After a mediocre opening weekend at the domestic box office, Warner Bros.' "Tenet" will play at some drive-in theaters in the Los Angeles area. 

The new Christopher Nolan movie will play at five drive-ins in the area this weekend, Warner Bros. confirmed to Business Insider. Warner Bros. had mandated that "Tenet" only play in drive-in theaters where traditional indoor theaters were open. Theaters in Los Angeles remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but theaters in Orange County were greenlit to open this week. Warner Bros. said that the drive-ins are within the proximity.

"Tenet" finally opened to a tepid response from audiences in the US over the Labor Day weekend, making $20.2 million domestically, which includes Canada. That's not a disastrous outcome given the circumstances of the pandemic, in which some regions are still closed throughout the country, including New York, and those open have limited seating capacity. 

But it's also not a celebratory outcome give that "Tenet" cost $200 million to produce and audiences don't seem in much of a hurry to return to indoor theaters. The top 10 venues over the weekend for "Unhinged," which opened last month, were all drive-ins, according to Exhibitor Relations.

The good news is that "Tenet" is faring better internationally, and has crossed $150 million at the global box office. Warner Bros. and box-office analysts have said that the movie could fare better in the long run, as it will have little competition in cinemas as most other tentpole films have been delayed until next year.

Warner Bros. has two other big-budget releases slated for theaters this year, "Wonder Woman 1984" and "Dune," but Deadline reported on Wednesday that the studio would likely delay both. 

SEE ALSO: Netflix's CEO says the company wants to build franchises like 'Star Wars' and 'Harry Potter' but has a 'long way to go'

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"Due Date," the 2010 comedy from "The Hangover" and "Joker" director Todd Phillips, climbed up Netflix's popularity rankings this week. 

But the list also includes a large amount of new Netflix originals, from the critically acclaimed documentary "Social Dilemma" to the horror movie "#Alive."

Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its most viewed movies and TV shows in February (it counts a view if an account watches at least two minutes of a title).

Every week, the streaming search engine Reelgood compiles for Business Insider a list of which movies have been most prominent on Netflix's daily lists that week. On Reelgood, users can browse Netflix's entire movie library and sort by IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

SEE ALSO: Warner Bros. has delayed 'Wonder Woman 1984' to Christmas, but 'Dune' will keep its release date and debut the week before

9. "The Social Dilemma" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 92%

What critics said: "What the film tells us doesn't constitute breaking news, but its value lies in pulling together some alarming if abstract concepts into a genuinely scary whole."— Wall Street Journal

8. "Freaks — You're One of Us" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Tipped by a mysterious tramp, a meek fry cook discovers she has superpowers — and kindred spirits — and uncovers an unsavory, widespread conspiracy."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: N/A

What critics said: "Wants to be a scrappy underdog of the superhero genre, but it lacks the imagination to pull it off."— Decider

7. "Boss Baby: Get That Baby!" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Think you've got what it takes to be the boss? This interactive special puts your skills to the test and matches you up with one of 16 jobs at Baby Corp."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: N/A

What critics said: N/A

6. "Anaconda" (1997)

Description: "A documentary film crew on a boat in the Amazon picks up a mysterious stranger who dupes them into pursuing a monstrous and deadly 40-foot-long snake."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 38%

What critics said: "Anaconda, directed by Luis Llosa with all of the subtlety of a snake-oil salesman, is in the great tradition of cinematic cheese, as processed as Kraft Singles slices."— Entertainment Weekly

5. "#Alive" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "As a grisly virus rampages a city, a lone man stays locked inside his apartment, digitally cut off from seeking help and desperate to find a way out."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 89%

What critics said: "'#Alive' is a nifty little thriller that proves that you can always find signs of life in the most undead of genres."— New York Times

4. "Puss in Boots" (2011)

Description: "The fabled feline heads to the Land of Giants with friends Humpty Dumpty and Kitty Softpaws on a quest to nab its greatest treasure: the Golden Goose."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 86%

What critics said: "It's all amiable stuff, with a perfectly decent script, and the feline hero lapping his milk gets an indulgent laugh."— Guardian

3. "Due Date" (2010)

Description: "Days before his pregnant wife's due date, Peter lands on the 'no-fly' list, forcing him to drive across the country with an irritating slacker."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39%

What critics said: "As in the most useless sitcoms, the laffs depend entirely on someone behaving as ridiculously as possible, in uninteresting ways devised by the dullest minds."— New York Post

2. "The Smurfs" (2011)

Description: "When evil Gargamel tries to capture them, the Smurfs flee their woodland home, pass through a magic portal and find themselves stranded in New York."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 21%

What critics said: "There are a handful of genuinely sweet scenes in Smurfs promptly undone by adult actors and filmmakers, who must believe that the little blue troublemakers couldn't maintain a film on their own."— USA Today

1. "Love, Guaranteed" (2020, Netflix original)

Description:"Sparks fly when a crusading but cash-strapped attorney takes on a charming client looking to sue a dating site that guarantees its users will find love."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 52%

What critics said: "It is sufficiently harmless and blandly cozy, like a Hallmark Channel movie that somehow broke loose and found its way to Netflix."— RogerEbert.com

• "The Devil All the Time," Netflix's latest original film, will premiere on September 16.
• The thriller stars Tom Holland ("Spider-Man: Homecoming") and Robert Pattinson ("Twilight"), and is based on the novel written by Donald Ray Pollock.
• A Netflix subscription costs $8.99 a month for the Basic plan, $12.99 per month for the Standard plan, or $15.99 per month for the Premium plan.
• Read more: How to watch Netflix for free — you can now stream 'Stranger Things,' 'Bird Box,' and other titles without a subscription

Viewers looking for a grim and gritty thriller to stream this weekend should consider Netflix's newest original film, "The Devil All the Time." The movie will debut on the streaming service on September 16.

"The Devil All the Time" is based on the 2011 novel by Donald Ray Pollock. The story is set during the 1940s through the 1960s, and focuses on the strange and unsavory inhabitants of a rural Ohio neighborhood. As dangerous elements in the town threaten his family, a young man named Arvin Russell (Tom Holland) struggles to keep his loved ones safe. Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, and Mia Wasikowska round out the impressive cast. 

Star Tom Holland is best known for playing Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series of films. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson first rose to fame playing Edward Cullen in the "Twilight" franchise, and will soon play a superhero himself when he dons the cape and cowl as the title character in next year's "The Batman."

"The Devil All the Time" has received mixed to positive reviews so far, and currently holds a "67% Fresh" rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Critics generally applaud the film's cast, but warn that the movie's dark subject matter can be overbearing. 

How to watch "The Devil All the Time"

"The Devil All the Time" will premiere on Netflix on September 16. To watch the film you'll need to sign up for one of Netflix's subscription plans. 

Netflix's Basic plan costs $8.99 a month, and features standard definition (SD) streaming on one device. A Netflix Standard plan is $12.99 a month, and steps things up to high definition (HD) streaming with support for simultaneous playback on two devices. For the best quality, a Netflix Premium plan costs $15.99 a month, and offers up to 4K HDR streaming with Dolby Atmos audio and support for up to four devices at the same time.

New Netflix members can receive a free 30-day trial to test the service. Netflix is available on virtually every connected-device you can buy, including smartphones, media players, smart TVs, and computers. You can see a full list of supported devices here.

What other movies and shows can I watch on Netflix?

Netflix is home to an extensive library of original movies and series, including hit shows like "Stranger Things,""The Witcher,""Ozark,""GLOW,""The Umbrella Academy,""The Crown," and "Cobra Kai." The service also includes full seasons of select network TV shows and movies from a variety of studios.

If you're interested in sampling Netflix's original content, you can watch some movies and shows for free right now without a subscription. The free selection features 10 titles, including the film Bird Box starring Sandra Bullock, and the first episode of "Stranger Things."

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Heading into 2020, it seemed unimaginable that "Trolls World Tour" would be one of the most important movies of the year.

But the Universal and Dreamworks animated sequel helped spark a major shift in the movie business that could have long-lasting ramifications, even after the coronavirus pandemic.

When the public-health crisis forced movie theaters across the US to shut down in mid-March, "Trolls World Tour" was the first movie to debut on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) platforms day-and-date with its initial theatrical release, and it quickly topped iTunes and other charts. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, thrilled with its success, told The Wall Street Journal, "as soon as theaters reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats," meaning in theaters and on PVOD services.

Shell's comments didn't sit well with AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron, who quickly vowed to not play future Universal movies in AMC venues. Theatrical windows typically last two to three months; Shell's comments were perceived as a slap in the face to theaters.

After a brief feud, the largest theater chain in the world and Universal announced a deal in which future Universal movies could debut on digital platforms 17 days after playing in theaters. There would be the option to move them to PVOD after the 17-day window, but they would continue to play in theaters, and AMC would get a share of the revenue from digital rentals (PVOD digital rentals typically cost $20).

It's an extraordinary move that, again, seemed unimaginable heading into 2020. While there are still plenty of questions surrounding the deal, it suggests a massive shift in the movie business — and the movies themselves.

How will Hollywood define a "hit" in a post-pandemic industry, where the lines between the theatrical and at-home experience are blurring like never before? Studios have adopted new strategies to distribute movies that could have major effects in the months ahead, as the theatrical industry shows signs that it could not recover any time soon.

"A blockbuster doesn't have to be defined by box office," said a Universal insider, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about its strategy. "It can be defined by that, or PVOD transactions, or something else. The blockbuster isn't dead, but it will evolve."

Beyond Universal, Disney took the drastic step of debuting its $200 million "Mulan" remake on its Disney Plus streaming service over Labor Day weekend for an additional $30 fee, essentially making it a PVOD release exclusive to Disney Plus subscribers.

At the same time, Warner Bros. remained committed to theaters, releasing the $200 million "Tenet" in the US and Canada, where it got off to a slow start with $20.2 million in its debut (it's earned more than $200 million globally).

And Netflix has been redefining what a blockbuster looks like with action movies like "Extraction" and "The Old Guard" this year, which Netflix said in July were among its 10 most popular movies of all time. They aren't subject to box-office gross and are only defined by the viewership numbers Netflix releases, based on its own methodology — it counts a "view" if an account watches at least two minutes of a movie.

Business Insider spoke with several Hollywood insiders about how strategies implemented in recent months could impact the post-pandemic movie business, and how some of the movie industry's biggest players are responding.

Here were some key takeaways:

• Universal is engaged in active talks with other exhibitors and Warner Bros. is also having conversations with exhibitors to strike its own potential deal. A Warner Bros. insider, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about talks that were ongoing, said this is the "new normal."
• While the once-sacred theatrical window could change, theaters are still essential to Hollywood, as big-budget Hollywood tentpoles rely on international box office to make a profit.
• Meanwhile, Netflix has had it's fair share of hits this year, from "Extraction" to "The Old Guard," highlighting the advantage the streamer has in this moment and its strategy for big-budget movies dating back to "Bright." But it still wants to find its own mega franchise like "Star Wars."
• Disney found success with streaming after it dropped Pixar's "Onward" to Disney Plus, prompting it to go forward with debuting "Artemis Fowl" and "The One and Only Ivan" on the streamer.
• But it's unclear whether Disney's release of "Mulan" on Disney Plus for a premium fee, which blurred streaming and PVOD, was a success. What Disney does with the upcoming Marvel movie "Black Widow" should give a glimpse as to the company's long-term strategy for blockbuster movies.

The traditional theatrical window may not survive, but blockbusters will

There's still a lot we don't know about the Universal and AMC deal, primarily how it impacts other movie studios and theater chains. But if the deal stands, it could be difficult for other studios and chains not to play ball. 

"Universal and AMC's deal basically forces the hand of the other studios and exhibitors to play a similar game, which could result in the most dynamic change the movie industry has seen since its inception," said Jeff Bock, the Exhibitor Relations senior media analyst, in July after the deal was announced.

The Universal insider said that the studio was in active discussions with other exhibitors. If it doesn't strike a deal with the other major chains like Regal and Cinemark, the implication is that future Universal movies may not play in them. But the person said that the talks "still have time" considering Universal isn't set to release a movie to theaters until November with Blumhouse's horror-comedy "Freaky" (if theaters are closed again at that point, it means even more time).

Warner Bros. is also engaged in active talks with exhibitors about "how to evolve," which even precede the Universal and AMC announcement, according to the company insider. Regarding the theatrical window, the person said that "one size wouldn't fit all," meaning movies would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

"Things will never be what they were," the Warner Bros. insider said. "The pandemic has accelerated a lot of shifts that will be the new normal."

As dramatic as the Universal/AMC agreement is, the traditional theatrical blockbuster will survive post-pandemic. The biggest PVOD market is North America, but global blockbusters like Universal's "Fast and Furious 9"— which it was quick to move from this May to April 2021 — rely on theaters in many markets, and vice versa. The last two movies in the franchise, "The Fate of the Furious" and "Furious 7," both earned more than $1 billion just from the international box office.

But the deal would at least allow studios to be flexible and evaluate releases on a case-by-case basis, as they've been doing during the pandemic, in a world where people can watch movies from the comfort of their homes on Netflix (or any of the other streaming services vying for audience attention). The Universal insider stressed that theaters will always come first, but if a movie isn't working, PVOD would be another option.

"The average person sees a few movies in theaters a year," the insider said. "Are [movie studios] supposed to concede the rest of people's time to Netflix?"

Netflix vs. Hollywood

Netflix, which had more than 190 million subscribers worldwide as of its latest earnings call in July, certainly hopes it can entice audiences to spend a big chunk of their leisure time with it.

It's done that during the pandemic with hits like the aforementioned "Old Guard" and "Extraction," which follow a formula dating back to the streaming giant's breakout movie hit: the fantasy action movie "Bright," starring Will Smith, in 2017. Though it was reviled by critics, Netflix said the movie was immensely popular with viewers and Nielsen estimated it was watched by 11 million users in the US in its first three days (this was before Netflix released its own numbers).

The movie's success set the template for some of Netflix's biggest movies in the following years, according to a Netflix insider, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the company's strategy. In short: Get a major Hollywood star with global appeal driving an original action movie or thriller, something Hollywood had been focusing less on in favor of franchise IP like Disney and Marvel's "Avengers."

The star-led action movie isn't the only genre Hollywood used to dominate that Netflix has sunk its claws into, as it found an opening with the romantic comedy, as well. But it still wants to go bigger.

While Netflix has been a major Hollywood disrupter, it can still learn from Hollywood, according to co-CEO Reed Hastings.

"The thing that many studios are able to do is create great franchises," Hastings told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. "We're making great progress on that with 'Stranger Things' and other properties, but compared to 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' we've got a long way to go."

Netflix has dived into the sci-fi and fantasy genres in recent years, scooping up IP from comic books and video games perfect for world building, from its hit fantasy series "The Witcher" to the comic-book company Millarworld. And the "Percy Jackson" author Rick Riordan announced recently that Netflix is adapting his "Kane Chronicles" book series into movies.

As Netflix tries to build its own "Star Wars" mega franchise, Hollywood will have to further adapt to stay relevant. The coronavirus accelerated that thinking.

The research firm Lightshed Partners even posited in a report on Monday that traditional movie studios should go all in on streaming video-on-demand services (SVOD) like Netflix during the pandemic, noting that PVOD can't duplicate the profitability of tentpole movies at the box office.

The report noted that Netflix generated more revenue in 2019 than the combined Disney and Warner Bros. film studios ($20 billion vs. $19 billion), and that streaming services "have an easy way of driving awareness from their existing subscribers."

"With Disney Plus and HBO Max, Disney and Warner have infrastructure and scale to make this transition," the report said. "Others like Paramount and Universal have building blocks and potentially could. But for studios that do not have an SVOD platform or who are unwilling to build one at scale, they likely will need to expand their focus on supplying movies directly to third-party SVOD platforms in lieu of the sequential release pattern."

It's a dramatic proposal, but Disney in particular has already taken steps down that path.

Disney has embraced streaming for theatrical movies

While "Mulan" is certainly the biggest movie meant for theaters that Disney has released to Disney Plus during the pandemic, it wasn't the first.

The Pixar movie "Onward" enjoyed a brief stint in theaters before they shut down across the US in March, at which point Disney quickly dropped it to PVOD services and then Disney Plus. The movie was successful enough on the streaming service that it pushed Disney to experiment with other titles that would skip theaters, including "Artemis Fowl" and "The One and Only Ivan," according to a former Disney Plus staffer, who requested anonymity to protect career prospects. Disney did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

(The former staffer didn't know specific viewership numbers, though, and Disney doesn't make them public. The closest thing is a "trending" list that can be found on Disney Plus, which the former staffer said Disney implemented after Netflix introduced its own daily top 10 lists of popular titles earlier this year).

"Mulan" was different than "Artemis Fowl" or "The One and Only Ivan" because it cost so much to produce and was practically tailor-made for theaters, especially on a global scale. Movies like "Mulan" typically rely on international box office to make a profit. That's why Disney offered it to Disney Plus subscribers at an additional $30 fee and it's unclear whether the strategy was a success.

It's possible that "Mulan" could not be the last movie Disney releases this way as the pandemic continues to ravage the theatrical industry. Warner Bros. moved "Wonder Woman 1984" from October to December, leaving two months before the next tentpole theatrical release: Disney and Marvel's "Black Widow." And Variety reported on Tuesday that Disney is considering delaying that again.

The prospects are grim for theaters without any new major releases, especially with audiences hesitant to return in the first place.

"For [Disney's] movie studio, I'd guess that the only avenue [to release movies for the foreseeable future] is through Disney Plus," the former Disney Plus staffer said. "They have to be taking a long hard look at everything they are putting out and decide whether it's worth putting it on the service. It's the only thing making money for the company right now."

The former staffer's comments reflect the difficult situation movie studios find themselves in, as they weigh what is right for theaters and what is right for streaming or PVOD. Analysts have called this phenomenon a short-term solution to the current situation, and it is unlikely that a movie like "Black Widow" would be kicked to streaming under normal circumstances.

But the chances of the theatrical industry returning to normal any time soon, at least in the US, look slim. If studios find success among these new strategies in the meantime, Hollywood — and how it defines a "hit"— could be significantly altered.

What Disney does with "Black Widow" in particular could tell us a lot about Hollywood's future:

• If Disney releases "Black Widow" via Disney Plus "premiere access," it would mean that the company was satisfied enough with "Mulan's" performance and feels "Black Widow"— a Marvel movie that hasn't been followed by controversy — would be attractive enough to subscribers and potential subscribers alike to do it again.
• If Disney keeps pushing the movie's release date and holds out for theaters, it means the "Mulan" experiment was likely underwhelming, to the point that not even "Black Widow" could make it work.
• The third option is debuting it on Disney Plus at no additional fee (and most likely in theaters in international territories where Disney Plus isn't available). This option would align with Lightshed Partners' proposal and suggest that Disney not only sees its streaming component as its most valuable entity right now, but is also pessimistic about the domestic theatrical industry's chances of near-term recovery. It would mean that the company feels making "Black Widow" available at no extra cost could drive a significant amount of paid subscribers.

Any of these decisions would have a ripple effect throughout the movie industry and tell us a great deal about what Hollywood will do not only in the near future as it grapples with the pandemic, but how it could evolve in the years to come.

Have a tip? Email the author at tclark@businessinsider.com or DM him on Twitter @TravClark2

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Most of the greatest film directors in history have swung and missed on occasion. 

Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and numerous other critically acclaimed directors have directed at least one movie that critics tore apart. 

For this list, we chose 52 directors who have largely been praised by critics as masters of their craft, and we turned to the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to find out which of the films they've directed was the most critically panned.

We excluded a number of great directors who did not have a film in their catalog that they directed with a critic score under 60%. Stanley Kubrick, for instance, is not on this list, as his "worst" film, "Eyes Wide Shut," has a 75% "Fresh" rating on the site. Another example is Alejandro G. Iñárritu, whose lowest-rated film is "Biutiful" at 66%.

John Lynch contributed to an earlier version of this post. 

Here are the 52 worst movies made by iconic directors, ordered from the (relative) best to worst, according to their critic scores:

SEE ALSO: The 50 best movies of all time, according to critics

Guillermo del Toro — "Blade II" (2002)

Critic score: 57%

What critics said: "The only dread it inspires is in the possibility that its director prefers turning human flesh into CGI-enhanced mush over exploring genuinely frightening material." — The Village Voice

Sofia Coppola — "Marie Antoinette" (2006)

Critic score: 57%

What critics said: "Although it is purposely devoid of substance, it is still devoid of substance." — Detroit Free Press

John Ford — "What Price Glory?" (1952)

Critics score: 57%

What critics said: "Anti-war film unfortunately never gels, drastically rewriting classic play, but does offer some caustic views of armies training young men to die in war."— Classic Film and Television

Wes Anderson — "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004)

Critic score: 56%

What critics said: "If there's anything more tiresome in film today than hip irony, it is forced irony, and here comes a boatload." — New York Daily News

Federico Fellini — "La Casanova de Fellini" (1976)

Critic score: 56%

What critics said: "An ordeal rather than a pleasure, a spectacle that cries out to be endured rather than enjoyed, 'Casanova,' may be the perfect consummation of the distasteful conception Fellini had in mind." — The Washington Post

Joel and Ethan Coen — "The Ladykillers" (2004)

Critic score: 54%

What critics said: "Most of this stuff isn't worthy of the Farrelly brothers, let alone the Coen brothers."— Ebert & Roeper

George Lucas — "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" (1999)

Critic score: 53%

What critics said: "Too busy and talky by half, overpopulated by a baffling array of aliens and robot 'droids,' 'The Phantom Menace' fails to engage the audience in its mythic quest 'to restore balance to the Force.'" — Toronto Star

David Lynch — "Dune" (1984)

Critic score: 52%

What critics said: "This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time." — Chicago Sun-Times

Martin Scorsese — "Boxcar Bertha" (1972)

Critic score: 52%

What critics said: "'Promising juvenilia' is about the most one can say for it." — Chicago Reader

Jean-Luc Goddard — "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)

Critic score: 50%

What critics said: "The politics are as muddled as the art is (deliberately?) amateurish."— TV Guide

Richard Linklater — "Bad News Bears" (2005)

Critic score: 48%

What critics said: "More irksome is the ordained focus on plot undulation and simplistic motivation, as if nobody remembered that the first film was a social satire." — Village Voice

Alexander Payne — "Downsizing" (2017)

Critic score: 46%

What critics said: "The film, having launched a sprightly comic conceit, lets it glide away."— The New Yorker

David Fincher — "Alien 3" (1992)

Critic score: 43%

What critics said: "Good acting has salvaged many a poor script in the past, but not here." — Time Out

Terrence Malick — "Song to Song" (2017)

Critic score: 43%

What critics said: "We're left with gorgeous photography (Emmanuel Lubezki), a plotless plot and a sense that some transcendentalist Nashville may lurk here waiting to be discovered, though not — thanks — by me."— Financial Times

David Cronenberg — "M. Butterfly" (1993)

Critic score: 43%

What critics said: "When John Lone parades around in mascara and speaks in an asexual monotone, the film audience discovers itself staring at John Lone's whiskers underneath his makeup." — FilmCritic.com

John Huston — "Sinful Davey" (1969)

Critic score: 43%

What critics said: "A bland, lethargic period comedy."— Variety

Ava DuVernay — "A Wrinkle In Time" (2018)

Critic score: 42%

What critics said: "Disney's version of the Madeleine L'Engle young-adult novel is a magical mystery tour minus the magic and mystery, and a great disappointment, since there were so many reasons to root for the film's success." — Wall Street Journal

Alfonso Cuarón — "Great Expectations" (1998)

Critic score: 37%

What critics said: "A meandering, stilted movie." — San Francisco Chronicle

Tim Burton — "Dark Shadows" (2012)

Critic score: 36%

What critics said: "This is not so much a coherent movie as it is a long, expensive joke in search of a purpose." — The New Yorker

Kathryn Bigelow — "The Weight of Water" (2001)

Critic score: 35%

What critics said: "A boring, pretentious muddle that uses a sensational, real-life 19th-Century crime as a metaphor for -- well, I'm not exactly sure what -- and has all the dramatic weight of a raindrop."— Detroit Free Press

Robert Zemeckis — "Welcome to Marwen" (2018)

Critic score: 34%

What critics said: "Mind-numbingly immense, joylessly violent and utterly lifeless... You've got to see it to believe it, though I wouldn't advise doing so."— Wall Street Journal

Werner Herzog — "Salt and Fire" (2017)

Critic score: 32%

What critics said: "Looking just like a dressed-up Neil Breen joint, Salt and Fire becomes, at its best, Herzog's version of camp; at its worst, unwitting self-parody."— RogerEbert.com

Steven Soderbergh — "The Good German" (2007)

Critic score: 34%

What critics said: "There's a line between homage and mimicry, and Soderbergh has crossed it." — Houston Chronicle

Peter Jackson — "The Lovely Bones" (2009)

Critic score: 32%

What critics said: "Jackson seems more at home in the afterlife than in this one, rendering this off-kilter project creepy and pretentious." — CNN

Jane Campion — "In the Cut" (2003)

Critic score: 32%

What critics said: "Beneath its dense texture and rich mood, Jane Campion's romantic thriller is about nothing and goes nowhere."— Associated Press

Woody Allen — "Wonder Wheel" (2017)

Critic score: 31%

What critics said: "'Wonder Wheel' will strike fans as an embarrassment and doubters as further evidence of decline - proof of Allen's lack of interest or engagement in a world beyond his shrinking artistic comfort zone."— Boston Globe

Miloš Forman — "Goya's Ghost" (2007)

Critic score: 30%

What critics said: "Think of it as an 'Amadeus' that doesn't work."— Orlando Sentinel

Ingmar Bergman — "All These Women" (1964)

Critic score: 30%

What critics said: "Ingmar Bergman, who has tackled religion, sin, sex, music and muddled mores in elliptical but artistically distinguished film style, appears to be confused by comedy and color." — The New York Times

Jonathan Demme — "Last Embrace" (1979)

Critic score: 29%

What critics said: "Belabored imitation Hitchcock." — Las Vegas Review Journal

Steven Spielberg — "Hook" (1991)

Critic score: 29%

What critics said: "The exposition is so underlined and re-underlined, you could teach yourself to fly waiting for something to happen."— The Washington Post

Alfred Hitchcock — "Juno and the Paycock" (1930)

Critic score: 27%

What critics said: "A fairly deadly case of canned theater that's pretty close to what Hitchcock many years later would refer to as 'photographs of people talking.'"— Chicago Reader

Robert Redford — "Lion for Lambs" (2007)

Critic score: 27%

What critics said: "There is much talk of paralysis in Robert Redford's what's-wrong-with-America movie 'Lions for Lambs,' and there is a whole lot of the same in the movie itself."— Toronto Star

Ang Lee — "Gemini Man" (2019)

Critic score: 26%

What critics said: "No matter how many (presumably non-computer-generated) tears Smith sheds, he and Lee never transform this baby hit man into a plausible science-fiction conceit, let alone invest him with a soul."— Los Angeles Times

Antoine Fuqua — "Bait" (2000)

Critic score: 26%

What critics said: "Numbingly incoherent."— New York Times

Ridley Scott — "A Good Year" (2006)

Critic score: 25%

What critics said: "Russell Crowe has many talents, but a gift for light comedy is not one of them." — Rolling Stone

Clint Eastwood — "The 15:17 to Paris" (2018)

Critic score: 23%

What critics said: "A single act of heroism can truly transform a life, but that action does not necessarily make for a transformative motion picture." — Los Angeles Times

Ron Howard — "Inferno" (2016)

Critic score: 23%

What critics said: "Ron Howard's mostly lame adaptation of Dan Brown's wholly lame novel."— Vulture

James Ivory — "Slaves of New York" (1989)

Critic score: 22%

What critics said: "The first thing I feel is a genuine dislike for the people in this film."— Chicago Sun-Times 

Robert Altman — "Quintet" (1979)

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "All great directors must be arrogant to the extent that they will follow their dreams through to the bitter, sometimes banal end. This time Mr. Altman's faith in himself has led him over the brink."— New York Times

Howard Hawks — "Today We Live" (1933)

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "As a drama of the war it is not precisely convincing, for coincidences play an important part in its arrangement. It is also anachronistic."— New York Times

Danny Boyle — "The Beach" (2000)

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "'The Beach' is the kind of literary rubbish that makes you trace the patterns in the carpet while you're supposed to be watching the screen." — Observer

Spike Lee — "She Hate Me" (2004)

Critic score: 19%

What critics said: "Succeeds in finding something to offend almost everybody." — Orlando Sentinel

Francis Ford Coppola — "Jack" (1996)

Critic score: 18%

What critics said: "Someone deserves a timeout for letting this mawkish misfire get to the screen."— USA Today

Roman Polanski — "Diary of Forbidden Dreams" (1973)

Critic score: 17%

What critics said: "I wonder how much Carlo Ponti gave Roman Polanski to make 'Diary of Forbidden Dreams.' Ten cents would have been excessive."— Chicago Sun-Times

Sydney Pollack — "Random Hearts" (1999)

Critic score: 15%

What critics said: "Pollack appears to have taken lessons from Martin Brest about how to irritate and bore viewers with endless pauses in conversations."— ReelViews

Sidney Lumet — "Gloria" (1999)

Critic score: 14%

What critics said: "Sidney Lumet-directed dud that sprung from the singularly bad idea of remaking John Cassavetes' oddball 1980 character study." — Entertainment Weekly

Oliver Stone — "The Hand" (1981)

Critic score: 11%

What critics said: "Inescapably cheesy."— FilmCritic.com

Mel Brooks — "Dracula - Dead and Loving It" (1995)

Critic score: 11%

What critics said: "Either this is the lamest Mel Brooks comedy ever or it's too close to other contenders to make much difference." — Chicago Reader

Harold Ramis — "Club Paradise" (1986)

Critic score: 11%

What critics said: "A frenetically unfunny and charmless movie." — Los Angeles Times

Barry Levinson — "Rock the Kasbah" (2015)

Critic score: 7%

What critics said: "An acclaimed film director, a legendary comic actor, lots of fun rock and pop songs, and a noble story at its core can't save 'Rock the Kasbah' from being one hugely misguided dud."— Los Angeles Times

John Singleton — "Abduction" (2011)

Critic score: 5%

What critics said: "Actual abduction may be preferable to the movie of the same name, but only if your kidnappers don't torture you by forcing you to watch it."— New York Post

Wiliam Friedkin — "Good Times" (1967)

Critic score: 0%

What critics said:"The movie's incredibly thin storyline seems to exist for the sole purpose of allowing Sonny and Cher to sing a lot of silly pop songs and appear in cheesy sketches."— Reel Film Reviews

"Until the Lion tells his side of the story," Nigerian author China Achebe once said, "the tale of the hunt will always glorify the Hunter." For generations, Africa's stories have been told by those who colonized it — but slowly, things are changing. 

Apple, Warner Music, Sony Music, and Universal Music are seizing the opportunity to be part of the African entertainment boom, setting up offices and acquiring African music labels. Netflix, the global streaming superpower, didn't enter the African market until 2016, but did so with a vision of telling African stories with African voices — since then, it has invested an extraordinary $17 billion in African-made programming and content. 

Dorothy Ghettuba, Netflix's head of Africa originals, said in a recent interview with CNN: "The appetite for African stories is there. Africans are excited about local content that is best in class." The multinational is trying to create content that resonates with the continent's diverse culture and experiences. 

Netflix didn't just appoint local heads and staff in Africa, but empowered African content makers and creatives to tell their stories and correct the narratives that outsiders previously dictated. It gave Africans a chance to give the world a glimpse of the continent's versatility. On September 21, for example, it announced it had commissioned four new original stories in Nigeria.

As the Black Lives Matter protests swept the globe earlier this year, Netflix tweeted: "When we say, 'Black Lives Matter,' we also mean 'Black storytelling matters.' We're starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience to understand that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time." As well as its investment in the continent, Netflix took a bottom-up approach by utilising local experts and creatives.

This is in stark contrast to old approaches, when companies would barely adapt their products. Just because Game of Thrones is translated into Yoruba, Swahili, or Shona does not mean it resonates with locals.

Netflix launched its "Made in Africa" collection in May, featuring hundreds of Netflix titles shot in Africa. It included Nigerian drama Lionheart, which Netflix won the right to distribute after its Toronto Film Festival premiere. In February, Netflix released its first African original, the South African crime series "Queen Sono." In May it followed this up with "Blood and Water," starring South African actress Ama Qamata. "Blood and Water" presents several perspectives of the dynamics of cultures found in one African country — including those around affluent areas in Cape Town, which deviates from the stereotyped, poverty-stricken depiction of the continent.

Lionheart, directed by Genevieve Nnaji, a veteran of Nigeria's "Nollywood" film scene, showcases women in leadership with its story of a female leader who must take over her father's company. Having grown up with Nollywood and other West African films, I remember storylines dominated by derogatory images of women, who were often fighting over a man, contending with the ill treatment of mother-in-laws over cultural differences, or just left being the "side chick " in adulterous relationships.

Films like Lionheart mark a new era for African film making, where we have women who can lead — who can be ambitious and successful in patriarchal cultures.

Expansion into any new market varies in its impact, and Netflix's emerging market venture has had its challenges. Many African countries still struggle with infrastructure and energy resources. Power cuts, high data costs, and slow broadband are still major parts of navigating business in African cities. In some areas, there is no connection at all for streaming. Netflix's flat global price is unaffordable to many in Africa, where 85% of people live on less than $5.50 dollars a day, according to the World Bank. Despite these hurdles, Netflix estimates African streamers will earn it $1.2 billion a year by 2025.

Netflix launched earlier than its global competitors like Disney+ and Amazon Prime. But African-owned streaming providers are putting up a fight. South African providers occupy the top position for TV and video consumption in Africa — their strength in the market stems from entertainment and sports rights, and unique packages such as their satellite service deals. Other African providers such IROKOTV from Nigeria are local platforms streaming local content, cutting down their overall costs. 

African TV markets are only set to grow: A 2019 report from Research & Markets said Sub-Saharan Africa was the world's fastest-growing TV market. International investment can help drive that, as Netflix is proving: It is now available in all 54 countries on the continent. 

Companies not paying attention to the African market will miss out on the opportunity Netflix is grabbing.

Tina Charisma is a writer, TEDx speaker, and founder of Charisma Campaign, an NGO and global consultancy.

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Halloween is a little more than a month away, which means horror-movie season will be in full swing for fans of the genre over the next month.

With that in mind, we turned to Rotten Tomatoes' list of the most acclaimed movies with the "horror" tag to determine the 100 best horror movies of all time, based on critic reviews.

The list ranks the movies by an adjusted critical score that Rotten Tomatoes derived from a weighted formula to account for the variation in number of reviews for each film.  That means that more recent movies like "Us" have an advantage over classics like "The Shining."

The list includes horror-thrillers like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Psycho," along with recent titles like the Oscar-winning "Get Out" and the acclaimed 2015 film "It Follows."

John Lynch contributed to an earlier version of his post. 

Here are the 100 best horror-related movies of all time, according to critics:

SEE ALSO: The 52 worst movies made by iconic directors — from Spielberg to Scorsese

100. "Better Watch Out" (2017)

Critic score: 89%

Number of reviews: 64

What critics said: "Better Watch Out, directed and co-written by Chris Peckover, is a clever horror film that gets cleverer."— Financial Times

99. "An American Werewolf in London" (1981)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 54

What critics said: "A clever mixture of comedy and horror which succeeds in being both funny and scary, 'An American Werewolf in London' possesses an overriding eagerness to please that prevents it from becoming off-putting." — Variety

98. "The Omen" (1976)

Critic score: 86%

Number of reviews: 50

What critics said: "This apocalyptic movie mostly avoids physical gore to boost its relatively unoriginal storyline with suspense, some excellent acting (especially from Warner and Whitelaw), and a very deft, incident-packed script." — Time Out

97. "Crawl" (2019)

Critic score: 83%

Number of reviews: 198

What critics said: "A rare, straight-up horror film from Shyamalan, Split is a thrilling reminder of what a technical master he can be."— RogerEbert.com

96. "The Exorcist" (1973)

Critic score: 83%

Number of reviews: 81

What critics said: "The movie that launched a new era in horror films, and which, for one generation, remains one of the scariest experiences of their lives." — New York Daily News

95. "Near Dark" (1987)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 50

What critics said: "Bigelow's artful handling of the magic and menace of the night is hauntingly apparent." — Rolling Stone

94. "Chronicle" (2012)

Critic score: 85%

Number of reviews: 185

What critics said: "Although it dog-legs into silly mayhem in the homestretch, for a good portion of its quick 83-minute running time Chronicle is a quite clever boys-gone-wild-on-telekinetic-powers fantasy." — The Hollywood Reporter

93. "This Is the End" (2013)

Critic score: 83%

Number of reviews: 226

What critics said: "Finds a balanced tone most horror comedies fail to deliver. Grossout humor melds easily with grossout horror, sometimes at the same moment." — Chicago Sun-Times

92. "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" (1971)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 41

What critics said: "Anachronistic period horror musical camp fantasy is a fair description, loaded with comedic gore of the type that packs theatres and drives child psychologists up the walls."— Variety

91. "The Haunting" (1963)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 40

What critics said: "When The Haunting digs into the internals of its story, summons its spirits and lets them play havoc with cold reason, it has a power and fervor unmatched by any film ghost stories."— Hollywood Reporter

90. "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 62

What critics said: "[Director John McNaughton] shows few of Henry's dozen or so crimes. Instead he reveals the victims, at the scenes of their deaths, in slow zoom shots accompanied by elegiac music. He is a coroner with a touch of the poet."— Time

89. "The Orphanage" (2007)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 177

What critics said: "A creepily effective exercise in gothic technique." — NPR

88. "The Shining" (1980)

Critic score: 84%

Number of reviews: 93

What critics said: "Kubrick has made a movie that will have to be reckoned with on the highest level." — Time

87. "The Dead Zone" (1983)

Critic score: 89%

Number of reviews: 47

What critics said: "The Dead Zone does what only a good supernatural thriller can do: It makes us forget it is supernatural." — Chicago Sun-Times

86. "Bone Tomahawk" (2015)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 94

What critics said: "Equal parts charming, strange, goofy, unpredictable and genuinely horrifying." — Time Out

85. "Backcountry" (2015)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 50

What critics said: "A couple of weekend backpackers face off against man and beast in director Adam MacDonald's accomplished, blunt-force wilderness adventure." — Variety

84. "The Blair Witch Project" (1999)

Critic score: 86%

Number of reviews: 162

What critics said: "Whenever night falls, the movie takes off, but in a slow creep, with all your childhood fears of the dark suddenly revealing themselves as absolutely reasonable." — CNN

83. "The Devil's Candy" (2017)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 51

What critics said: "A lean and slick homage to occult films, but with a knowing edge that suggests director Sean Byrne is aiming for the critical rafters." — Global and Mail

82. "Gerald's Game" (2017)

Critic score: 91%

Number of reviews: 76

What critics said: "When the movie arrives at a phenomenal, breakneck climax, and then keeps going with a totally implausible twist, it's adhering to the unwritten rule: No matter who's driving, everyone must bow to the King." — IndieWire

81. "Hush" (2016)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 40

What critics said: "Once the premise kicks into high gear, Hush reveals itself as a finely craved one-trick pony."— Indiewire

80. "28 Days Later" (2003)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 232

What critics said: "The movie's craft makes the dread of a killer virus contagious: viewers may feel they have come down with a case of secondhand SARS or sympathetic monkeypox." — Time

79. "The Return of the Living Dead" (1985)

Critic score: 91%

Number of reviews: 44

What critics said: "Any film which features a dead, bald and very hungry punk lurching towards the camera screaming 'More Brains!' gets my vote."— Time Out

78. "Cronos" (1994)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 53

What critics said: "Surprises with its sophisticated and spirited look at a tale straight from the crypt." — Los Angeles Times

77. "The Wicker Man" (1973)

Critic score: 89%

Number of reviews: 54

What critics said: "Like many of the best horror/thrillers, 'The Wicker Man' works because it surprises audiences, relying on carefully-nurtured suspense rather than cheap, theatrical shocks." — ReelViews

76. "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 51

What critics said: "With its toe-tapping cadences, its class cast and its king-sized cabbage, it's destined to become a classic of camp comedy." — The Washington Post

75. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 60

What critics said: "Despite the heavy doses of gore in 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,' Tobe Hooper's pic is well-made for an exploiter of its type." — Variety

74. "The Conjuring" (2013)

Critic score: 86%

Number of reviews: 223

What critics said: "In 'The Conjuring,' the scary casts out the spirit of the silly, permanently, and with a vengeance." — The Washington Post

73. "Misery" (1990)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 68

What critics said: "Reiner captures just the right level of physical tension, but for the most part wisely emphasises the mental duels. Terrific." — Time Out

72. "Frenzy" (1972)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 42

What critics said: "There's no sign of the serenity and settledness that generally mark the end of a career. Frenzy, instead, continues to question and probe, and there is a streak of sheer anger in it that seems shockingly alive."— Chicago Reader

71. "Let Me In" (2010)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 236

What critics said: "One of the few horror films that will trouble you long after the credits roll." — Newsday

70. "Halloween" (2018)

Critic score: 79%

Number of reviews: 371

What critics said: "It lays on the dread with finesse before turning the tables in mostly creative ways."— Boston Globe

69. "Frankenweenie" (2012)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 221

What critics said: "The best thing about an animated monster movie with this much heart is: It's alive. In the best possible way." — Miami Herald

68. "Eraserhead" (1977)

Critic score: 91%

Number of reviews: 58

What critics said: "What a masterpiece of texture, a feat of artisanal attention, an ingenious assemblage of damp, dust, rock, wood, hair, flesh, metal, ooze." — Village Voice

67. "The Witches" (1990)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 43

What critics said: "Real darkness seethes beneath the 'Once upon a time' surface, mostly due to Henson's seemingly curious selection of the brilliant and audacious Roeg to direct."— Los Angeles Times

66. "Upgrade" (2018)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 188

What critics said: "Upgrade is as fluid and exhilarating as anything the Wachowskis signed their names to in the days when they were brothers: the kind of nifty, sometimes nasty surprise our multiplexes sorely need."— Guardian

65. "We Are Still Here" (2015)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 44

What critics said: "Showcasing juicy performances by its actors who tear into their stock roles with admirable conviction, the film looks terrific."— Hollywood Reporter

64. "The Wolf Man" (1941)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 40

What critics said: "It finds modern sophistication and cultured intellects unprepared to deal with a threat that's already at hand, maybe even under our own skin."— AV Club

63. "Phantom Of The Opera" (1925)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 49

What critics said: "Lon Chaney's performance as the hideous organist prowling the sewers beneath the Paris Opera is still a cornerstone of gothic horror." — Chicago Reader

62. "CAM" (2018)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 97

What critics said: "A fascinating conversation starter driven by a great performance. Turn it on."— RogerEbert.com

61. "Dawn of the Dead" (1979)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 45

What critics said: "Undoubtedly the zombie movie to end 'em all." — Time Out

60. "Shaun of the Dead" (2004)

Critic score: 91%

Number of reviews: 210

What critics said: "Mixing horror and humor is no mean feat, but Shaun Of The Dead tightens throats in fear without making the laughs stick there in the process." — The AV Club

59. "The Endless" (2018)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 128

What critics said: "This impressive low-budget indie weaves a genre-defying tapestry of weirdness, atmospherics and cultish horrors across a dusty US setting."— Time Out

58. "Don't Breathe" (2016)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 232

What critics said: "A breathless, visceral, nerve-racking thrill ride that doesn't stop coming at you until its final gasps." — Detroit News

57. "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 51

What critics said: "A lurid melodrama of hate, revenge and murder, a high-class horror film, in the Hitchcock vein." — The Hollywood Reporter

56. "Re-Animator" (1985)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 61

What critics said: "Re-Animator is splatter heaven. Based on the sci-fi novel by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator's gore is exceeded only by its wit" — The Washington Post

55. "Zombieland" (2009)

Critic score: 89%

Number of reviews: 255

What critics said: "It's a black-blood-spitting mugging of a movie, but it's also relentlessly funny and innovative, the sort of film that makes you writhe and laugh at the same time." — Detroit News

54. "It Comes At Night" (2017)

Critic score: 87%

Number of reviews: 250

What critics said: "Scored intensely and photographed vividly, the electric film imagines a small slice of doomsday with horrific believability." — Globe and Mail

53. "Dracula" (1931)

Critic score: 91%

Number of reviews: 47

What critics said: "A sublimated ghost story related with all surface seriousness and above all with a remarkably effective background of creepy atmosphere." — Variety

52. "The Fly" (1986)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 65

What critics said: "Wildly imaginative, gut-wrenchingly scarifying and profoundly primal (not to mention funny), David Cronenberg's 'The Fly' is a movie that whacks you in the solar plexus and leaves you gasping." — Philadelphia Inquirer

51. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 53

What critics said: "A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy." — Variety

50. "The Host" (2007)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 156

What critics said: "Rarely plays out the way you expect. Director Bong is careful to deliver the promised scares, but he is also willing to overlook plot formulas to explore his own interests." — Miami Herald

49. "Train to Busan (Busanhaeng)" (2016)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 116

What critics said: "A zombie movie content not to aspire to any loftier subtextual readings needs little more than a skilled choreographer of action, and there's plenty of evidence that this film had one in Yeon." — The AV Club

48. "Suspiria" (1977)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 57

What critics said: "Mr. Argento's methods make potentially stomach-turning material more interesting than it ought to be." — The New York Times

47. "Werckmeister Harmonies" (2001)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 40

What critics said: "Bela Tarr's style seems to be an attempt to regard his characters with great intensity and respect, to observe them without jostling them, to follow unobtrusively as they move through their worlds, which look so ordinary and are so awesome, like ours."— Chicago Sun-Times

46. "Room 237" (2013)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 131

What critics said: "There's enough real evidence supporting the theory that Kubrick was a genius, and that's pretty entertaining all by itself." — Newsday

45. "The Love Witch" (2016)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 131

What critics said: "A modern feminist horror tale that rewards deep exploration beneath its admittedly beautiful surface." — Detroit News

44. "Harpoon" (2019)

Critic score: 97%

Number of reviews: 59

What critics said: "'Harpoon' offers stylish compositions, amusing running gags and sharp, snappy dialogue. It's a sparse, nasty little thriller."— New York Times

43. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 58

What critics said: "Set at the intersection of post-Vietnam paranoia and the myopic introspection that became hippiedom's most lasting cultural contribution, the Philip Kaufman-directed Invasion alternates social commentary with impeccably crafted scares." — The AV Club

42. "The Innocents" (1961)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 51

What critics said: "Based on Henry James' story 'Turn of the Screw' this catches an eerie, spine-chilling mood right at the start and never lets up on its grim, evil theme." — Variety

41. "The Loved Ones" (2012)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 57

What critics said: "It's a terrifying masterpiece that turns high school drama into a literal dead zone." — IndieWire

40. "Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn" (1987)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 60

What critics said: "Evil Dead 2's rampant inventiveness and manic energy have ensured that it will endure as a cult classic."  — The AV Club

39. "The Evil Dead" (1981)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 61

What critics said: "Sam Raimi maintains suspense and a nightmarish mood in between the showy outbursts of special effects gore and graphic violence which are staples of modern horror pictures." — Variety

38. "Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre)" (1979)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 58

What critics said: "This is a pinnacle of horror cinema: atmospheric, rhapsodic and -- especially in the slow-burn confrontations between Lucy and her otherworldly inamorato -- achingly transcendent." — Time Out

37. "Carrie" (1976)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 67

What critics said: "More superpowers from Brian De Palma, this time in high school, in a screen version of a Stephen King novel that's become a horror classic." — The Wall Street Journal

36. "Midsommar" (2019)

Critic score: 83%

Number of reviews: 387

What critics said: "Midsommar is a waking nightmare and I mean that in the best possible way."— Associated Press

35. "The Fly" (1958)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 40

What critics said: "It deserves a cult following among satire-loving, feminist-minded gore aficionados who appreciate a well-made human tail." — Entertainment Weekly

34. "House of Wax" (1953)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 42

What critics said: "House of Wax proves once and for all that true stereo combined with perfect color and directional sound is truly a visionary new and exciting medium."— Hollywood Reporter

33. "Drag Me to Hell" (2009)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 266

What critics said: "The dichotomies director Sam Raimi presents within that familiar genre are what make this such a kick." — Associated Press

32. "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" (2014)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 133

What critics said: "Combing horror, film noir and westerns, Ana Lily Amirpour's debut feature, 'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,' is a refreshing take on vampire lore." — Globe and Mail

31. "Ready or Not" (2019)

Critic score: 88%

Number of reviews: 297

What critics said: "[A] witty, endlessly suspenseful US slasher movie that critiques privilege and entitlement."— London Evening Standard

30. "The Vanishing (Spoorloos)" (1988)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 47

What critics said: "Mr. Sluizer, whose direction has the spooky precision of nonfiction crime writing and whose matter-of-factness makes the characters seem quite real, builds a disturbing horror story from seemingly modest beginnings." — The New York Times

29. "It" (2017)

Critic score: 85%

Number of reviews: 377

What critics said: "I'm writing this not so much as a critic but as an ordinary moviegoer, experiencing Proustian transport via an old-fashioned scary movie executed by a team of filmmakers and actors at the top of their game."— Salon

28. "Don't Look Now" (1973)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 72

What critics said: "A devastating portrait of grief, a master class in disjunctive editing and a haunting disquisition on the use of the color red." — Los Angeles Times

27. "Young Frankenstein" (1974)

Critic score: 94%

Number of reviews: 66

What critics said: "More about the myth of Karloff than the monster, this Mel Brooks pastiche is probably his best early film." — Chicago Reader

26. "The Birds" (1963)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 56

What critics said: "Arguably the greatest of all disaster films -- a triumph of special effects, as well as the fountainhead of what has become known as gross-out horror." — Village Voice

25. "Godzilla" (1956)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 74

What critics said: "It's a terse, lean terror with a big, swinging tail."  — Dallas Morning News

24. "The Witch" (2016)

Critic score: 90%

Number of reviews: 325

What critics said: "In the tradition of William Friedkin's 'The Exorcist,' this chilling low-budget horror movie taps into the same temporal fear that sparks religious feeling."  — Chicago Reader

23. "The Cabin in the Woods" (2012)

Critic score: 92%

Number of reviews: 286

What critics said: "A horror movie embedded in a conspiracy flick embedded in another horror movie-the most inventive cabin-in-the-woods picture since 'The Evil Dead' and the canniest genre deconstruction since 'Scream.'" — The Atlantic

22. "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 235

What critics said: "Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years."  — Associated Press

21. "Repulsion" (1965)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 64

What critics said: "Roman Polanski's first English-language film is still a creepy little horror masterpiece."  —  Entertainment Weekly

20. "Eyes Without a Face" (1962)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 55

What critics said: "One of those rare horror films that induces discomfort by showing practically nothing."  — Entertainment Weekly

19. "Rosemary's Baby" (1968)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 72

What critics said: "Weird obstetricians, mysterious night noises and even Farrow's improvised stroll into actual oncoming traffic add up to a bustling nightmare that's spawned many a Black Swan since."  — Time Out

18. "Halloween" (1978)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 71

What critics said: "Halloween is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho." — Chicago Sun-Times

17. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 101

What critics said: "Has everything you want in a popular thriller. It's stylish, intelligent, audacious rather than shocking, and stolen by a suave monster you'll never forget."  — Boston Globe

16. "Aliens" (1986)

Critic score: 97%

Number of reviews: 76

What critics said: "Action thrillers assail but rarely test us; this is the tautest, most provoking, and altogether most draining example ever made."  — The New Yorker

15. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968)

Critic score: 97%

Number of reviews: 69

What critics said: "The immediate, quasi-documentary feel, a result of budgetary constraints, actually served the film's horror, jolting audiences because it all seemed just a little too real."  — Village Voice

14. "Freaks" (1932)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 55

What critics said: "Some of the most terrifying scenes ever consigned to film."  — The Wall Street Journal

13. "It Follows" (2015)

Critic score: 95%

Number of reviews: 259

What critics said: "It Follows represents a compelling evolution in how studios and audiences can (and should) conceive of its monsters."  — The Atlantic

12. "Let the Right One In" (2008)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 190

What critics said: "Lovelier than most bloodsucker flicks, but it doesn't quite transcend its well-chewed genre."  — NPR

11. "Hereditary" (2018)

Critic score: 89%

Number of reviews: 369

What critics said: "Hereditary feels like an endless drawing out of that queasy, shocking, falling dream sensation, as the ground beneath the Graham family, and the viewer, crumbles."— Newsweek

10. "Frankenstein" (1931)

Critic score: 100%

Number of reviews: 48

What critics said: "The most influential horror film ever made, this stark and stylish work has a weird fairytale beauty."  — Village Voice

9. "The Babadook" (2014)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 237

What critics said: "A deftly inventive and psychologically charged horror story that trades on the ways in which the prospect of maternal failure can be just as fearsome a boogeyman as any monster under the bed."  — Buzzfeed 

8. "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 46

What critics said: "Has an in-your- face audacity that hasn't dimmed all that much after 63 years."  — San Francisco Chronicle

7. "Psycho" (1960)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 101

What critics said: "Hitchcock is the most-daring avant-garde film-maker in America today."  —  Village Voice

6. "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) (Nosferatu the Vampire)" (1922)

Critic score: 97%

Number of reviews: 66

What critics said: "So this is it: ground zero, the birth of horror cinema."  —  Time Out

5. "King Kong" (1933)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 64

What critics said: "'King Kong' as spectacular a bolt of celluloid as has thrilled audiences in a couple of sophisticated seasons, is the product of a number of vivid imaginations."  —  New York Daily News

4. "A Quiet Place" (2018)

Critic score: 96%

Number of reviews: 372

What critics said: "There are moments when the movie takes us firmly by the hand and escorts us down a darkened path, and they lead to one of the most profound of communal pleasures: the sound of a movie audience screaming as one."— Slate

3. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari)" (1920)

Critic score: 100%

Number of reviews: 54

What critics said: "Undoubtedly one of the most exciting and inspired horror movies ever made."  —  Time Out

2. "Get Out" (2017)

Critic score: 98%

Number of reviews: 386

What critics said: "'Get Out' is the satirical horror movie we've been waiting for, a mash-up of 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' and 'The Stepford Wives' that's more fun than either and more illuminating, too."  —  Vulture

1. "Us" (2019)

Critic score: 93%

Number of reviews: 532

What critics said: "A sharp, often funny meditation on the terrifying power of human connection."— The Atlantic

Disney has yet to release any viewership numbers for its live-action "Mulan" remake, which debuted on Disney Plus on September 4. But new Nielsen data provides a snapshot of how the movie performed on the streaming service. 

"Mulan" cracked Nielsen's most recent weekly list of top streaming titles with 525 minutes watched (the list measured minutes watched for the week of August 31 to September 6). It was the only movie on the list and only non-Netflix title other than Amazon Prime Video's "The Boys."

The movie was originally set for theatrical release in March but was pushed back several times because of the pandemic. In August, Disney announced that it would debut the movie on Disney Plus for subscribers at an additional $30 fee and release it to theaters in regions where Disney Plus is not available. 

Questions have lingered about whether the movie, which cost $200 million to produce, was a success or not. Disney announced last week that it would delay the Marvel movie "Black Widow" to May 2021, suggesting that the "Mulan" experiment wasn't a raging success.

But third-party data has done its best to paint a rough picture of the movie's performance. Notably, Samba TV said last month that "Mulan" was watched by 1.12 million US households on connected TV decides over the four-day Labor Day weekend (the metrics are different from Nielsen's, which measured minutes watched). The company estimated that "Mulan" earned $33.5 million over that weekend.

Future Nielsen lists will account for the weeks following "Mulan's" debut on Disney Plus. If "Mulan" falls out of the top 10, it would suggest that it didn't sustain strong viewership after its first weekend.

At the box office, the movie has grossed $64.4 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. It disappointed in China, where it was expected to be a major hit before the coronavirus pandemic began. It flopped over its debut weekend in the region, making just $23 million even with most theaters back open.

"Mulan" has been shrouded in controversy since it premiered on Disney Plus. Calls to boycott the movie erupted because the end credits thanked government entities in China's Xinjiang region that had been implicated in human-rights violations against Muslim Uighurs. Parts of the movie were filmed in the region.

• Read more of Business Insider's coverage of "Mulan":
• 'Mulan' flopped in its box-office debut in China
• The 'Boycott Mulan' movement has surged and turned online sentiment around the movie negative, according to new social-media data
• 'Mulan' viewership data from connected TVs provide a snapshot of how much money it made in its first weekend on Disney Plus
• How Disney, Universal, and Netflix's movie strategies during the pandemic could reshape Hollywood for years to come

Join the conversation about this story »

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Netflix has another true-crime hit on its hands with the documentary "American Murder: The Family Next Door."

But another Netflix original movie, "Enola Holmes," dominated the streamer among its daily popularity rankings this week. 

Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its most viewed movies and TV shows in February (it counts a view if an account watches at least two minutes of a title).

Every week, the streaming search engine Reelgood compiles for Business Insider a list of which movies have been most prominent on Netflix's daily lists that week. On Reelgood, users can browse Netflix's entire movie library and sort by IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

SEE ALSO: New 'Mulan' viewership data from Nielsen sheds light on how the movie performed after it debuted on Disney Plus

9. "The Devil All the Time" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Sinister characters converge around a young man devoted to protecting those he loves in a postwar backwoods town teeming with corruption and brutality."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 65%

What critics said: "To watch it is to suffer right along with its miserable characters, desperate for some ray of hope or sunshine to peek through the heavy portents of death."— Newsday

8. "Welcome to Sudden Death" (2020)

Description: "At a basketball game, an ex-Special Forces officer must face a group of tech-savvy hostiles when a team owner and his daughter are taken hostage."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: N/A

What critics said: "Jackson is only out for laughs with the picture, and there aren't any of those to be found here."— Blu-ray.com

7. "American Murder: The Family Next Door" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Using raw, firsthand footage, this documentary examines the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 75%

What critics said: "Popplewell's film presents the Watts story as more than a crime story. It is a thematic film about marriage and the deception of social media, as well as a piercing examination of domestic violence constructed with care and undeniable craft."— New York Times

6. "The Take" (2016)

Description: "After a mix-up lands him in hot water, a skilled pickpocket is forced to help a no-nonsense CIA operative track a terrorist group in Paris."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 48%

What critics said: "Elba's magnetic physical presence delivers so much without doing much of anything. But his fans deserve so much better than a couple of dumb quips and a little ultra-violence."— RogerEbert.com

5. "The Social Dilemma" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 87%

What critics said: "What the film tells us doesn't constitute breaking news, but its value lies in pulling together some alarming if abstract concepts into a genuinely scary whole."— Wall Street Journal

4. "Bad Teacher" (2011)

Description: "When a breakup foils her plan to marry rich, a self-absorbed middle school teacher pursues a new man with a scheme that leads to unexpected lessons."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 44%

What critics said: "A frustrating mix of smart flash and smirking impudence."— Los Angeles Times

3. "The Smurfs 2" (2013)

Description: "Evil magician Gargamel continues his quest to tap the power of the Smurfs, creating a pair of his own 'Smurf-alikes' called the Naughties."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 14%

What critics said: "'The Smurfs 2' probably isn't any worse than you might expect. On the other hand, it's almost certainly not any better."— Chicago Sun-Times

2. "Real Steel" (2011)

Description: "A struggling fighter-turned-promoter reconnects with his estranged son to convert an old-generation robot into a mighty World Robot Boxing contender."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 60%

What critics said: "It's more of a throwback to Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick, a rags-to-middle-class-respectability tale about the humble joy of old-fashioned decency."— Vulture

1. "Enola Holmes" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 92%

What critics said: "If about five or 10 minutes could've been left on the floor, Enola Holmes remains enchanting, in large part because Brown is having such a good time hitting different notes."— Paste Magazine

Cineworld Group is considering closing all of its Regal Entertainment Group movie theaters in the US after several large-scale releases were delayed, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The potential move would shutter its more than 500 theaters around the country just as the theater business began to see some signs of life. The release of Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster "Tenet" served as a shot-in-the-arm for the industry after months of inactivity.

Yet new delays threaten to plunge theaters back into a blackout. MGM Holdings announced Friday it would postpone the release of the latest James Bond film, "No Time To Die," to April from its planned November date. Other major releases including Marvel's "Black Widow" and Warner Bros.' "Wonder Woman 1984" have also been pushed back.

Still, Regal's plan isn't fixed, and a final decision isn't likely to arrive until Monday or Tuesday, sources familiar with the plan told The Journal.

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Regal comprises the second-largest theater chain after AMC. Both companies began reopening locations in August but face continued financial pressure as COVID-19 case counts steadily rises throughout the US. Only about two-thirds of locations in the US have opened, and weak box office results for "Tenet" suggest Americans still fear making their way to a theater.

Regal's possible closure decision is partly driven by the persisting closure of theaters in major cities like Los Angeles and New York City, according to the report.

The chain's parent company is also mulling large-scale closures abroad. Cineworld may shut down theaters in the UK following the James-Bond delay, Bloomberg reported Sunday. The company is informing Prime Minister Boris Johnson this weekend that postponed blockbusters are forcing the theater industry into its troubling position.

Theaters are among the businesses hit hardest by the coronavirus. The companies, along with hotels, airlines, and chain restaurants, have come to be known as "reopening plays" among investors betting on a swift economic rebound. While the sectors recovered through the summer, new virus outbreaks in the US and Europe threaten new lockdowns and erase months of reopening progress.

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Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" has had a slow run in US theaters. Warner Bros., the studio behind the sci-fi thriller, has said that it's playing the long game as the movie shows in cinemas with little competition due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But that strategy only works if people are comfortable attending indoor theaters and if theaters are even open. 

"Hollywood has never been a marathon, it's always been a sprint," said Jeff Bock, the Exhibitor Relations senior media analyst, noting a few exceptions like "Titanic" and "The Greatest Showman.""You can't just make that happen, even if there's no competition. And that's a big part of why the industry isn't dropping blockbusters right now, even in an empty marketplace."

Cineworld Group, which owns the Cineworld and Regal theater chains, said over the weekend that it would close all of its US and UK locations starting this week, dealing yet another major blow to the theater industry.

Theaters across the US reopened in August for the first time since March in regions where local governments allowed, but have struggled to attract significant audiences. Making matters worse, major movies that were to be released in the coming months, from Marvel's "Black Widow" to the James Bond movie "No Time to Die," moved to next year.

There's no word on what the closures mean for AMC Theatres, the world's largest theater chain, but Bock thinks that the dominoes will eventually fall. 

"AMC is likely going to try and leverage this as the biggest chain in the US," Bock said. "However, that may only be a short-term solution. Without major product, the major chains are like cruise ships lost in the Bermuda triangle."

So what does that mean for "Tenet"?

The movie, which cost $200 million to produce, has made $307 million globally and $45 million in North America, suggesting it's playing better internationally than domestically. Paul Dergarabedian, the Comscore senior media analyst, said that Warner Bros. has proved its commitment to cinemas and it may be time to seek an alternative such as premium video-on-demand in the US.

"What WB did was show complete solidarity with the movie industry and that was important," Dergarabedian said. "I can't speak for Warner Bros., but I imagine they are looking at the marketplace [for digital release]. At this point, WB has more than accomplished what it needed to do. It's been five weeks. That's shorter than a traditional window but this isn't a traditional time."

It wouldn't be unusual for Warner Bros. to embrace PVOD, even if it committed to theaters with "Tenet." In the wake of Universal and AMC agreeing to shorten the traditional theatrical window for Universal releases, Warner Bros. was also in talks with exhibitors to strike its own deal, a person with knowledge of the talks told Business Insider last month. The Universal and AMC deal allows Universal to release its movies to digital-rental services after just 17 days in theaters.

Warner Bros. did no respond to a request for comment.

Bock agreed that Warner Bros. should fast track "Tenet" to PVOD in North America, or even use it to boost WarnerMedia's flagship streaming service, HBO Max. 

"With the number of theaters in operation dwindling by the week, this has to be a no-brainer," Bock said. 

If the movie does move to digital in the US, it would likely still play internationally until it stalls out. It is set for release in Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua this week, with more markets to follow.

"For a movie to earn $300 million during a global pandemic, that's not an insignificant amount," Dergarabedian said. "Hindsight is 20/20. While the North American gross isn't what you'd expect for a Nolan movie, it's to me still a win for the industry as a whole."

SEE ALSO: How Disney, Universal, and Netflix's movie strategies during the pandemic could reshape Hollywood for years to come

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Warner Bros. set new release dates for several DC Comics movies on Monday, including "The Batman" and "The Flash," as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the theatrical calendar and slow productions.

The studio delayed "The Batman" again, this time from October 2021 to March 2022, almost a year after its initial release date. It also moved Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's "Black Adam" off the calendar from December 2021, with a new date to be determined.

Warner Bros. had already pushed "Wonder Woman 1984" back from October to December, but with the studio delaying "Dune," which would have debuted that same month, it remains to be seen whether that date will stick. The studio initially said that there was room in the marketplace for both movies. 

The release-date shifts come after Warner Bros. and DC pulled the curtain back on some anticipated theatrical releases in August during the virtual DC FanDome event, revealing new details and footage for "The Batman,""Wonder Woman 1984," and more.

DC movies have been trending upward since the DC Extended Universe experiment backfired with 2017's superhero team-up movie, "Justice League," which disappointed at the box office after extensive reshoots and was blasted by critics. Between then and now, "Aquaman" and "Joker" both grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and "Shazam!" debuted to favorable reviews.

While the coronavirus pandemic has upended some of DC and Warner Bros.' plans — notably by pushing release dates or stalling productions — the FanDome event highlighted the scope of future movies. 

We rounded up every DC movie with a confirmed release date. An "Aquaman" spinoff, called "The Trench," is also in the works, but hasn't been dated yet. We included "Black Adam" since it was previously on the release calendar.

Fans can expect plenty of DC content outside of theatrically released movies, too. The long-awaited "Snyder Cut" of "Justice League" hits HBO Max next year. After "Justice League" flopped, fans clamored for Snyder's director's cut and now they're getting it.

Max is also developing original DC shows like a prequel to "The Batman" focused on the Gotham City police and a spinoff of James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" starring John Cena.

This story was originally published in December 2019 and has been updated with new release dates.

Below are seven DC movies with confirmed release dates hitting theaters:

SEE ALSO: The 8 most significant superhero movies of the decade that changed Hollywood

"Wonder Woman 1984"— December 25, 2020

The "Wonder Woman" sequel reunites director Patty Jenkins and stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, but shifts the story forward from World War I to the 1980s. The first movie was a critical and box-office hit, raking in $821 million worldwide. 

It was originally slated for release in November, 2019, but then pushed back to June. Amid the pandemic, Warner Bros. delayed it again to October and then to December. 

Watch the new trailer. 

"The Suicide Squad"— August 6, 2021

Margot Robbie will again play Harley Quinn for this "Suicide Squad" sequel from director James Gunn, who was hired by Warner Bros. after Disney fired him from the third "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie (he was then re-hired, but is finishing "The Suicide Squad" first and a spinoff series for HBO Max starring John Cena).

Gunn has assembled a team of new and old faces and the full cast was showcased during FanDome in August. Returning are Robbie's Quinn, Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, and Viola Davis' Amanda Waller. Out is Will Smith, who played Deadshot. Newcomers include Idris Elba as Bloodsport and John Cena as Peacemaker.

Gunn called it "by far the biggest movie" he's ever made during a behind-the-scenes look at the movie. Watch it here.

"The Batman"— March 4, 2022

Robert Pattinson will play Batman in a new film from "War for the Planet of the Apes" director Matt Reeves. Pattinson takes over from Ben Affleck, who played the Dark Knight in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Justice League." Reeves has assembled an all-star cast that also includes Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Colin Farrell as the Penguin, Paul Dano as the Riddler, and Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon.

During FanDome in August, Reeves said that "The Batman" is a "year two" story for a young Batman and acts as an origin story for many of his villains.

He also teased the HBO Max spinoff series, calling it a "Year One" story focused on the corruption within the Gotham Police Department amid the emergence of Batman.

"Year One is the beginning of the emergence, it's the first appearance of this mass vigilante that starts to unsettle the city," he said. "And you start to see the story through the point of view of these corrupt cops and one in particular. And the story is actually a battle for his soul."

Watch the first trailer for "The Batman."

"The Flash"—November 4, 2022

Warner Bros. moved "The Flash" from June 2022 to November that year, taking the date for the "Shazam!" sequel.

The movie, from "It" director Andy Muschietti, has gone through several different directors and release dates. But it finally came into focus during FanDome.

Muschietti called it a "time-travel story" and writer Christina Hodson said that the "cinematic multiverse will be born out of this movie."

The August event debuted concept art that teased Michael Keaton's return as Batman (he originally played the character in Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns").

"Aquaman" sequel — December 16, 2022

2018's "Aquaman" grossed over $1 billion globally, so a sequel was inevitable. It will hit theaters in 2022, topping off what will be a busy year for DC movies. Director James Wan is returning. 

Wan said during FanDome that the sequel will be "a little bit more serious, a little bit more relevant to the world we're living in today." It's still set for a December 2022 release.

"Shazam! Fury of the Gods"— June 2, 2023

With $364.5 million worldwide, "Shazam!" wasn't a box-office smash like "Wonder Woman" or "Aquaman." But it was successful enough for Warner Bros. to greenlight a sequel. "Shazam!" was a hit with critics and has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The full title, "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," was revealed at FanDome.

Warner Bros. moved the movie from November 2022 to June 2023, four years after the first movie premiered.

"Black Adam"— To be determined

After years of teasing his attachment to the movie, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson opened up about "Black Adam," a frequent foe of Shazam in the comics but also an anti-hero of sorts.

"Black Adam has been with me for a very long time," Johnson said during FanDome. "One of the main things I always loved about Black Adam is that he was an anti-hero. I love that he has his own sense of Black Adam justice. I also love the fact that his origins are that of a slave ... he felt the burdens and the pressures of a larger entity holding him down until you can't take it anymore."

It was revealed during FanDome that the movie would introduce the Justice Society of America, which preceded the Justice League in the comics. Since then, actor Aldis Hodge has been cast as Hawkman.

On Monday, Warner Bros. removed "Black Adam" from its December 2021 release date. However, the studio dated two "untitled WB event films" for June and August 2022, so it's there's a chance it could take one of those spots.

It was only six months ago that AMC Theatres vowed to not play Universal Pictures movies at any of its venues. Now the largest theater chain in the world is citing Universal as a big reason to stay open even as other major chains shut down again amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Regal and Cineworld will close all of their locations in the US and UK on Thursday after reopening in August, but AMC, along with Cinemark, plans to stay open. AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a statement that its "groundbreaking" deal with Universal to shorten the theatrical window "puts AMC in a position where we can open our theatres when others may feel the need to close."

"We are fully comfortable showing Universal films in our theaters, even as they implement premium video on demand as we have mutually agreed," Aron said. "This is because AMC will share in premium revenues coming from their early availability in the home."

AMC and Universal's feud began after NBCUniversal Jeff Shell said that the studio would release movies in both theaters and on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) services following the success of "Trolls World Tour." The animated sequel was the first major movie to debut on PVOD during the pandemic on its initial theatrical release date in April after US theaters had closed in March.

In response, Aron said that AMC would not be playing future Universal movies, a policy that "extends to any movie maker who unilaterally abandons current windowing practices absent good faith negotiations between us."

But Universal and AMC struck a deal in July to shorten the once-sacred theatrical window from the typical 75 days to just 17 days. That means that after 17 days of playing in AMC cinemas, Universal could choose to debut movies on PVOD platforms for digital rental and AMC would collect a percentage of the revenue.

There are three Universal movies remaining on the theatrical release calendar for this year: the Blumhouse horror comedy "Freaky," the Dreamworks animated sequel "Croods: A New Age," and Tom Hanks' "News of the World." The rest of the calendar is pretty slim.

Disney still has Pixar's "Soul" set for a November release, but Variety reported last month that Disney was considering a Disney Plus streaming release. Warner Bros. is still planning to release "Wonder Woman 1984" in December, though on Monday it moved "Dune" from December to next year.

• Read more of Business Insider's coverage on the state of movie theaters:
• Box-office experts say 'Tenet' should move to digital rental ASAP as some major theater chains close again
• How Disney, Universal, and Netflix's movie strategies during the pandemic could reshape Hollywood for years to come

Join the conversation about this story »

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Two Chinese films grossed more than $150 million each in China over the weekend as theaters in the US continue to struggle.

"My People, My Homeland" grossed $157.5 million in its debut over the weekend and the animated Chinese movie "Legend of Deification" earned $151.7 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The movies were released during the region's National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday period

It's a significant rebound for the region, which is the second largest theatrical market in the world behind the US. China shut down all 70,000 of its movie theaters in January as the coronavirus spread and the local box office had dropped by nearly $2 billion in the first two months of the year compared to 2019.

Movies in the US are nowhere close to making that kind of money at the box office. When theaters reopened throughout the country in August, a Morning Consult survey of 2,200 US adults found that only 17% said they'd be comfortable returning to an indoor theater immediately.

The biggest release during the coronavirus pandemic, Christopher Nolan's "Tenet," opened in North America last month with $20 million, which included advanced screenings. The movie, which cost $200 million to produce, has earned $45 million domestically since then and more than $300 million worldwide, suggesting it's faring better internationally.

Studios have delayed tentpole releases like "Black Widow" and "No Time to Die" to next year, leaving theaters without a potential blockbuster to lure audiences back.

The theatrical market is so grim that the major chains Cineworld and Regal plan to close all locations in the US and UK on Thursday. AMC Theatres, the world's largest theater chain, and Cinemark plan to stay open. But Jeff Bock, the Exhibitor Relations senior media analyst, thinks that the dominoes will start to fall soon.

"Without major product, the major chains are like cruise ships lost in the Bermuda triangle," Bock said. 

• Read more of Business Insider's coverage on the state of movie theaters:
• AMC Theatres says it will stay open as other major chains close because of its industry-shocking windowing deal with Universal
• Box-office experts say 'Tenet' should move to digital rental ASAP as some major theater chains close again
• How Disney, Universal, and Netflix's movie strategies during the pandemic could reshape Hollywood for years to come

Join the conversation about this story »

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On October 1, the directors Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger finished their coronavirus documentary, the first major film about the pandemic to be released in the US.

The next day, President Donald Trump announced he had the virus. The trailer for the film was also released; it's been viewed more than 6 million times. That weekend, more and more officials within Trump's orbit tested positive for COVID-19.

The timing of Trump's illness is a remarkable coincidence: The film is set to premiere on October 13. (It comes to Hulu on October 20.)

Made in relative secrecy over the past five months, "Totally Under Control"— a reference to Trump's claim early this year that the coronavirus outbreak was under control — is all about the federal government's woeful failure to slow the coronavirus' spread through the US.

"While the current administration makes its claims for a job well done, the fact is that the US response to COVID-19 is one of the worst, with 4 percent of the world's population and 21 percent of the deaths," Neon, the film's distributor, said in a statement to IndieWire last month.

Neon added: "Had the federal government done its job properly — by following clear guidelines in place based on past pandemics — most of the death and destruction could have been avoided."

Business Insider viewed the film ahead of its release. Here are the nine biggest takeaways.

In 2019, the US government simulated a pandemic with 'eerie similarities' to the coronavirus

Dubbed "Crimson Contagion," the scenario involved a highly lethal influenza virus that originated in China and spread throughout the world. The Department of Health and Human Services conducted the scenario in 2019, from January to about August.

HHS detailed its results in October 2019, in a draft report that The New York Times later published. It found that the government lacked funding for personal protective equipment and antiviral drugs, that federal agencies were conflicted about how to manage the response, and that state governments received confusing messages about lockdowns and school closures.

In short, the report read like a preview of the year to come.

The Trump administration ignored advice on how to deal with a pandemic

In 2016, Beth Cameron, a senior director for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council, and her team put together a 69-page briefing on how the federal government could coordinate its response to a pandemic.

The report "intended to allow the people in the White House to ask questions," Cameron said in the film. "What should we do? And also, what do we need to do to get ahead, so that we're not constantly reacting?"

The Trump administration did not use the playbook, Cameron said. And in 2018, the national security adviser John Bolton disbanded the Global Health Security and Biodefense team.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that the Obama administration "did not leave to this administration any kind of game plan for something like this." He later admitted he was wrong.

The US's first coronavirus tests were faulty — and the CDC didn't address the issue for 3 weeks

The original tests, which were shipped to laboratories on February 5, contained a faulty assay, meant to measure the presence of a virus. Labs around the country notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the problem, but the agency didn't address it until February 28.

In the meantime, universities and labs couldn't develop their own tests quickly, because they would have had to slog through weeks of Food and Drug Administration bureaucracy. So in February, the US conducted next to no tests of its residents.

"It was as if we were flying blind, and we knew it. And frankly, there was nothing we could do except wait," Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, said in the film.

The White House's early testing strategy 'was designed to miss community transmission'

Testing shortages in the US persisted for months, but they were worst at the start of the pandemic. At the end of February, the US was testing fewer than 100 people a day, while in South Korea officials were testing 10,000 people a day.

To target the limited tests, the CDC restricted testing to people who'd traveled from China or had contact with people who'd tested positive. But this strategy assumed the US didn't already have "community transmission," or when a virus spreads through a community without a known source.

By late February, though, the virus had already spread to half the states. By focusing only on people with known links to China, the CDC testing strategy "was designed to miss community transmission," Dr. Taison Bell, an infectious-disease specialist and critical-care physician at the University of Virginia, said in the film.

Trump officials sold most of the US's protective masks to China in February

In February, the Trump administration created the "CS China COVID Procurement Service" partly to encourage American producers like 3M to sell their inventories of N95 masks to China.

One month later, when American hospitals desperately needed N95s, they were forced to import them — and pay up to 10 times what American producers would have charged, according to the documentary.

Mike Pence's coronavirus task force had more than twice as many industry reps and politicians as scientists

As of March, just six of the 20 members of Vice President Mike Pence's coronavirus task force had scientific expertise. One of them was Ben Carson, who's a surgeon by training but has little public-health expertise.

Other members of the task force included Joseph Grogan, a former lobbyist for Gilead Sciences (the company behind remdesivir); Stephen Biegun, a former lobbyist for Ford who served as Sarah Palin's foreign-policy adviser in 2008; and Ken Cuccinelli, a climate-change skeptic who was formerly the attorney general of Virginia.

Jared Kushner's PPE task force consisted largely of unpaid 20-something volunteers working 7 days a week

When 26-year-old Max Kennedy Jr. volunteered to be on Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force, he joined a group of other young, unpaid volunteers in a windowless conference room in the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The walls were covered in TVs that blared Fox News 24/7.

Kennedy and the other volunteers — none of whom had experience in supply chains — were put to work trying to buy PPE from Chinese factories.

"We thought we'd be auxiliary support," Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, said in the film. "Instead, we were the team."

He said he and other volunteers used their personal email accounts to communicate with the factories.

Kennedy quit the task force in April. That month, he sent an anonymous complaint to Congress detailing the task force's incompetency.

"In my time on the task force," he said, "our team did not directly purchase a single mask."

Kushner told California Gov. Gavin Newsom he had to publicly thank Trump to get testing supplies

In April, when Newsom asked the White House for 350,000 testing swabs, Kushner told his advisers that the federal help would hinge on Newsom doing him a favor.

Newsom would have to call Trump, and he would have to thank him publicly. Newsom apparently did the former, and on April 22, he publicly thanked the president for a "substantial increase" in testing supplies.

Newsom has denied this version of events, saying that "no one told me to express" gratitude.

State and federal governments bid against one another, eBay-style, for ventilators and PPE

"It's like being on eBay with 50 other states," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said of the situation in March, when severe equipment shortages forced states to bid against one another for the right to purchase critical supplies like ventilators and masks from private companies.

The bidding war drove up the price of those supplies, increasing profits for foreign manufacturers at taxpayers' expense. FEMA also outbid many states, driving Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker to express frustration during a teleconference with Trump on March 19.

"I got a feeling that if somebody has a chance to sell to you or has a chance to me, I'm going to lose every one of those," Baker said.

Trump laughed.

"Well, we do like you going out and seeing what you can get, if you can get it faster," Trump said. "And price is always a component of that also. And maybe that's why you lost to the feds."

SEE ALSO: Trump's positive COVID test shines a light on the president's pandemic failures. It also shows Americans how we can make our country stronger.

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NOW WATCH: 6 times Trump contradicted public officials about the coronavirus pandemic

When Max Kennedy Jr. volunteered to help out on Jared Kushner's White House COVID-19 Supply Chain Task Force, he thought he'd be helping out senior staff with rote tasks like data entry.

"My old boss called me and said he heard Kushner's task force needed younger volunteers who had general skills and were willing to work seven days a week for no money," Kennedy, now 27, said in the forthcoming documentary about the Trump team's coronavirus response, "Totally Under Control." The film, which was made in secret over the past five months, is slated for on-demand release on October 13.

Despite his "apprehension" about working for the Trump administration, Kennedy volunteered because he felt like it was the right thing to do, he said.

So Kennedy traveled to Washington, DC, and showed up at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Once there, he said volunteers were led to Conference Room A, a windowless underground meeting space. TVs covered the walls, all blaring Fox News.

After they sat down, Kennedy said representatives from FEMA and the military came in and gave them a "pep talk." The officials told volunteers they needed to procure "the stuff" for the US government — Kennedy said they were referring to personal protective equipment, or PPE.

Then the officials left, leaving Kennedy and the other volunteers. Slowly, they realized what was happening.

"We thought we'd be auxiliary support for an existing procurement team," Kennedy, who is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, said in the film. "Instead, we were the team."

Kennedy said he and a dozen inexperienced volunteers had become a core component of the US government's efforts to procure PPE.

A severe shortage of PPE across the US

Kushner formed the COVID-19 Supply Chain Task Force in March to address what had become a pressing issue: the US's severe shortage of PPE and other medical equipment. Already, hospitals in many regions were running out of masks and ventilators, and workers were making single-use masks last over several days. One surgeon in Fresno, California, told The New York Times it was like being "at war with no ammo."

There were multiple reasons for these shortages, including a lack of preparations by previous administrations — many of the Strategic National Stockpile's 12 million N95 masks were expired, for instance. But in February, the Trump administration created the "CS China COVID Procurement Service," which existed partly to encourage American producers like 3M to sell their entire inventories of N95 masks to China.

One month later, when American hospitals desperately needed N95 masks, they were forced to import them and pay up to 10 times more than the price that American producers would have charged, according to the documentary.

Using personal email accounts to buy critical supplies

For the rest of March and well into April, Kennedy sat in Conference Room A with the other volunteers, whom he said had no experience in supply chains or medical issues. With very little direction, the team members opened up their personal laptops and got to work, Kennedy said.

"We started cold emailing people we knew who had business relationships in China, looking for factories online, and emailing them from our personal Gmail accounts," Kennedy said in the film.

The group was also told to prioritize leads from "VIPs," which mostly consisted of well-connected and wealthy Trump supporters, BuzzFeed News and The New York Times previously reported. The task force kept track of such leads in a spreadsheet called "VIP Updates."

One "VIP," the Silicon Valley engineer Yaron Oren-Pines, received a $69 million contract to provide 1,000 ventilators to New York state after he tweeted at the president, Business Insider previously reported. Oren-Pines never delivered, and the state has tried to get its money back.

As the team worked, the TVs kept playing Fox News 24/7, Kennedy said, adding that he remembered the channel's coronavirus-death counter ticking steadily upward.

Kennedy said nobody told the other volunteers how to buy PPE

Buying PPE without any experience or advice turned out to be difficult, largely because Kennedy said he and the other volunteers had no idea how procurement worked, and nobody would tell them.

"We would call factories and say, 'We think the federal government can send you a check in 60 days,' and they would say, 'There's someone with a briefcase of cash, and they're offering to pay me right now,'" he said in the film. "And we would run around the FEMA building looking for someone who could tell us what payment terms the government was allowed to offer, and no one ever told us."

A week into their work, Kennedy said several government employees walked into Conference Room A and told the volunteers they had to sign nondisclosure agreements. They offered an ultimatum: Sign the NDAs, or leave the room immediately, according to Kennedy.

"We all had built our own relationships with manufacturers, and it felt like if we walked away, it would negatively affect our ability to buy this critical, life-saving equipment. And so we all begrudgingly signed the NDA," he said in the film.

Kennedy quit the task force in April. That month, he also broke his NDA, sending an anonymous complaint to Congress that said the task force was "falling short."

"In my time on the task force, our team did not directly purchase a single mask," he said in the film.

Kushner's program was mostly shut down in May, even though state governments and healthcare facilities were still experiencing critical shortages of PPE and ventilators.

The White House didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the film or Kennedy's characterization of the task force.

SEE ALSO: Jared Kushner's shadow coronavirus task force used a spreadsheet called 'VIP Update' to procure PPE from inexperienced Trump allies over legitimate vendors

DON'T MISS: A volunteer on Kushner's coronavirus team filed a complaint to Congress warning the group was 'falling short' on helping health care workers

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NOW WATCH: The global coronavirus death toll has officially reached 1 million — although experts believe the actual death toll is much higher

"Mary Poppins" finally premiered on August 27, 1964, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The Walt Disney Studios pulled out all the stops; it was a glorious, old-fashioned kind of premiere. All the classic Disney characters were there, welcoming people as they pulled up in their limousines. There were crowds in the bleachers, screaming with delight, and huge searchlights raked the sky. On the large parking lot adjacent to Grauman's, a tent had been erected for the after-show party.

It was glamorous, grand, and gaudy all at the same time.

Tony and I arrived in a company limousine provided by Disney, with my dad, who had come to visit for two weeks. This was Dad's first trip to California, and we were beyond thrilled to share the experience with him, and to give him such a splendid glimpse of Hollywood glamour. He had made the journey all by himself; my stepmother, Win, had stayed home with their daughter, Shad. Dad rented a white tuxedo jacket, which I picked up for him early in the day.

As he had done at my wedding, and on several visits to My Fair Lady in New York and London, he acted the part of my squire and protector, in a quiet but proud way. Charlie Tucker, my longtime agent and manager, had also flown over from England. Surprisingly, P. L. Travers came as well. Given the tensions that had existed between them, Walt showed great restraint that evening, and was polite and decent to her. She never said a word to me about her opinion of the film. She did send a note to Walt, in which she called it a "splendid spectacle," and complimented my "understated" performance. High praise!

Unfortunately, my mother could not attend.

I had invited her and hoped that she would come, but she said that her arthritis was giving her tremendous pain and she'd prefer not to travel. I had a feeling that she was worried about not measuring up in some way. I would have given anything to have had her with me — I had a daughter's desire to share my good fortune with both my parents and to make them proud. I'm sure Mum was, but I always sensed that she hid some embarrassment about how she conducted her life, relative to what she thought I had become. It made me sad.

Tony, Dad, and I walked along the red carpet toward Walt and his wife, Lillian, flashbulbs popping everywhere around us. Dorothy Jeakins had designed an Empire-style, cream-colored silk jersey gown for me. On top I wore a little mink stole that I had rented for the evening. Tony wore a tux, which was a rare occurrence for him. Tom Jones had warned me that I would need to pause for interviews before entering the theater.

Even so, I was unprepared for the pressure and scrutiny; the feeling of being pulled, poked, and shouted at by the phalanx of TV and radio reporters. There were so many people to attend to that after we arrived, I barely saw my dad or Tony for the rest of the evening.

At the party in the tent afterward, Tom continued to steer me around, a gentle hand at my elbow, introducing me to guests and more members of the press. I never sat down, and I don't recall eating a morsel. Feeling overwhelmed, I couldn't wait to go home, to be somewhere quiet where I could process what was happening.

Happily, the audience seemed to love the film.

I was so dazed by everything that was transpiring that I couldn't watch it with any perspective. I do know that it received a raucous ovation, and the reviews were extremely positive.

The following morning, I had to be at 20th Century Fox by 9:30 a.m. for looping on "The Sound of Music." That same day, Tony flew to Detroit, where "Golden Boy," still beset with problems, was now playing.

Two days later, my dad and I flew to New York, where "Mary Poppins" had just opened. I did four days of back-to-back interviews in the city, during which time Tony briefly joined us.

There wasn't a second to spare, except in the evenings, when we managed to treat Dad to a couple of Broadway shows. After emotional goodbyes, Tony went back to the dramas in Detroit, and my dad flew home to London. I returned to LA, and to my Emma, whom I always hated to leave behind.

The weeks that ensued became an assault of epic proportions that I could never have foreseen. I did more publicity than I have ever done in my life, before or since. After an onslaught of Poppins-related activities in LA, I embarked upon my first promotional tour, traveling to San Francisco with the Disney press team for the premiere of Poppins
there; then on to Chicago, Detroit, New York again, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Boston.

I am well aware how irritating it is when people who have been graced by good fortune complain about its rigors.

However, this was the first time I had encountered such widespread attention, expectation, and accountability. I was a small-town English girl, naïve, undereducated, and considerably younger than my years, suddenly confronted by a scrutiny that I had no context or experience with which to manage.

The press bombarded me with questions that called for me to be introspective, to examine things about myself and my work that up to this point I had never considered, let alone formed an opinion about. I floundered about, trying to appear sophisticated, while feeling as though I were playing dress-up in my mother's clothes.

It never would have occurred to me to say no to any of the things that the studio asked of me.

I felt that I owed them every interview — one paid one's dues, so to speak, and I honored every obligation and
went wherever they asked me to go.

During this whirlwind, I saw a rough cut of "The Sound of Music," which was the first time I'd seen any of the footage assembled. I marveled at its beauty, its energy, its joyousness. It seemed even larger than "Mary Poppins," and I felt it was going to be a stunning film. It put in perspective the amount of work we had accomplished over the past months — no wonder I was exhausted!

I returned to New York for Tony's birthday, which coincided with the low-key opening of "The Americanization of Emily." In contrast to the pomp and ceremony of the Poppins premiere, Emily simply opened at a regular cinema, with no fuss. Since it was a relatively quiet drama, the studios didn't feel a fancy premiere was warranted. Nevertheless, it received fine reviews, and the film has subsequently become something of a cult favorite.

Excerpted from "HOME WORK: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years" by Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton. Copyright © 2020. Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Julie Andrews' legendary career encompasses the Broadway and London stages, as well as multiple films, television shows, album releases, concert tours, directing assignments, and the world of children's publishing. In 2000, the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire was bestowed upon her by Queen Elizabeth II for lifetime achievements in the arts and humanities. Her many other honors include a Kennedy Center honor in the fall of 2001. She was married to film director Blake Edwards for 41 years, and the couple have five children, 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Emma Walton Hamilton is an award-winning writer, producer, and arts educator. Together with her mother, Julie Andrews, she has written over 30 books for children and young adults. Emma is on the faculty of Stony Brook University's MFA in Creative Writing, where she serves as director of the Children's Lit Fellows and the Young Artists and Writers Project.

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One of the most powerful moments in "Totally Under Control," a new documentary about the US government's coronavirus response, is Mike Bowen's testimony before Congress.

At a House hearing on May 14, Bowen, a Texas mask manufacturer, described how federal officials ignored his repeated warnings about mask shortages — and how the entire country was suffering the consequences.

"I'm getting 500 to 1,000 emails a day," Bowen said. "I'm getting emails from moms, I'm getting emails from old people: 'Please, send me masks.'"

Then he started to cry: "I can't help all these people," he said.

By then, nearly 100,000 Americans had died.

A veteran of the medical supply industry, Bowen knew that the US did not have enough N95 masks to manage a pandemic, according to the documentary, which directors Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger filmed in relative secrecy over the past five months.

On January 22, Bowen emailed the US Department of Health and Human Services with a proposal: His company, Prestige Ameritech, could start producing an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week.

"We can't protect Americans. That's too late. But I could make at least enough N95s to protect healthcare workers," Bowen said in the film. All he needed, he added, was financial support from the federal government.

The Trump administration didn't take Bowen up on his offer, even though President Donald Trump learned on January 23 that the coronavirus had the potential to spread globally. Less than a week later, Trump was also warned that the virus could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Instead, in February, the Trump administration encouraged other American mask manufacturers like 3M to sell their entire inventories of N95 masks to China, as part of its CS China COVID Procurement Service.

More than a month later, many US hospitals were dangerously low on PPE and ventilators. Workers were using the same single-use masks for several days, and nurses wore garbage bags instead of hospital gowns. One surgeon in Fresno, California, told the New York Times it was like being "at war with no ammo."

Instead of helping states get the supplies they needed, Trump told governors to go it alone.

"Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves," Trump said, according to the New York Times.

With no direction or leadership, states were forced to bid against each other for limited supplies, driving up the prices of equipment and increasing profits for the private companies that had imported them, according to the documentary.

"It's like being on eBay with 50 other states," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing on March 31.

Increasing profits for private companies 

The bidding war increased profits for mostly foreign manufacturers, and forced taxpayers to cover the extra cost. In many cases, Americans were forced to pay up to 10 times more than the price that local producers would have charged, according to the documentary. 

The federal government also outbid states on several occasions, driving Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker to express frustration during a teleconference with Trump on March 19.

"I got a feeling that if somebody has a chance to sell to you or has a chance to [sell to] me, I'm going to lose every one of those," Baker said. 

Trump laughed.

"Well, we do like you going out and seeing what you can get, if you can get it faster," Trump said. "And price is always a component of that also. And maybe that's why you lost to the feds."

By the end of March, it was clear the government's free-for-all strategy wasn't working. So Trump Senior Advisor Jared Kushner set up his own PPE procurement task force with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

The FEMA supply chain task force was meant to help the federal government procure additional masks and supplies, partnering with other government initiatives like Project Airbridge to deliver PPE to hard-hit areas.

But the task force proved to be a disaster, as Business Insider previously reported. Max Kennedy Jr., one of its members, said in the film that the team consisted largely of inexperienced, 20-something unpaid volunteers "cold-emailing Chinese factories" from their personal Gmail accounts.

"In my time on the task force, our team did not directly purchase a single mask," he said.

Eventually, FEMA procured additional PPE and sent it to states. Even so, shortages of PPE and other medical supplies have persisted across the US.

"It is hard to believe that our nation finds itself dealing with the same shortfalls in PPE witnessed during the first few weeks that SARS-CoV-2 began its unrelenting spread," Susan R. Bailey, president of the Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote at the end of August.

She added: "But that same situation exists today, and in many ways things have only gotten worse."

SEE ALSO: An explosive new documentary details how Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force consisted mainly of 20-something volunteers buying PPE with personal email accounts

DON'T MISS: The 9 biggest takeaways from 'Totally Under Control,' a new documentary filmed in secret about the Trump administration's coronavirus response

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NOW WATCH: The global coronavirus death toll has officially reached 1 million — although experts believe the actual death toll is much higher

A pair of Adam Sandler comedies, including the new Netflix original "Hubie Halloween," surged in popularity on Netflix this week. 

Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its most viewed movies and TV shows in February (it counts a view if an account watches at least two minutes of a title).

Every week, the streaming search engine Reelgood compiles for Business Insider a list of which movies have been most prominent on Netflix's daily lists that week. On Reelgood, users can browse Netflix's entire movie library and sort by IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

This week also includes the Netflix original "Enola Holmes" and Brad Pitt's baseball drama, "Moneyball."

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9. "Octonauts and the Great Barrier Reef" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "In this musical special, the Octonauts must find a way to hold back hungry swarms of coral-eating starfish to save a new friend's fragile reef home."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: N/A

What critics said: N/A

8. "Moneyball" (2011)

Description: "Frustrated that his team can't afford big-money players, the general manager of the Oakland A's turns to an unusual method to recruit top prospects."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94%

What critics said: "Brad Pitt is at the top of his own game as Beane. Cocky and often nonchalant, he is gnawed by doubts that he tries to cover by grabbing a snack or pitching a grin."— San Diego Reader

7. "Employee of the Month" (2006)

Description: "Warehouse workers Vince and Zack compete in a full-on war to be named Employee of the Month and win a date with their dream girl."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 20%

What critics said: "There's a crumb of an idea to setting a movie at a mega-mart that makes the Office Space cubicles look like executive suites, but the results in Employee of the Month are toothless."— Entertainment Weekly

6. "Enola Holmes" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 90%

What critics said: "At a little more than two hours, 'Enola Holmes' may be a tad long, but there are a lot of threads to unravel and it does so more than satisfactorily."— Los Angeles Times

5. "Colombiana" (2011)

Description: "After seeing Bogota gangsters murder her parents, Cataleya Restrepo turns herself into a ruthless assassin, dedicated to tracking down their killers."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 28%

What critics said: "Occasionally enjoyable in a silly way, but I have to say Besson's preoccupation with the little-girl-becomes-killer trope is looking a little unwholesome."— Guardian

4. "Big Daddy" (1999)

Description: "Dumped by his girlfriend because he refuses to accept responsibility, overgrown adolescent Sonny Koufax adopts a 5-year-old to prove he's a grownup."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39%

What critics said: "Amiable, schizoid and disposable, Big Daddy is just as formulaic as you might imagine."— Newsweek

3. "American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules" (2020)

Description: "Four tight-knit high school seniors vow to turn their love lives around by homecoming when the arrival of a new student muddles their plans."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: N/A

What critics said: N/A

2. "American Murder: The Family Next Door" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Using raw, firsthand footage, this documentary examines the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 84%

What critics said: "The film can't help but reflect the brutality and coldness of Chris's crimes. With studied precision, the movie embodies the type of emptiness it also seeks to document."— Thrillist

1. "Hubie Halloween" (2020, Netflix original)

Description: "Hubie's not the most popular guy in Salem, Mass., but when Halloween turns truly spooky, this good-hearted scaredy-cat sets out to keep his town safe."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 48%

What critics said: "Sandler has always been a repository of goofy voices, but what he thought was funny about the mannered muttering he does here is unclear."— New York Times

The North America box office is no longer the world's champion.

This year's China box office has surpassed North America with $1.99 billion as of Monday, according to Artisan Gateway, an Asian movie-industry consultancy firm. The North America box office stands at $1.94 billion as the US theatrical market continues to struggle amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

The China market has been boosted by local blockbusters like "My People, My Homeland" and the animated "Legend of Deification," which both earned more than $150 million in one weekend earlier this month during China's National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday period.

US releases in China haven't fared as well. Disney's live-action "Mulan" remake was supposed to be a major hit in China, but has flopped with just $40 million since opening in September. Warner Bros. "Tenet" has earned $64 million in the region (but $334 million globally).

This past weekend's China box office was down 32% from the same period last year, but the recovery is impressive considering all 70,000 of the region's movie theaters were shut down for six months this year.

US theaters were closed from March to August, but its post-reopening box office has come nowhere near the kind of numbers China is experiencing right now.

The major chains Regal and Cineworld recently closed all theaters in the US and US again. Movie studios have either delayed most releases until next year or opted to release movies to streaming or digital-rental platforms.

SEE ALSO: Disney's decision to debut Pixar's 'Soul' on Disney Plus at no extra cost shows how it's changing strategies after its 'Mulan' experiment

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