." Rather than focussing the narrative on the First Couple, however, the book has a pair of journalists at its core. Independent investigative journalist and lawyer Brea Cooke and her partner, Garrett Wilson, are digging into the disappearance of Suzanne Bonanno, a cheerleader who the First Gentleman was seeing back when he was playing for the New England Patriots football team 17 years earlier. It looks like Wright might have killed her, as Cook and Wilson unravel what really happened and where her body might be. Inspired by an iconic pair like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Patterson sees it as natural that journalists would be at the novel's centre, "journalists, sometimes they deserve what they get, but most journalists want to go after the truth… That's what we want journalists to do." Clinton, who had his own tussles with conspiracy-minded journalists through the years, agrees that even in an era of fevered partisanship honourable journalists will succeed: "I still think being able to stand up as a standout person who will tell the truth even when it means, 'I was wrong, but here's what I think the truth is.'" And when the story makes its Hollywood debut (it has been sold and is being written by Peaky Blinders' Steven Knight), it's likely that Brea Cooke will be the central character – the journalist digging for the truth. But The First Gentleman is not just a courtroom drama. It's also likely the first thriller in history to have as a central part of the plot a grand bargain on the US debt and spending. Without spoiling the ending, let's just say President Wright lays out how to solve entitlement spending and balance the budget. This book is coming out at the same time as Donald Trump and the Republican Party are laying out their own plans. Could President Wright's proposal work? Patterson jokes: "We have a big, beautiful bill in our book." Sneaking in some substantive information is all part of how they see their books connecting, says Clinton: "I think people don't mind learning something useful while being entertained by a hell of a good story." In their first book it was cybersecurity, now it's budget negotiations. 'In the beginning, it was a mess' And on their third outing, what have the writing pair learned from each other? For Patterson, it's all about research and authenticity, and after finishing his recent memoir, he's more focused on "paying much more attention to the sentences… I think I'm better than I've ever been, between keeping it real and being really conscious of the sentences." But even for this experienced pair, the first drafts of this book were tough. Patterson admitted that: "In the beginning, it was a mess, honestly, which we've never had before. We did not have the president, and they were not good characters. The journalists were not good characters. We kind of knew what the story was, but the characters were just all wrong." And then Clinton called him one night to say, "I have a real problem. I don't give a damn about any of these people." They added depth and scenes to draw the characters out. More like this: • The world's most misunderstood novel • Author Ann Patchett on finding kindness in chaos • Forty of the most exciting books to read in 2025 But as much as they are warm collaborators, they're also united by a certain outlook on life. Patterson describes it: "One of the things we have in common, I think we look at the world as not black and white. It's always complicated. It's subtle. There's shades, and I think that's one of the reasons we can work together." And in the end, what drives this novel to its twisting denouement is a sense of duty. Will the president do the right thing by her husband and by the country? The echoes are clear to Clinton: "One thing I know something about, when the other side declares war on you in the White House, you still have to show up and do the job." In a tumultuous moment, this thriller from a former president might offer an essential piece of advice for world leaders. Lucas Wittmann is the executive director of the Unterberg Center for Poetry and Literature at the 92nd Street Y in New York. He was previously an editor at Time and The Daily Beast. The First Gentleman by Bill Clinton and James Patterson is published by Century and is out now. --
Washington Post
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Iranian dissident Jafar Panahi wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes
A massive five-hour regional power outage on the day of the Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony gave new meaning to 'if there's a will, there's a way.' Somehow, electricity was restored just in time for a moment that those present will never forget: Jafar Panahi winning the Palme d'Or. The Iranian dissident director, who has been jailed twice in his country and until April 2023 was serving a 20-year ban from traveling or making films, won for 'It Was Just An Accident' — a riveting political thriller in which a group of former prisoners kidnap and confront the guard who tortured them. But do they have the right guy? Panahi, freed after serving 14 years of that ban, still made the film in secret to avoid his government's required script approval and other rules, like requiring all the women in the film to wear hijabs.
New York Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The Order,' ‘The Outrun' and More Streaming Gems
'The Order' (2024) This tightly-wound mixture of political thriller and police procedural from the director Justin Kurzel was sadly lost in the shuffle of the year-end prestige pictures. It dramatizes the true story of the title organization, a more-extreme splinter group of the Aryan Nation that was linked to multiple crimes, motivated both by money and by hate, in the early 1980s, including the killing of the Denver talk radio host Alan Berg. Jude Law, working in the gruff, lived-in manner of a middle-aged Gene Hackman, stars as an F.B.I. agent who is tracking the Order's activities, while Tye Sheridan as a local deputy, and Jurnee Smollett as an F.B.I. colleague, lend ample support. (Marc Maron also impresses in a brief but powerful turn as Berg.) And as Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the Order, Nicholas Hoult deftly conveys the surface appeal of such a horrific figure — and the emptiness at his center. 'The Outrun' (2024) You may think you've seen this story of a young woman, recently out of rehabilitation for drugs and alcohol, more than once before, and for good reason; the recovery narrative is certainly a durable one in contemporary memoir and fiction. But you haven't seen this story brought to life by Saoirse Ronan. The staggeringly gifted Irish actress occupies every frame of the director Nora Fingscheidt's adaptation of Amy Liptrot's 2016 memoir (Fingscheidt and Liptrot wrote the script), and she never fails to hold your attention. Even when the beats of her character's journey are familiar, individual moments are so honestly inhabited, so vivid and electric, that they feel fresh. And the filmmakers impose a bracingly unconventional structure on the story, intercutting various phases of their protagonist's fall and rise via stream-of-consciousness triggers and unexpected connections. Fingscheidt deploys vivid audio and visual depictions of how it looks and sounds (and therefore feels) to be inebriated, but ultimately, 'The Outrun' isn't about filmmaking flash. It's the story of a woman's journey to sanity and self-preservation, and it's a richly rewarding one. 'Lost River' (2015) This surrealist urban dreamscape is the first and (so far) only directorial effort by the actor Ryan Gosling, who also wrote the screenplay. Tonally and stylistically, it recalls the work of Nicolas Winding Refn, with whom Gosling collaborated on 'Drive' and 'Only God Forgives,' but also reveals the charismatic actor as a distinctive visual stylist, who finds both nightmare and fairy tale imagery in the less-populated corners of Detroit; he's also unsurprisingly good with actors, orchestrating nuanced work from Saoirse Ronan (again), Iain De Caestecker, Ben Mendelsohn, Matt Smith and, in her best non-'Mad Men' turn to date, the film's star Christina Hendricks. 'Bad Behaviour' (2024) Jennifer Connelly is marvelous — wryly cynical, righteously indignant, raw and wounded — as Lucy, a former actor attempting to attain something resembling inner peace at a spiritual retreat run by a beatific self-help guru (played with inspired comic emptiness by Ben Whishaw). The writer and director is an actor herself, Alice Englert, who also plays Lucy's daughter, Dylan, and she mines their strained relationship for both relatable laughs and startling poignancy; this is the kind of movie that lulls you into a snarky complacency, and then sucker-punches you with its piercing insights and emotional truth. This is Englert's first feature as a writer-director; hopefully, it won't be her last. 'Hello, I Must Be Going' (2012) The actor Melanie Lynskey, currently wowing viewers on 'Yellowjackets,' found a breakthrough role in this tender comedy-drama from the screenwriter Sarah Koskoff and the director Todd Louiso. It's essentially a coming-of-age movie, albeit on a slightly delayed schedule; Lynskey's Amy has moved back in with her parents following a painful divorce, and finds little motivation to do much of anything — except hang out with the much-younger stepson (Christopher Abbott) of one of her father's would-be clients. Lynskey and Abbott are excellent together, carving out a dynamic of equal parts sexual sparks and shared sadness, and Koskoff's perceptive screenplay understands Amy's listlessness with uncommon perception. 'The Silent Hour' (2024) Brad Anderson has had an odd and fascinating career as a feature filmmaker, which he launched with Sundance-friendly indie romantic comedies before moving into the genre space with the psychological horror film 'Session 9.' His latest is an action picture in the unkillable subset of ''Die Hard'' riffs; this one amounts to 'Die Hard in an abandoned apartment building,' and works splendidly on that level. Joel Kinnaman is Frank, a police detective who is losing his hearing after an accident on the job. He is sent to take a statement from Ava (Sandra Mae Frank), a deaf witness to a murder. But unluckily enough, the killers were dirty cops, so Frank and Ava end up fighting for their lives against pursuers with at least one major advantage. Dan Hall's screenplay works through several ingenious complications, while Anderson adroitly builds to moments of suspense that hit like fastballs. Also worth noting: the intricate sound design, which takes pains to put the viewer in Frank's head, to great effect. 'By Sidney Lumet' (2016) Five years after Sidney Lumet's death at 86, the director Nancy Buirski assembled this tribute to the prolific and talented New York filmmaker, using interviews shot but not used for a profile in 2008. The results are a fairly straightforward bio-doc, but that's all it needs to be. Lumet's filmography (which included '12 Angry Men,' 'Serpico,' 'Dog Day Afternoon' and 'The Verdict') was so loaded with classics, and he was such a warm and engaging storyteller, that this assemblage of clips and anecdotes goes down as smoothly as an egg cream on a Sunday afternoon.
