It’s officially Pride Month, which not only means a boatload of corporations will be brandishing rainbow flags, but that also a suite of important and impactful movies will our watchlist. d727

Film has long been an essential medium for the portrayal of LGBTQIA+ stories, highlighting everything from the tragedies to the hilarious messiness that comes with being queer. We’ve come a long way in of this representation (heck, Neil Patrick Harris played the straightest character TV had ever seen on How I Met Your Mother), which is reason enough to celebrate.

In honor of Pride Month, we’re sorting through the best LGBTQIA+ movies to watch alongside your chosen family. Dig in, divas!

10. Fire Island (2022) 1q265x

While it didn’t have much to say in of groundbreaking queer messages, Fire Island is worthy of a place on this list for sheer hilarity alone. The Joel Kim Booster-starring comedy follows a group of queer friends as they embark on a trip to the gay mecca that is Fire Island music festival. Naturally, a whole heap of debauchery queer in-jokes ensue. It’s a nice reminder that not all gay movies must end in death and tragedy.  

9. Bottoms (2023) 2s3743

Following along the comedy line, 2023’s Bottoms was the sleeper hit that took gay audiences by storm, starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri as a pair of high-schoolers who begin a fight club to lose their virginity. The Superbad-adjacent film adds a queer flair to all the loveable tropes of the high-school comedy, and Sennott’s sheer charisma is unmissable. 

8. The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994) 5i4i14

What happens when a bus full of drag queens and a transgender woman take their cabaret show to the remote ends of Australia? You not only get enough dazzling costumes to be the envy of anyone’s closet, but you also get the iconic film The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The Australian film was groundbreaking for its early portrayal of drag culture, and news recently broke that there’s a sequel in the works, which is all the more reason to get caught up now.  

7. All of Us Strangers (2023) 3g2y4j

Perhaps the saddest entry on this list, All of Us Strangers brings the waterworks with the quiet story of two neighbors whose chance encounter punctures the rhythm of their lives. We can’t go on without giving too much away, but did we mention that it co-stars the internet’s daddy Paul Mescal and hot priest Andrew Scott? 

6. The Favourite (2018) 464w3u

While his subsequent films have become even more outlandish, Yorgos Lanthimos had a bucketload of fun with The Favourite, the 2018 black comedy starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Coleman. The sapphic love triangle that underpins the entire plot is truly sumptuous, and it earned Coleman her first-ever Oscar.   

5. Carol (2015) m4m2r

Sapphic yearning? Check. Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, and Cate Blanchette in one of her best performances? Check. 2015’s Carol showcases a beautiful love story set in 1950s Manhattan, which is about as chic of a setting as you could ask for. Come for the dazzling costumes and set design, and stay for the tender reflection of the consequences that come with queer love. 

4. Call Me By Your Name (2017) 18214n

Leave it to Luca Guadagnino — director of the bisexual parable Challengers and the Queer — to deliver one of the most candid and heartbreaking love stories in recent memory. With Call Me By Your Name, the director faithfully adapts the already heart-wrenching story of coming-of-age as a gay teenager, set against the backdrop of 1980s Italy. You’ll never look at a peach the same way.    

3. Moonlight (2016) 1h293o

An incisive look at the queer Black experience, Moonlight is a groundbreaking feat in storytelling and cinematography. It stars the scene-stealing Mahershala Ali as a young boy coming to with his sexuality on the streets of Miami, and it was more than worthy of its (albeit slightly delayed) Best Picture win in 2017.  

2. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) 32w36

The real-life story of transgender man Brandon Teena is handled with utmost comion in the 1999 biopic Boys Don’t Cry. Starring Oscar-winner Hilary Swank, the Kimberly Peirce-directed film opened hearts and minds to trans identities long before it had become a topic of conversation, laying bare the experiences of love, sensuality, and ultimate tragedy.   

1. Brokeback Mountain (2006) 4o5g4y

Brokeback Mountain remains the highest-grossing gay romance film of all time, and for good reason. The heart-wrenching tale of a pair of sheep-herders in 1960s Wyoming hasn’t lost an ounce of relevance in the decades since its release, featuring career-best performances by Jake Gyllanhall and the late Heath Ledger. Quotes like “I wish I knew how to quit you” are etched in the collective gay conscience, and there’s simply not enough Kleenex every time we rewatch.  

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has just finished presenting their awards, with the results being pretty much as predicted: The Revenant has won five awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound. Mad Max: Fury Road was not far behind with four wins of its own, including Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Make Up & Hair, and Best Costume Design. These results would seem to the recent surge of love for The Revenant, making it a favorite for the Best Picture Oscar. Though BAFTA and AMPAS have disagreed on the best film of the year a few times over the last decade, most of the time it tends to match up pretty well. Speaking of matching up pretty well, the acting categories almost went entirely as expected, with the one exception being Kate Winslet’s win for Best ing Actress. However, her true rival for the award (Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl) was moved to Best Actress for these awards, so I think it’s still fair to say that Vikander is the clear favorite, especially after her victory at the SAG awards. Another great result was Mark Rylance taking Best ing Actor for Bridge of Spies, finally casting some light on who we will most likely see take the corresponding Oscar (they’ve matched the Academy 7/10 times over the last decade, with one mismatch being due to not seeing the film on time, and another due to BAFTA making a better choice). As for the screenplay awards, Spotlight and The Big Short took them as expected, but as noted earlier, only one out of eight BAFTA screenplay winners in the last four years has gone on to win the corresponding Oscar (Django Unchained), so either that streak is going to continue, or, for the first time in a few years, the two groups might finally be on the same page regarding these categories. At the moment, it certainly looks like the latter could be true, especially given the immense popularity of both scripts, but we’ll just have to see how things go. All-in-all, it was a pretty good awards ceremony, where a lot of great films won. We even got a good laugh (Mad Max: Fury Road winning Best Costume Design over Brooklyn, Carol, Cinderella, and The Danish Girl? In what dimension would this possibly be true?). Most importantly, we got the answers to a lot of questions regarding frontrunners, so now all that’s left to do (besides catching the last few small guild awards) is to sit back and wait for the big night. Be sure to us the evening of Sunday, February 28th, where we’ll bring you the annual live-blogging of the Oscar winners as they’re announced. Until then, please see below for a complete list of today’s BAFTA winners: Best Film: The Revenant Outstanding British Film: Brooklyn Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room Best ing Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies Best ing Actress: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs Best Original Screenplay: Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy, Spotlight Best Adapted Screenplay: Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, The Big Short Best Editing: Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant Best Production Design: Mad Max: Fury Road Best Costume Design: Mad Max: Fury Road Best Make Up & Hair: Mad Max: Fury Road Best Original Music: Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight Best Sound: The Revenant Best Special Visual Effects: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Best Animated Film: Inside Out Best Documentary: Amy Best Film Not in the English Language: Wild Tales Best British Short Film: Operator Best British Short Animation: Edmond Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer: Naji Abu Nowar and Rupert Lloyd, Theeb The EE Rising Star Award: John Boyega

The 68th Annual Writers Guild of America Awards have just concluded with disappointing, though not surprising, results: Spotlight has claimed their award for Original Screenplay, while The Big Short has won Adapted Screenplay (note that there’s no “best” in front of these categories due to their silly rules which excluded several of the top nominees). As noted earlier, Spotlight and The Big Short still have to go up against the rest of their competition when it comes time for the Oscars, so these might not be the winners on the big night, though it certainly seems like the most likely outcome. The former still has to go up against the brilliantly-written Inside Out, while the latter must still face off against the very popular Room. Again, just like tonight, all four of the other Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominees are easily better than Adam McKay’s banking manual, so let’s hope that the Academy has more sense than the WGA showed tonight, and as far as Original Screenplay goes, we can only hope that they recognize the brilliance of Inside Out (perhaps awarding it to make up for its awful snub from the Best Picture category). Anyways, for a list of tonight’s winners, please see below, and be sure to us tomorrow at 2pm EST for a live-blogging of the BAFTA award winners, where we’ll hopefully be able to put more pieces of the Oscar puzzle into place. Original Screenplay: Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, Spotlight Adapted Screenplay: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, The Big Short Documentary Screenplay: Alex Gibney, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief Drama Series: Mad Men Comedy Series: Veep Episodic Drama: Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, “Uno,” Better Call Saul Episodic Comedy: Clay Tarver, “Sand Hill Shuffle,” Silicon Valley New Series: Mr. Robot Long Form Original: Saints & Strangers Long Form Adapted: Fargo Animation: Dan Fybel, “Housetrap,” Bob’s Burgers Comedy/Variety Series (Including Talk): Real Time With Bill Maher Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials: Jimmy Kimmel Live: 10th Annual After The Oscars Special Comedy/Variety – Sketch Series: Inside Amy Schumer

Anybody who’s read The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots series will know that Academy Awards aren’t always handed out based on merit. In fact, it’s rare to find one of THR’s secret Oscar voters voting based on quality; more often than not, a vote will be cast based on what the voter’s peers are doing or whether or not they feel a candidate ‘deserves’ it. Sometimes voters make their decisions without even having watched the movies. This explains why during each Oscar ceremony, there are so many odd and oftentimes maddening results. The least-deserving triumph while the most-deserving are left in the lurch, sometimes for the the fourth or fifth time (pity cinematographer Roger Deakins, who’s so far been nominated 12 times without winning). This year, favorites are already emerging in the various categories, not all of which/whom necessarily deserve to come out on top on February 28th. On that note, here are eight nominees that deserve to win but unfortunately, already look likely to be beaten.

Another year, another list of snubbed Academy Award nominees. Whether you think the Oscars is still relevant or not, it’s impossible to deny how important the award show is to both the industry and pop culture at large. For many who work in movies, winning an Academy Award is the pinnacle of filmmaking. There is literally no higher honour. Film analysts look to the other award shows that lead up to the Oscars to make their predictions, but every year, there will always be surprises. While some are welcome, including Charlotte Rampling’s first Academy Award nomination for 45 Years, others are far more painful for all the dedicated cinephiles out there. [zergpaid] The problem is that those who vote for the list of nominees are mainly drawn from a very specific demographic i.e. old, white men from America, which has led to laughably predictable nominations and snubs over the years that fail to reflect the diversity of real life cinema-goers. While award shows like these are undoubtedly subjective to a degree, the nominees list for the 88th Academy Awards has overlooked or even deliberately ignored some of the finest filmmaking of 2015. So,  us as we count down 10 particularly painful snubs that surprised us all.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has just announced there nominations and there’s quite a lot to process, so let’s start from the top. Steven Spielberg’s Cold War drama Bridge of Spies and Todd Haynes’ gorgeous relationship drama Carol have tied for the lead with nine nominations apiece, with both films receiving nominations for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (in their respective categories). Not far behind is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s revenge epic The Revenant with eight nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Editing. What may come as a surprise to some is that Adam McKay’s comedy-drama about the 2008 financial crisis did rather well. It may have only received five nominations, but they were all major nods: Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best ing Actor (Christian Bale), and Best Editing. Meanwhile, the film that has been dominating the American critics’ awards, Spotlight, made a small, but decent showing, earning nods for Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best ing Actor (Mark Ruffalo). [zergpaid] There’s bound to be some disappointment for those who were hoping to see a grand showing for George Miler’s action opus Mad Max: Fury Road, but alas, its appearance has been restricted to the technical categories where it has earned seven nominations, including Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Special Visual Effects. With these nominations, it’s rather difficult to tell exactly which film they like the best overall. Bridge of Spies and The Big Short hit every major category, including an acting nod for each, so these would appear to be their frontrunners, but you never really know with the British Academy. The winners will be announced on February 14th, so be sure to us then when we’ll bring you a live-blogging of the winners as they are announced. Until then, please see below for a complete list of today’s nominations:

Audiences were truly spoiled for great performances in 2015. It seems now like we may be in some kind of golden age for exceptional actors and actresses working in their prime – Tom Hardy, Emily Blunt, Michael Fassbender, Brie Larson, Oscar Isaac and the like – as huge stars are pushing themselves further than ever, giving us tremendous performances that continue to leave us wildly impressed. A mere top ten wouldn’t do them all justice – this was a vintage year for film, after all, full of fine turns from some of Hollywood’s absolute best. So, instead, here are the 20 best movie performances of 2015. Enjoy, and as always, drop a comment letting us know which performances you really dug this year.

There are no bad years for film. Well, until the last strip of celluloid shrivels up within 12 months of the Internet being devoured by the mother of all computer worms, no year can go by without a title, a name, a performance, or a breakthrough that permanently reframes discussion of the artform. The proliferation of production tools combined with growing international distribution makes every year of movies harder to stay on top of than the one that came before it. The biggest movies of the year may be the ones with the flashiest effects, broadest marketing, and most teeth, but cinema, like life, finds a way. There are, however, years of film that are more exciting to , or more specifically personal to a viewer than others. It matters as much about where you are in your life as it does the industry’s output, so it’s no one’s fault that, when reflecting on 2015’s best films, my blood didn’t pump and my brain didn’t race the way it did last year. 2014 gave me more movies to marvel at, re-watch, and cherish than could fit into any list of 10. 2015, in comparison, did not lack for emotional highs as high, or images as indelible as those offered in years past. While putting this list together and looking at the year as a whole, however, iration often trumped love. [zergpaid] Perhaps this owes in part to the language barrier that came with half my favourite films being imports, or the often troubling, dense subject matter that made many entries on this list easier to appreciate at arm’s length, rather than fully embrace. Despite my second favourite film of the year being one of the loudest, most exhilarating celebrations of spectacle in recent memory (or was Jersey Boys a 2014 release?), an air of solemnity hung over the majority of this year’s best. Conspiracies of silence born in conflicts past and present, a speechless ache for personal connection, and vaudevillian displays of melancholy connect all my favourites from 2015; perhaps it would be poor form to feel like singing their praises from the rooftops. So before we get into all that, a reminder of just a few of the many, many things one could love about 2015 in film: Michael B. Jordan boxing with shadows in Creed; Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno boogying in Ex Machina; Jermaine Clement explaining why vampire’s prefer virgin blood in What We Do in the Shadows; Jennifer Jason Leigh strumming a tune for The Hateful Eight; Marielle Heller dancing across the tightest of tightropes while making The Diary of a Teenage Girl; the Kings of Tampa putting on a show for Magic Mike XXL; Bugles rolling down a treill in Buzzard; the pulse-pounding drama that is threading a needle in Heaven Knows What; doleful meditation on love and loss in Heart of a Dog; an endearing new generation of heroes brought to life by The Force Awakens. All of these were characters, moments, or expressions of being worth ing, along with these ten features I consider to be the Top 10 Films of 2015.

yesterday when I mentioned that Carol was one of those films you shouldn’t count out of the race just because the National Board of Review ignored it? Well, today the New York Film Critics Circle showed just why by declaring it the best film of 2015, along with awarding it Best Director (Todd Haynes), Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The win hardly comes as a surprise as the film is one of the most critically-praised of the year, scoring a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an astonishing 95/100 on Metacritic. Looking at the rest of their winners, we have only a couple of surprises, including a victory for Kristen Stewart for Best ing Actress in Clouds of Sils Maria and a win for Michael Keaton for Best Actor in Spotlight. The former had won the Caesar Award (the French Academy Award) for her performance, but it wasn’t really thought that she had a chance when it came to the American awards, while Keaton’s win comes as a surprise mainly due to him being a ing character in the journalist drama. Other than that, there’s nothing unexpected here. Inside Out scores another Best Animated Film win on the road to its inevitable and well-deserved triumph at the Oscars, while Mark Rylance and Saoirse Ronan nab their respective first victories for Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn (the latter being another film I warned not to count out yet). There are still many more critics groups to announce, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, in addition to some major nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association next week, so be sure to check back regularly for updates. In the meantime, please see below for a complete list of today’s winners: Best Picture: Carol Best Director: Todd Haynes, Carol Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn Best Actor: Michael Keaton, Spotlight Best ing Actress: Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria Best ing Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies Best Screenplay: Phyllis Nagy, Carol Best Cinematography: Edward Lachman, Carol Best Nonfiction Film: In Jackson Heights, Frederick Wiseman Best Animated Film: Inside Out, Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen Best First Film: Son of Saul, László Nemes Best Foreign Film: Timbuktu, Abderrahmane Sissako Special Award #1: Posthumous Award honoring the legacy of William Becker and Janus Films Special Award #2: Ennio Morricone, Composer

With December right around the corner, it’s time for movie critics from around the world to start compiling their best-of-2015 lists, and the highly respected Sight & Sound magazine is kick-starting the process by unveiling its own list of the 20 Best Films of 2015. Topping the incredibly diverse list of faves this year is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, a Taiwainese martial arts film that won its helmer Best Director at Cannes when it debuted there earlier in 2015. It’s expected to be the frontrunner for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, and given that the voting body for Sight & Sound’s list includes 168 critics from all around the globe, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that an acclaimed arthouse pic from a renowned auteur placed so highly. Todd Haynes’ lovely period piece Carol took second place, and there were plenty of other smaller titles included (such as Anomalisa, which has yet to fully bow stateside but could be a spoiler in the Best Picture race). That said, Sight & Sound didn’t discriminate against mainstream or blockbuster fare, ranking Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out and It Follows highly.    The full list reads as follows: 1. The Assassin 2. Carol 3. Mad Max: Fury Road 4. Arabian Nights 5. Cemetery Of Splendour 6. No Home Movies 7. 45 Years 8. Son Of Saul 9. Amy (tie) 9. Inherent Vice (tie)* 11. Anomalisa 11. It Follows (tie) 13. Phoenix 14. Girlhood (tie) 14. Hard To Be A God (tie) 14. Inside Out (tie) 14. Tangerine (tie) 14. Taxi Tehran (tie) 19. Horse Money (tie) 19. The Look Of Silence(tie) *Inherent Vice was in contention because, despite opening stateside in 2014, it debuted in cinemas abroad earlier this year.

This review was originally published during our coverage of LFF 2015. Sadness and hope intertwine in Todd Haynes’ Carol, where a couple are caught in each other’s gravitational pull and the universe tries to tear them apart. Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s much-loved 1952 novel The Price of Salt, Carol chronicles the romance between Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), a young New Yorker working in a department store, and Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), a married society mother. Set in the early 1950s, lesbianism (and homosexuality in general) is regarded as a mental disorder – even a hint of same-sex reaction inspires loathing and disgust. Carol is already in deep water – after an affair with her daughter’s godmother she’s in the process of being divorced by her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler). Meanwhile, Therese hasn’t seriously considered same-sex attraction, currently trudging through a bog-standard relationship with the upwardly mobile Richard (Jake Lacy). Therese’s trajectory through life feels pre-ordained: marry Richard, move out of the city, pop out a couple of kids, develop alcoholism in the 1970s and then die riddled with depression sometime in the 1990s. Worse, she can sense all this coming. Then Carol and Therese’s lock eyes across a busy shop floor and the world drops out from under them. Smitten with each other, Carol ‘accidentally’ leaves her gloves on the counter and Therese returns them. The rest of the film chronicles their growing love as an uncaring, cruel and repressive society tries to obliterate it. As a huge fan of Haynes’ Far From Heaven (2002), also set in the 1950s and also revolving around a socially forbidden romance (a white housewife falling in love with her black gardener), I was anticipating Carol to be a broadly similar experience. Famously, Far From Heaven is done in the style of 1950s melodrama king Douglas Sirk, with Haynes emulating Technicolor palettes, using incandescent lighting rigs and an actual Elmer Bernstein score. Carol moves beyond homage, instead capturing some indefinable core of the repressive US of the 1950s. Gone are the super-saturated colours and slightly over-the-top dialogue, replaced by softer, more intimate stylings. Characters’ faces are often glimpsed through rainy car windows, overlaid by the blurred cityscapes that speed past them, conversations are punctuated with pregnant pauses and anguish is conveyed through quiet desperation rather than teary outbursts. It’s definitely more naturalistic, but it’s a rigorous, careful and mature naturalism. This attention to detail shines through in Haynes’ precision when it comes to character interactions. Every touch is significant; when Carol casually brushes her hand across Therese’s shoulder, this extraordinarily brief motion fizzes with erotic significance. Practically every interaction between the two appears considered – with Haynes doing a particularly good line in painful looks of longing across busy rooms. Of course, all of this would be academic without two excellent leads. Cate Blanchett is an incredibly safe pair of hands for this kind of drama – dress her in a fur coat, give her ruby red lipstick, pop a cigarette in her mouth and you’re good to go. Thing is, Blanchett is so consistently good that it’s easy to forget just how talented she is. In Carol, she deploys mannerisms so effective that they’re practically weaponized – mixing up a cocktail of dignified terror and deep longing? Who else working today can subtly and silently purse their lips and convey so much emotion? Well, Rooney Mara’s Therese comes close. She begins the film nervy and bird-like – unsure of what she wants from the world. As her relationship with Carol blossoms, we watch Therese assemble her personality piece by piece, realizing her ambitions, her desires and what kind of person she wants to be. Cinematic rebellion often tends towards over the top displays of anger and violence, but Mara manages a subtler resistance that’s no less moving and keenly felt. Aided by a wonderful ing cast, with particular kudos to Kyle Chandler for making Carol’s unhappy husband Harge broadly sympathetic, Carol intelligently shows the audience what living a socially repressive society really means. No one character is moustache-twirlingly evil and we understand everyone’s motivations, even if they threaten the two women that we desperately hope will find happiness together. Haynes’ vision of discrimination comes as a death by a thousand cuts – a panoply of tiny individual decisions that form a monstrous social bondage. As I think about Carol, I can’t help but think of the stone cold classic Brief Encounter (1945) – perhaps the greatest romance ever filmed. I don’t think Carol is as good as Brief Encounter, but even so both are love stories for the ages. After all, intense, instinctive attraction, and the torture of forbidden love will never be outdated.

Of all the strong Oscar contenders emerging in 2015, few have captured our imagination in the vein of Todd Haynes’ Carol. It’s based on Patricia Highsmith’s revered novel The Price of Salt, and we’re now within a fortnight of the film’s much-anticipated release. Orbiting around the atypical relationship between Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara), The Weinstein Company’s period piece is a timely tale of two lovers from opposite ends of the social ladder who cross paths. Burdening the brunt of social stigma and segregation – Haynes’ picture takes place in New York City circa 1950 – the film introduces us to Mara’s Therese, a young 20s-something New Yorker trying to make ends meet as a Manhattan department store clerk. By chance, she meets Blanchett’s titular and alluring lead, and finds herself drawn in by her presence. In today’s clip, there are hints of Carol’s loveless marriage and a desire to escapes the ties of monogamy, with the chemistry between the two shining through against the quaint aesthetic. Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy and Cory Michael Smith complete the cast. Todd Haynes’ Carol will make its bow first in the States, opening in theaters on November 20. From there, it’ll make its way across the pond for UK release the following week on November 27, and you can get the jump by checking out our glowing review.

In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light.