Colin Farrell returns to Matt Reeves' Batman universe as the Penguin in The Batman Part II, and shares the dark world of Gotham and his passion storytelling.
Colin Farrell has got us very excited to return to Gotham as The Penguin in The Batman Part II. Far from it being about getting action scenes right, or even stealing the show with the character’s arc. Farrel explained in a chat with Collider that what pulls him back are the people he gets to work with, and the “Matt Reeves immersive world that’s just very, very gritty.” There’s definitely a love for the vibe and the behind the scenes team it feels like. Farrell kept it real, he explained the camaraderie and new ways of working on set keep bringing him back, as he promotes the upcoming movie The Ballad of a Small Player releasing on 29 October 2025.
Colin Farrell delivered so many thoughts on his role in HBO’s massive hit The Penguin. So the experience evidently stuck with him for good. The series its eight-episodes run in late 2024. It garnered rave reviews, high ratings, and mentions for major awards like the Emmys and Golden Globes. Farrell really got to dive deep into the character, all of the intricate layers and psychological twists and turns that you can only explore in a long form series. Apparently the part allowed him to stretch his acting chops quite a bit, and fans seemed to get as much pleasure as he did. With all the buzz around the show, it is no surprise that The Penguin turned out to be one of HBO’s breakout hits.
The show ended up a huge success, attracting 5.3 million viewers across all platforms during its first weekend, marking the largest four-day debut for a tier one Max original since The Last of Us dusted off in January 2023. The show received rave reviews from critics with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with many reviews referring to Colin Farrell’s performance as “transformative” and “a true tour de force.”
It’s not so much ‘What do I do with this?, but I just want to be in that world and be with Robert and be with Jeffrey again and be brought by Matt Reeves,’ said Farrell. After a deeper exploration of the HBO series character, Farrell returning to the movie sequel isn’t about further expanding the Penguin’s story, instead rejoining the talented ensemble.
Colin Farrell shared his happiness by saying “I’m really excited to be back in that world, to just be around it,” he said as he contemplated joining such an unparalleled group of creatives once more.
Farrell’s ties to the world of Batman are deeply embedded since he was a kid growing up in Dublin. He shared, he was raised watching Burgess Meredith’s legendary turn as the Penguin in the ‘60s Batman TV series when he was 5, and then Danny DeVito’s iconic performance in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns at around 11 or 12.
For the actor, the joy is a little simpler, just getting to play in a world “where a character called Bruce Wayne and Batman exist, is such a joy.” He admired how Reeves had “re-imagined a world that is unique enough and yet still honors the struggles of that city and the psychological struggles of the character of Bruce Wayne.”
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Although Farrell has now confirmed that his part in The Batman Part II will be very small, a smaller appearance than in the first film. He has read the full script and described it as “extraordinary”. He hinted that THE BATMAN 2 is a much deeper plot, it means that Reeves is expected to be seen in scarier scenes and it will further keep the franchise as the stakes are bigger.
Filming for The Batman Part II is set to begin April 2026. Robert Pattinson, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell are returning to their roles. Farrell seems doubtful about a second season of The Penguin. He said to Deadline, “I’ve heard some talk about it, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Part of me thinks we should just leave it as we got away with something special.”
For Farrell, being part of Matt Reeves’ Batman world is more than just another gig—it’s a dream come true from his childhood, and he’s surrounded by collaborators who are as passionate as he is about telling grounded, character-driven stories in the dark, complex reality of Gotham. The criminal underworld of Gotham City is once again ready to entertain their fans but Colin Farrell’s Penguin has made a permanent impact on the Batman mythos and his passion for this universe and the team behind it will keep him coming back for as long as they’ll have him.
Caught Stealing is the sleeper in Darren Aronofsky's output, and it includes Austin Butler's best career performance in this exhilarating 1998 NYC narrative.
If you checked the box office rankings in August 2025, you might have thought Caught Stealing was a bomb. It came, it saw, it didn’t come close to recouping even a quarter of its budget. That’s a flop in the cold calculations of Hollywood. But if you dig movies that actually mean something, you already know that box office numbers are never an indicator of quality.
Caught Stealing is a terrific film that was just released at the wrong time. It is a gritty, sweaty, adrenaline-charged tour of 1998 New York City, and it may be the most fun film Aronofsky has ever made. So as it finally comes to streaming, here’s hoping this misunderstood classic can find a wider audience.
Darren Aronofsky is generally known for his brutal misery. From the drug-fueled nightmares of Requiem for a Dream to the pornographic claustrophobia of The Whale, his movies are usually predicated on a formula of obsession triggering madness. You respect his films, but you don’t always “enjoy” them.
Stealing Caught steals the script and flips the script sideways. It’s Aronofsky loosening his tie. He brings his trademark intensity to a crime thriller that seems like a mash-up of Coen Brothers capers and a 90’s action flick. He’s no longer “wallowing” in his character’s pain; he’s feeling the chaos, literally. The upshot is a movie whose balance of excruciating suspense and farcical comedy achieves a tone that’s idiosyncratically, strangely electric.
Forget the hip-swivel of Elvis and the bald menace of Dune. According to Screenrant, In Caught Stealing, Austin Butler completely reinvents his physical presence. He plays Hank Thompson, a washed-up baseball prodigy turned alcoholic bartender.
To promote the part, Butler had to abandon the dehydrated “superhero abs” look for what the production termed the “Baseball Body.” He bulked up with 35 pounds to resemble a ‘90s power hitter — big, heavy and utilitarian. When Hank fights, he does not do karate but he draws on centrifugal force, wielding mundane objects like a bat, looking like a dashing person with the body mass of a football player. It’s a grounded, sweaty turn that brings gravity to the movie. You buy that he’s a guy who’s given up on life, which is what makes it so interesting when he has to fight for it.
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One of the film’s smartest moves is its setting. By placing the action in 1998, Aronofsky removes the safety net of modern technology. There are no smartphones to GPS a getaway route. There is no cloud to upload evidence to. Hank is alone in the Lower East Side with nothing but payphones, paper maps, and his wits.
This “analog anxiety” imparts a breathless, hands-on energy to the film that so many modern thrillers are missing. It’s a “run and gun” movie powered by a pounding post-punk score that will make your heart race. The camerawork captures the filth of a non-gentrified New York, a city of dilapidated infrastructure and menacing shadows.
The story is straight-up noir, Hank is just an ordinary guy who winds up in the criminal underbelly simply because he agreed to watch his neighbor’s cat. That’s it. That’s the catalyst.
Suddenly he’s being chased by Russian mobsters, a terrifying corrupt cop (Regina King), and a wild card enforcer (Bad Bunny). It’s a “bureaucratic nightmare” of violence in which everyone believes Hank has the MacGuffin, and no one thinks he’s innocent.
With an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics have already determined what the general movie-going audience failed to see in theaters. Caught Stealing isn’t just a movie, it’s a mood. It’s a throwback to an era when action films had texture, when heroes were humble folk enduring a genuinely awful day, and survival wasn’t about saving the world — it was just about making it to the next morning.
Caught Stealing is the sort of movie that sneaks up on you – sharp, frenetic, bruised in both tone and spirit, and infused with a style we had no idea Aronofsky was capable of. It may have been a box office flop, but it’s a matter of time. With its gritty ‘98 vibe, an amazing career-best performance from Austin Butler, and a tone that is at once both panicked and infuriatingly funny, this movie is going to find a cult audience once the word gets out about what they missed in theaters. There are times when the loudest success stories aren’t the best films – but the ones that live with you the longest, after the lights come up.
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Explore the ultimate 90s Movies List proving why 1999 was the best year for cinema, featuring The Matrix, Fight Club, Magnolia & more iconic films.
There is no question that 1999 was a blockbuster year for movies, with countless groundbreaking films that have defined popular culture. Here is 90s Movies List from the mind-boggling visual effects and philosophical musings of The Matrix to the shattering shock and surprisingly heartfelt emotional payoff of The Sixth Sense and the ferocious, anarchic spirit of Fight Club, each movie redefined the genre it was working in and spoke to its own particular audience. It was also a year in which directors and producers took a few chances and the final fruits of their risky labors continue to be enjoyed more than 25 years later. Truly, 1999 set a high bar for what cinema could be.
The last year of the last century was more than just a date on a calendar. It was a tectonic shift in Hollywood: the old guard of cinema collided with a new class of filmmakers who didn’t aren’t run the rulebook. Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg still commanded respect (along with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese), but a new generation was emerging — Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, M. Night Shyamalan, David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson — and rewriting what a movie could be. The year seemed like the zenith of everything the 1990s had been building toward — indie films gaining mainstream legitimacy, blockbusters getting smart, and moviegoers revved to engage with difficult, out-of-the-way tales.
And there was something else in the cultural air that year. The approaching millennium, and the year 2000, or Y2K, brought with it a sense of collective existential dread that many filmmakers sought to channel— albeit while celebrating the liberating spirit of the past. The upshot: it was a year that not only produced fine films, but fine films of, it seems, every possible genre and style.
When the Wachowskis’ The Matrix opened in March, they hadn’t simply made a movie — they’d changed the language of action cinema forever. Featuring revolutionary “bullet-time” visual effects and questions about the nature of reality, kung fu, science-fiction, and existential philosophy, The Matrix was like nothing anyone had seen before.
Keanu Reeves’ quietly assured turn as Neo has become iconic, with Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss also excellent. The film made $466 million worldwide and continues to inspire filmmakers today. What was remarkable wasn’t just the new technology — it was how that new technology allowed for the expression of high-level ideas about free will and reality that were easy to grasp.
M. Night Shyamalan made a striking debut with a psychological thriller that turned into a cultural touchstone. Bruce Willis, making a bid for dramatic respectability, was a perfect match for nine-year-old Haley Joel Osment in a movie that was really just a series of linked ghost tales. The movie’s legendary twist is one of film’s best kept surprises — an ending that rereads everything you’ve seen.
But the most important thing about the twist is that it didn’t come off as a cheap trick – it is earned, powerfully, through carefully-crafted screenwriting and emotional veracity. The Sixth Sense grossed $672.8 million worldwide to be the second-highest grossing film of 1999, and it still holds up as a tender thriller that’s all in suggestion, not blood.
David Fincher’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel was not only one of the most violently thought-provoking movies of the year. It was, paradoxically, one of its most rewarding experiences. What is discomfiting at first becomes addictive at second, third, and even fourth viewings. As the insomniac, crumbling narrator Edward Norton struggles not to fall under the spell of charismatic Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt dive bombs into a ferocious satire of consumerism, fragmented masculinity, and contemporary rebellion.
That film’s twist is quieter and morally ambivalent, and works by revealing a narrator’s split mind. With an IMDb rating of 8.8, Fight Club has risen above the backlash that it received at its release and has been seen as a film of true artistic merit masquerading as mindless entertainment that causes conversations about meaning and social critique.
Mendes (Bond) debuted behind the camera on features with the year’s Oscar darling, taking home five Academy Awards, among them Best Picture and Best Actor for Kevin Spacey. Darkly satirical about suburban American culture, the trend was immediately established – Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball were revealing the emptiness behind Middle America’s perfectly trimmed lawns.
It was one of the rarest of things in Hollywood: a critics hit that also became a box office giant, raking in more than $350 million on an unassuming $15 million budget. That’s not to say that the film’s reputation hasn’t been reconsidered in recent years, though its impact on cinema is certainly undeniable.
The last film of Stanley Kubrick was meant to be his big comeback. What the viewers were offered was something much richer: a relationship drama hiding behind the trappings of a thriller, a farcical, sexual black comedy, and a reflective film on marriage and desire.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman gave raw performances, and Kubrick’s obsessive direction turned a well-worn story line into something truly disturbing and thought-provoking .
Spike Jonze’s first feature film’s concept, a portal into the thoughts of actor John Malkovich might have been a novelty, but Jonze uses it to examine identity, obsession and the nature of consciousness itself. Cameron Diaz, John Cusack, and Catherine Keener give surprisingly profound performances in what easily could have been a straightforward comedy.
Toy Story 2 showed that animated sequels could say something artistically, rather than just being financial grabs. It helped establish Pixar as a studio that treats its adult intelligence and emotions—and it remains one of the most powerful films in Pixar’s entire library.
When it hit theaters in 1999, it revolutionized the horror genre with its use of found-footage style narration, minimal production costs, and a genius marketing strategy that obscured fact and fiction.
The Blair Witch Project become the excessive horror which success demonstrated that people could be entertained simply by a story and a mood, without elaborate special effects or movie stars.
Magnolia interlaces a number of connected stories throughout the day and night. At its heart, the film is about guilt, forgiveness, regret, trauma, coincidence and connection between people. The various characters’ lives intersect in small (and occasionally stunning) ways, leading up to one of the most-discussed finales in contemporary film.
Magnolia is now considered a cult classic, and is often regarded as one of the best films of 1999 and one of the best ensemble films ever. It’s flawed and difficult, and so human — all of which is why it continues to provoke discussion more than twenty years on.
The “Best Man” (1999), directed by Malcolm D. Lee, is a romantic comedy that rode the wave of popularity of the genre back then. With a predominantly Black cast, the movie is about a group of college friends coming back together for a wedding. Taye Diggs is a rising novelist whose latest book causes trouble — it’s a roman à clef that draws on their own lives.
Warm, funny and sexy, the film was a box office hit and managed to distinguish itself without crass commercial exploitation or without being too blatantly positioned as a “milestone” in Black representation. Executive produced by Spike Lee, who is also the director’s cousin, “The Best Man” continues to hold a treasured place in the romcom canon.
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What is interesting is that 1999 itself was not universally hailed as the best year in the 90s Movies List. American Beauty took the Oscar, but Being John Malkovich was more highly lauded. Fight Club divided opinions upon its release. It was a long time before audiences and critics as a whole realized what they had experienced that year: They’d been treated to something extraordinary—an entire year in which the movies seemed vital, even dangerous, and endlessly inventive.
In an era when blockbuster culture reigns and original concepts have a hard time securing funding, 1999 stands as a powerful testament to what can be achieved. It was the year that arthouse brains met Hollywood brawn, when first-time filmmakers could become auteurs overnight, and when a movie didn’t have to come from a known property to become culturally significant. Looking back, 1999 was not just a great year for movies — it was the year that movies proved that they still mattered.
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