Latest in John Ridley

If Vladimir Putin was watching the Academy Awards on Sunday night from his dacha on the Black Sea, his mood may have been blackened by the Best Documentary Feature category. As Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast had predicted, the Oscar went to 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov's harrowing film about the…

Netflix has dropped a trailer for Oscar-winning writer/director John Ridley (12 Years A Slave) newest film Shirley. The film stars Oscar-winning actress Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk), Lance Reddick (John Wick franchise), Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea), André Holland (Passing), Terren…

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago this month, instinct told Ukrainian photojournalist and war correspondent Mstyslav Chernov to head to Mariupol, a strategically important city located on the along the Sea of Azov. His intuition proved correct. Within an hour of…

When the Oscar nominations came out last week, the Best Documentary Feature category contained some bombshells: no recognition for two of the most decorated nonfiction films of the year.  In the latest edition of Deadline's Doc Talk podcast, co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey drill down on the…

Editors note: John Ridley is the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave writer, writer-director of Five Days at Memorial, and the Eisner-nominated writer of the DC graphic novel series GCPD: The Blue Wall. He also hosts with Matt Carey the Deadline podcast Doc Talk, and occasionally contributes guest columns…

When the Oscar shortlist of feature documentaries was announced in December, it was dominated by films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival – films like Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, The Eternal Memory, Beyond Utopia and A Still Small Voice.  The shortlist announcement provided…

John Ridley is finally opening up about the Marvel series he was developing at ABC back in 2015. The Oscar winner made an appearance on the Comic Book Club podcast, where he revealed the Marvel property he had been working on, and it had to do with Eternals. “It's not in the works anymore,&#8221…

The list of feature documentaries still in contention for the Oscars has been cut to 15 finalists, a brutal culling from a contingent of 167 qualifiers. The annual shortlist announcement leaves a handful of filmmakers celebrating, many more disappointed, and documentary watchers with much to…

Bad Press, King Coal, Joonam and Fantastic Machine are all award-winning documentaries, yet in the race for Oscar recognition, they're underdogs. Despite the many honors they have collected at festivals around the world, each of these exceptional films has struggled to land distribution, complicating…

In a sense, Central Appalachia is as threatened by climate change as much as any other place on Earth. Since the 1970s alone, 2 billion tons of coal have been extracted from the region, providing fuel for a highly industrialized nation and jobs for thousands in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and…

It's unlikely the U.S. Supreme Court would have adopted a code of ethics, as it did this week, without a series of revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas and his appetite for first-class vacations paid for by a wealthy Republican friend. Consider it another example of Thomas' influence on the…

At 1 First Street in Northeast Washington stands the columned U.S. Supreme Court building, an imposing marble edifice where the most essential constitutional questions are adjudicated. Across generations, Americans held the institution in the highest regard. But not anymore. Now, according to…