Tyler Perry’s ‘Beauty in Black’ tops Netflix top 10
Calvin Ashford/Netflix
After a slow start, Tyler Perry‘s Netflix drama Beauty in Black has climbed to #1 on the streaming service’s TV chart.
The series debuted in fourth place when it premiered on Oct. 28, but rose to first place for the week of Oct. 28-Nov. 3, hitting 8.7 million views in its first full week of streaming, according to Netflix.
Beauty in Black, starring Taylor Polidore, follows two women — one fighting for survival after being forced out by her mother, the other running a prosperous company.
Elsewhere on the Netflix TV chart, Territory fell to second place, The Diplomat came in third, This Is the Zodiac Speaking took fourth place and The Lincoln Lawyer rounded out the top five.
Just in time for Halloween, Variety‘s resident critics have come up with their definitive ranking of the 100 scariest movies of all time.
1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre slayed the competition at #1.
The long list shares some titles with some of the experts’ greatest films of all time, like Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho (#3), but also movies that would never rank among the greatest ever, like 1991’s Dead Alive (Braindead) at #95 and The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) at #92.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre was hailed for creating “a mythology of horror, one that feels even more resonant today than it did 50 years ago.”
1973’s The Exorcist placed second on the list, with the critics saying of the film, “Half a century later, [director William] Friedkin‘s … classic remains so compelling because everyone involved commits to the realism of demonic possession.”
Psycho was hailed as “iconic,” adding “Anthony Perkins‘ performance channels a cunning and terror for the ages.”
Fourth place went to Steven Spielberg‘s 1975 classic Jaws, with the critics declaring that while many movies can give you scares, “few have so fundamentally altered human behavior the way Jaws did, compelling millions to steer clear of the water.”
Rounding out the top five was Roman Polanski‘s 1968 offering Rosemary’s Baby, a film that “generates such supreme paranoia and suspense that it stands as one of the last great pieces of classical movie-making to emerge from the New Hollywood.”
Viola Davis has been named the recipient of the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Wednesday. She’ll be recognized at the annual show for her outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.
“Viola Davis is a luminary whose profound talent has continuously shifted the lens through which we see and understand film,” Golden Globes President Helen Hoehne said in a statement. “Presenting her with the 2025 Cecil B. DeMille Award is not only an honor but a reflection of our admiration for her relentless dedication to her craft and her monumental impact on the industry.”
She continued, “Viola’s courage in portraying complex, powerful characters has broken barriers and paved new paths, making her an emblem of excellence and an ideal recipient of this prestigious award.”
Viola, an EGOT winner, earned an Emmy for her performance as Annalise Keating on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. She won the Best Audio Narration Grammy for her memoir, Finding Me;an Oscar for her onscreen and offscreen work on Fences;and a Tony for Best Featured Actress in the play King Hedley II.
Davis has also won seven Golden Globes throughout the course of her career, taking home awards for How to Get Away with Murder,Fences, The Woman King, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Help and Doubt.
She’s set to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 82nd annual Golden Globes, joining previous recipients Oprah Winfrey, Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and more.
“Thrilled! Overwhelmed! Honored! Thank you @GoldenGlobes,” Viola wrote of the honor on Instagram.
The 2025 Golden Globe Awards air live on CBS and Paramount Jan. 5 starting at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
Bobby and Peter Farrelly – Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic
Peter and Bobby Farrelly exploded on the comedy scene with 1994’s hit Dumb and Dumber, and also scored with 1996’s Kingpin and 1998’s There’s Something About Mary, but they haven’t made a movie together since the 2014 sequel Dumb and Dumber To.
In the interim, Peter Farrelly became an Oscar winner thanks to the 2018 drama Green Book, but as the pair tell Entertainment Weekly, they’re back to the funny with the Jack Black Christmas comedy Dear Santa.
The magazine has a first look at the project, which centers on a kid (Robert Timothy Smith) who desperately wants to prove to his friends that Santa is real, so he writes a letter to the big guy — except he misspells Santa as “Satan.”
Enter Jack Black as the latter, who is so flattered he got a letter that he shows up instead. Bobby Farrelly says reuniting with their Shallow Hal star was a no-brainer. Explaining his Satan is “diabolical, but in a fun way,” Bobby says, “there’s a little bit of mischievous to him at all times, but he’s eminently likable, and that’s just Jack.”
He adds, “We never wanted to make it a horror movie or something like that. We wanted it to be comical. So it was a delicate [balance] of playing this iconic character but doing it in a way that the audience can have some fun with it. And Jack was the perfect guy.”
The Farrelly brothers explained their idea for the film goes back more than 15 years, and they credited Loudermilk writer Ricky Blitt with breathing new life into the project, which Peter co-wrote, and Bobby directed.
Dear Santa hits Paramount+ and digital platforms on Nov. 25.
