title: Grace Kelly

text: Television producer Delbert Mann cast Kelly as the lead in an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel "Bethel Merriday"; this was her first of nearly sixty live television programs. She was mentioned in "Theatre World" magazine as "[a] most promising personality of the Broadway stage of 1950". Some of her well-known works as a theater actress were: "The Father", "The Rockingham Tea Set", "The Apple Tree", "The Mirror of Delusion", "Episode" (for Somerset Maugham's tele-serial), among others.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Impressed by her work in "The Father", Henry Hathaway, director of the Twentieth Century-Fox film "Fourteen Hours" (1951), offered her a small role in the film. Kelly had a minor role opposite Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, and Barbara Bel Geddes, as a young woman contemplating divorce. Douglas commented: "In two senses, she did not have a bad side – you could film her from any angle, and she was one of the most un-temperamental, cooperative people in the business." Following the release of the film, the "Grace Kelly Fan Club" was established, gaining popularity across the country with local chapters springing up and attracting many members. Kelly referred to her fan club as "terrifically amusing".


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly was noticed during a visit to the set of "Fourteen Hours" by Gary Cooper. However, Kelly's performance in "Fourteen Hours" went largely unnoticed by critics and did not contribute to her film career's momentum. She continued her work in the theater and on television, although she lacked "vocal horsepower", and it was thought she would likely not have had a lengthy stage career.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly was performing at Colorado's Elitch Theatre when producer Stanley Kramer offered her a role co-starring opposite Cooper in Fred Zinnemann's "High Noon" (1952), a Western filmed in Columbia, California. She accepted the role, and the film was shot in the late summer and early fall of 1951 over a 28-day shooting schedule in hot weather conditions. She was cast as a "young Quaker bride to Gary Cooper's stoic Marshall", and wore a "suitably demure vaguely Victorian dress". "High Noon" garnered four Academy Awards, and has since been ranked by some reviewers among the best films of all time.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Biographer H. Haughland stated: "Miss Kelly's acting did not excite the critics, or live up to her own expectations." Some critics scoffed at the conclusion of the film in which Cooper's character has to be saved by Kelly's. One critic argued that her pacifist character, killing a man who is about to shoot her husband, was cold and abstract. Alfred Hitchcock described her performance as "rather mousy", and stated that it lacked animation. He said that it was only in her later films that she "really blossomed" and showed her quality.


title: Grace Kelly

text: After filming "High Noon", Kelly returned to New York City and took private acting lessons, wanting to be taken seriously as an actress. She performed in a few dramas in the theater, and in TV serials. She appeared in several television plays, and screen-tested for the film "Taxi" in the spring of 1952. Director John Ford noticed Kelly in the screen test, and his studio flew her out to Los Angeles to audition in September 1952. Ford said that Kelly showed "breeding, quality, and class". She was given the role, along with a seven-year contract at the relatively low salary of $850 a week (). Kelly signed the deal under two conditions: first, that one out of every two years, she had time off to work in the theatre; and second, that she be able to live in New York City at her residence in Manhattan House, at 200 E. 66th Street, now a landmark.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In November 1952, Kelly and the cast arrived in Nairobi to begin the production of the film "Mogambo", replacing Gene Tierney, who dropped out at the last minute due to personal issues. Kelly later told Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, ""Mogambo" had three things that interested me: John Ford, Clark Gable, and a trip to Africa, with expenses paid. If "Mogambo" had been made in Arizona, I wouldn't have done it." Kelly played Linda Nordley, a contemplative English wife with a romantic interest in Clark Gable's character. Filming took place over the course of three months. The costumes were designed by Helen Rose. A break in the filming schedule afforded her and "Mogambo" co-star Ava Gardner a visit to Rome. The film was released in 1953, and had a successful run at the box office. Kelly won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, and received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.


title: Grace Kelly

text: After the success of "Mogambo", Kelly starred in the television play "The Way of an Eagle" with Jean-Pierre Aumont, before being cast in the film adaptation of Frederick Knott's Broadway play "Dial M for Murder", opposite Ray Milland and Robert Cummings. Kelly played the role of the wealthy wife of a retired professional tennis player. Alfred Hitchcock became one of Kelly's mentors during the last years of her career. She was subsequently loaned by MGM to work in several Hitchcock films, which would become some of her most critically acclaimed and recognized work. Kelly began filming scenes for her next film, "The Bridges at Toko-Ri", in early 1954, with William Holden, for Paramount Pictures. The story, based on the novel by James Michener, is about American Navy jet fighters stationed to fight in Asia. Kelly played the role of Holden's wife. Edith Head did her costumes, with whom she had established a friendly relationship.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly unhesitatingly turned down the opportunity to star alongside Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" (1954). Eva Marie Saint, who replaced her, went on to win an Academy Award for the role. Instead, Kelly played the role of Lisa Fremont in "Rear Window". Kelly stated, "All through the making of "Dial M for Murder", he (Hitchcock) sat and talked to me about "Rear Window" all the time, even before we had discussed my being in it." Kelly's co-star, James Stewart, was highly enthusiastic about working with her. The role of Lisa Fremont, a wealthy Manhattan socialite and fashion model who "never wore the same dress twice", was unlike any of the previous women she had played. This marked her first performance as an independent career woman. In line with their previous collaborations, Hitchcock provided the camera with a slow-sequenced silhouette of Kelly, along with close-ups of the two stars kissing, finally lingering closely on her profile. Hitchcock brought her elegance to the foreground by changing her dresses many times, including: "glamorous evening short dresses, a sheer negligee over a sleek nightgown, a full-skirted floral dress, and a casual pair of jeans". Upon the film's opening in October 1954, Kelly was again praised. "Variety"s film critic remarked on the casting, commenting on the "earthy quality to the relationship between Stewart and Miss Kelly", as "both do a fine job of the picture's acting demands".


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly played the role of Bing Crosby's long-suffering wife, Georgie Elgin, in "The Country Girl" (1954), after a pregnant Jennifer Jones bowed out. Already familiar with the play, Kelly was highly interested in the part. To do it, MGM once again would have to lend Kelly to Paramount Pictures. Kelly was adamant, and threatened the studio, saying that if they did not allow her to do the film she would pack her bags and leave for New York for good. MGM eventually relented. Kelly also negotiated a more lucrative contract in light of her recent success. In the film, Kelly played the wife of a washed-up, alcoholic singer, played by Crosby. Her character becomes torn emotionally between her two lovers, played by Crosby and William Holden. She was again dressed by Edith Head to suit her role in the film, initially appearing in fashionable dresses, shifting to ordinary-looking cardigans toward the end of the film.


title: Grace Kelly

text: As a result of her performance in "The Country Girl", Kelly won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her acceptance speech was brief: "The thrill of this moment keeps me from saying what I really feel. I can only say thank you with all my heart to all who made this possible for me. Thank you." Her main competitor was Judy Garland for her performance in "A Star Is Born". After receiving the Oscar nomination, Kelly won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best actress for her performances in her three big movie roles of 1954: "Rear Window", "Dial M For Murder", and "The Country Girl". At the Golden Globe Awards in 1955, Kelly won the Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. "The New York Times" praised her performance in "The Country Girl" as "excellent", and "Rear Window" got her marquee credits on a par with, and beyond, those of Stewart and Hitchcock.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In April 1954, Kelly flew to Colombia for a 10-day shoot on her next project, "Green Fire", with Stewart Granger. She played Catherine Knowland, a coffee plantation owner. Kelly told Hedda Hopper, "It wasn't pleasant. We worked at a pathetic village – miserable huts and dirty. Part of the crew got shipwrecked ... It was awful." After the consecutive filming of "Rear Window", "Toko-Ri", "Country Girl", and "Green Fire", Kelly flew to the French Riviera to work on her third, and last, film for Hitchcock, "To Catch a Thief". Loaned to Paramount for the fifth time, Kelly played the role of a temptress who wears "luxurious and alluring clothes", while Cary Grant played the role of a former cat burglar, then looking to catch a thief who is imitating him. Kelly and Grant developed a mutual bond and admiration for each other. Years later, when asked to name his all-time favorite actress, Grant replied: "Well, with all due respect to dear Ingrid Bergman, I much preferred Grace. She had serenity."


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 1956, Kelly resided in a home rented from Bill Lear in the Pacific Palisades, California for the duration of her filming. She portrayed Princess Alexandra in the film "The Swan", directed by Charles Vidor, opposite Alec Guinness and Louis Jourdan. Her final role was in Charles Walters's musical film "High Society", a re-make of MGM's "The Philadelphia Story" (1940). She portrayed Tracy Lord, opposite Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Celeste Holm in the other leads. When it was released in July 1956. "Variety" stated, "Miss Kelly impresses as the femme lead with pleasantly comedienne overtones.", and that it was "possibly her most relaxed performance."


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly headed the U.S. delegation at the Cannes Film Festival in April 1955. While there, she was invited to participate in a photo session with Prince Rainier III, the sovereign of the Principality of Monaco, at the Prince's Palace of Monaco. After a series of delays and complications, she met him at the palace on May 6, 1955.


title: Grace Kelly

text: After a year-long courtship described as containing "a good deal of rational appraisal on both sides", they married on April 19, 1956.


title: Grace Kelly

text: The Napoleonic Code of Monaco and the laws of the Catholic Church necessitated two ceremonies, civil and religious. The 16-minute civil ceremony took place in the Palace Throne Room of Monaco on April 18, 1956, and a reception later in the day was attended by 3,000 Monégasque citizens. The 142 official titles that she acquired in the union (counterparts of her husband's) were formally recited. The church ceremony took place the following day at Monaco's Saint Nicholas Cathedral, presided over by Bishop Gilles Barthe. The wedding was estimated to have been watched by over 30 million viewers on TV, and was described by biographer Robert Lacey in 2010 as "the first modern event to generate media overkill". Her wedding dress, designed by MGM's Academy Award-winning Helen Rose, was worked on for 6 weeks by three dozen dress makers. The couple left that night for their seven-week Mediterranean honeymoon cruise on his yacht.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Princess Grace gave birth to the couple's first child, Princess Caroline, on January 23, 1957. Their next child and the heir to the throne, Prince Albert, was born on March 14, 1958. Their youngest, Princess Stéphanie, was born on February 1, 1965.


title: Grace Kelly

text: During her marriage, Grace demurred from continuing her acting career. Instead, she performed her daily duties as princess and became involved in philanthropic work. As princess consort, she became the President of the Red Cross of Monaco (with her sister Peggy Davis and sister-in-law Princess Antoinette as the Vice-Presidents) and the Patron of Rainbow Coalition Children, an orphanage which was run by former dancer Josephine Baker. She hosted an annual Christmas celebration with presents for orphaned children in Monaco. The Princess also served as president of the Garden Club of Monaco, and president of the organizing committee of the International Arts Foundation. Grace retained her link to America by her dual U.S. and Monégasque citizenship.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Grace and her husband visited Ireland on three occasions, and in 1976 she purchased her family's ancestral homestead in Drimurla, near Newport, County Mayo.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Grace founded AMADE Mondiale, a Monaco-based, non-profit organization which is recognized by the UN, after she witnessed the plight of Vietnamese children in 1963. According to UNESCO's website, AMADE promotes and protects the "moral and physical integrity" and the "spiritual well-being of children throughout the world, without distinction of race, nationality or religion, and in a spirit of complete political independence." The organization currently has cooperative branches across Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. They retain consultive status with UNICEF, UNESCO, and U.N. Economic & Social Council, alongside participative status with The Council of Europe.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Princess Grace was active in improving the arts institutions of Monaco, forming the Princess Grace Foundation in 1964 to support local artisans. In 1965, she accepted the invitation to be an honorary member of La Leche League, a worldwide mother-to-mother support group which focuses on mothering through breastfeeding. She was a speaker at their 1971 conference in Chicago, addressing 1,400 mothers, 1,600 fathers and babies. Grace was a known advocate of breastfeeding, and successfully fed her three children. In 1975, Grace helped found the Princess Grace Academy, the resident school of the Monte Carlo Ballet. She later advocated to preserve the Belle Époque-era architecture of the principality. Grace hosted a yearly American Week in Monaco, where guests would play baseball and eat ice cream. The palace also celebrated American Thanksgiving annually.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Alfred Hitchcock offered Princess Grace the lead in his film "Marnie" in 1962. She was eager, but public outcry in Monaco against her involvement in a film where she would play a kleptomaniac made her reconsider and ultimately reject the project. Director Herbert Ross tried to interest her in a part in his film "The Turning Point" (1977), but Rainier dismissed the idea. Later that year, she returned to the arts in a series of poetry readings on stage and narration of the documentary "The Children of Theatre Street". She also narrated ABC's made-for-television film "The Poppy Is Also a Flower" (1966).


title: Grace Kelly

text: Grace joined the board of the 20th C.-Fox Film Corporation in 1976, becoming one of its first female members. In 1980, she published "My Book of Flowers" with Gwen Robyns, detailing her sense of floral aesthetics, symbolism, and flower pressing. Grace and Rainier worked together on a 33-minute independent film titled "Rearranged" in 1979, which received interest from ABC TV executives in 1982 after its premiere in Monaco, on the condition that it be extended to an hour. Before more scenes could be shot, Grace died and the film was never released, nor was it publicly shown again.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In the early 1980s, Grace collaborated with Springmaid Company, the now-defunct bed linen brand. The collaboration was titled "GPK" after the initials of her maiden name and features bed linens, tablecloths, napkins, placemats, and others. Both collaborated after Neil Mandell, a newly hired Springmaid stylist, found the designs Grace made in a "People" magazine article on the exhibition in a Paris Gallery. Princess Grace received more than $1 million in royalties, which she donated to her favorite charities.


title: Grace Kelly

text: On September 13, 1982, Grace suffered a mild cerebral hemorrhage while driving back to Monaco from her country home in Roc Agel. As a result, she lost control of her 1971 Rover P6 3500 and drove off the steep, winding road and down the mountainside. Her teenage daughter Stéphanie, who was in the passenger seat, tried but failed to regain control of the car. The Princess was taken to the Monaco Hospital (later named the Princess Grace Hospital Centre) with injuries to the brain and thorax and a fractured femur. She died the following night at 10:55 p.m. after Rainier decided to turn off her life support.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Stéphanie suffered a light concussion and a hairline fracture of a cervical vertebra, and was unable to attend her mother's funeral.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Princess Grace's funeral was held at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate in Monaco-Ville, on September 18, 1982. After a Requiem Mass, she was buried in the Grimaldi family vault. Over 400 people attended, including Cary Grant, Nancy Reagan, Danielle Mitterrand, Empress Farah of Iran, and Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly left a lasting legacy as a theater artist, television actress, and iconic Hollywood film star. Kelly has been cited as one of the "classic Hitchcock blondes", and as one of the most elegant women in cinematic and world history. One author describes her as the "elegant glamour girl of the screen". In 1999, Kelly was listed by Joan McIver as one of "30 Irish-American Women Who Changed Our World." In a 2019 edition of the "American Journal of Irish Studies", she was described as "Irish America's poster girl" and "an understated Irish-American icon." Katherine Boyle of "The Washington Post" claimed that Kelly "had dramatic effects on views of Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1950s. Indeed, America seemed to pardon her tainted blood, tuning into her televised nuptial Mass in droves despite aversion to the religious spectacle."


title: Grace Kelly

text: Kelly appeared on the cover of the January 31, 1955, issue of the weekly magazine "Time". The magazine hailed her as the top movie star who brought about "a startling change from the run of smoky film sirens and bumptious cuties". She was described as the "Girl in White Gloves" because she wore "prim and noticeable white gloves", and journalists often called her the "lady" or "Miss Kelly" for this reason. In appreciation of her work with Hitchcock in three of his films, Kelly later wrote a foreword to the book "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock" by Donald Spoto. Spoto also has written "High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly", a biography published 25 years after her death.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 1982, the Princess Grace Foundation-USA was established by her husband to continue the work she had done anonymously during her lifetime, assisting emerging theater, dance and film artists in America. Incorporated in 1982, PGF-USA is headquartered in New York and is a tax-exempt, not-for-profit, publicly supported organization. The Princess Grace Awards, a program of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, has awarded nearly 800 artists at more than 100 institutions in the U.S. with more than $15 million to date. The foundation also says it "holds the exclusive rights and facilitates the licensing of her name and likeness throughout the world." Her daughter, Princess Caroline, took over as president for both the Foundation and AMADE Mondiale after her death, with Prince Albert as vice president. The original Monaco branch of her foundation, named Fondation Princesse Grace, remains active and continues to provide direct aid to students and children within the Monaco and France regions.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 1955, Kelly was photographed by Howell Conant in Jamaica. He photographed her without makeup in a naturalistic setting, a departure from the traditional portrayal of actresses. The resulting photographs were published in "Collier's", with a celebrated photo of her rising from the water with wet hair making the cover. Following Grace's marriage, Conant was the unofficial photographer to the House of Grimaldi and extensively photographed her, Rainier, and their three children. In 1992, Conant published "Grace", a book of photographs that he took during her 26-year tenure as Princess of Monaco. Princess Grace has been depicted by many pop artists, including Andy Warhol and James Gill. Warhol made a portrait of her for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia as a limited edition silkscreen in 1984.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 2012, Grace's childhood home was made a Pennsylvania historic landmark, and a historical marker was placed on the site. The house, located at 3901 Henry Avenue in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, was built by her father John B. Kelly Sr. in 1929. Grace lived in the house until 1950, and Prince Rainier III proposed to her there in 1955. The Kelly family sold the property in 1974. Prince Albert of Monaco purchased the property, speculating that the home would be used either as museum space or as offices for the Princess Grace Foundation.


title: Grace Kelly

text: While pregnant with her daughter Caroline in 1956, Princess Grace was frequently photographed clutching a distinctive leather handbag manufactured by Hermès. The purse, or Sac à dépêches, was likely a shield to prevent her pregnant abdomen from being exposed to the prying eyes of the paparazzi. The photographs, however, popularized the purse and became so closely associated with the fashion icon that it would thereafter be known as the Kelly bag.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Grace was inaugurated into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1960 and in 1955, the Custom Tailored Guild of America listed her as the "Best-Tailored Woman". Numerous exhibitions have been held of Kelly's life and clothing. The Philadelphia Museum of Art presented her wedding dress in a 2006 exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary of her marriage, and a retrospective of her wardrobe was held at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 2010. The V&A exhibition continued in Australia at the Bendigo Art Gallery in 2012. This famous dress, seen around the world, took thirty five tailors six weeks to complete. An exhibition of her life as Princess of Monaco was held at the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation in Moscow in 2008 in conjunction with Monaco's Grimaldi Forum. In 2009, a plaque was placed on the "Rodeo Drive Walk of Style" in recognition of her contributions to style and fashion.


title: Grace Kelly

text: After her death, Grace's legacy as a fashion icon lived on. Modern designers, such as Tommy Hilfiger and Zac Posen, have cited her as a fashion inspiration. During her lifetime, she was known for introducing the "fresh faced" look, one that involved bright skin and natural beauty with little makeup. Her fashion legacy was even commemorated at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, where an exhibit titled, "Grace Kelly: Style Icon" paid tribute to her impact on the world of fashion. The exhibit included 50 of her legendary ensembles. She is remembered for her "college-girl" everyday fashion, defined by her pulled-together yet simple look. In 2016, "Forbes" included her on the list "10 Fashion Icons and the Trends They Made Famous".


title: Grace Kelly

text: The look and style of TV series "Mad Men"s Betty Draper is influenced by Grace Kelly, and she is frequently complimented in the show by other characters for resembling her. American actress Elle Fanning attended 78th Golden Globe Awards with mint-green Gucci gown designed by Alessandro Michele that was inspired by Grace Kelly's gown worn at the 27th Academy Awards. According to "Vogue", American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, who attended 2021 Met Gala, wore a red Oscar de la Renta gown inspired by Kelly's gown worn in the 1955 film "To Catch a Thief". The gown was designed by Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim.


title: Grace Kelly

text: On July 15, 2021, the Princess Grace Foundation-USA launched "Grace de Monaco", a luxury brand. The brand had been planned since 2019. On the same day, "Grace de Monaco" launched their first fragrance named "Promenade sur le Rocher". The product was named after the official residence of the princely family for over seven centuries.


title: Grace Kelly

text: A rose garden in Monaco's Fontvieille district is dedicated to the memory of Kelly. It was opened in 1984 by Rainier. A hybrid tea rose, named Rosa 'Princesse de Monaco', was named after her. She is commemorated in a statue by Kees Verkade in the garden, which features 4,000 roses. Prince Rainier also established the Princess Grace Irish Library in her memory, containing her personal collection of over 9,000 books and sheet music. Avenue Princesse Grace, "the most expensive street in the world", is named for her, as is Boulevard Princesse Grâce de Monaco in Nice, France.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 2007, Monaco hosted an international-scale exhibition in honor of Princess Grace, named "The Grace Kelly Years, Princess of Monaco", containing letters, personal belongings, fashion accessories, and sound recordings on display. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo was established in 1985, in accordance to the wishes of Princess Grace, with its first performance taking place on December 21. In 1993, Kelly appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, released in conjunction with a Monaco postage stamp featuring her image on the same day. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Kelly's death, €2 commemorative coins were issued on July 1, 2007, with the "national" side bearing the image of her. In 2019, the government of Monaco released three designs of commemorative postage stamps, each depicting a different phase of her life, to mark the 90th anniversary of her birth.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In 2003, the Henley Royal Regatta renamed the Women's Quadruple Sculls the "Princess Grace Challenge Cup". The Henley Stewards invited her to present the prizes at the 1981 regatta, expiating the ill will from her father's falling foul of its amateurism rules in 1920. Prince Albert presented the prizes at the 2004 regatta. Various hotels, including Hotel Bel-Air, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel de la Paix, the InterContinental Carlton Cannes Hotel, and the Shelbourne Hotel established suites inspired by her life and likeness. A yacht in Monaco, "M/Y Grace", was named after her.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Cheryl Ladd portrayed Kelly in the made-for-TV film "Grace Kelly" in 1983. The film received mixed reviews. Nicole Kidman portrayed Kelly in "Grace of Monaco" (2014), directed by Olivier Dahan. Reaction to the film was largely negative; many people, including the princely family of Monaco, felt it was overly dramatic, had historical errors, and lacked depth.


title: Grace Kelly

text: In November 2022, the Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint) issued silver and gold coins to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Grace Kelly's death, with the consent of the Prince Albert II.


title: Grace Kelly

text: Upon her marriage to Prince Rainier III in 1956, as the consort of the reigning sovereign prince of Monaco, she was styled ""Her Serene Highness" Princess Grace of Monaco". She also bore all historical titles of her husband, in the feminine.


title: Get Out

text: Get Out is a 2017 American psychological horror film written, co-produced, and directed by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut. It stars Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Lil Rel Howery, LaKeith Stanfield, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, and Catherine Keener. The plot follows a young black man (Kaluuya), who uncovers shocking secrets when he meets the family of his white girlfriend (Williams).


title: Get Out

text: Principal photography began in February 2016 in Fairhope, Alabama, then moved to Barton Academy and the Ashland Place Historic District in Mobile, Alabama. The entire film was shot in 23 days.


title: Get Out

text: "Get Out" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 24, 2017, by Universal Pictures. The film received critical acclaim for its screenplay, direction, acting, and social critiques. It was a major commercial success, grossing $255 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, with a net profit of $124.3 million, making it the tenth-most profitable film of 2017.


title: Get Out

text: It was chosen by the National Board of Review, the American Film Institute, and "Time" as one of the top ten films of the year. Peele won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards, with additional nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Kaluuya). It also earned five nominations at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, two at the 75th Golden Globe Awards, and two at the 71st British Academy Film Awards.


title: Get Out

text: "Get Out" has maintained a strong reputation since its release, and it is commonly cited by critics as one of the best films of the 21st century, featuring in multiple listings of the best films of the 2010s. In 2021, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay the greatest of the 21st century.


title: Get Out

text: Chris Washington is a black photographer from Brooklyn, New York, preparing for a weekend visit to Upstate New York, to meet the family of his


title: Get Out

text: white girlfriend, Rose Armitage. Hesitant, he asks Rose if her family knows about their interracial relationship, but she assures him that they are not racist. While there, Rose's brother Jeremy and their parents, neurosurgeon Dean and hypnotherapist Missy, make disconcerting comments about black people, and Chris witnesses strange behavior from the estate's black housekeeper Georgina and groundskeeper Walter.


title: Get Out

text: One night, Missy pressures Chris into a hypnotherapy session to cure his smoking addiction. While in a trance, he confesses that his mother was killed in a hit-and-run when he was a child and that he feels responsible for her death as he waited too long to call for help. He then enters a void Missy calls the "Sunken Place". The next morning, he assumes that the encounter was a dream until Walter acknowledges their brief session the night before. However, he is pleased to discover that the hypnosis was a success, as he no longer feels a desire to smoke.


title: Get Out

text: Dozens of wealthy white people arrive for the Armitages' annual get-together, and express admiration for Chris' physique and for black figures such as Tiger Woods. Jim Hudson, an art dealer who has gone blind in his old age, takes a particular interest in Chris' photography skills. Chris meets another black man, Logan King, who behaves strangely and is married to a much older white woman. Chris relays the information to his friend, TSA officer Rod Williams. Chris tries to photograph Logan inconspicuously, but when his flash goes off, Logan becomes hysterical, shouting at Chris to "get out". The others restrain him, and Dean later claims that Logan had an epileptic seizure.


title: Get Out

text: Away from the party, Chris tells Rose that they should leave. Meanwhile, the party guests hold a silent auction with Chris as the "prize", with Jim making the winning bid. Rod recognizes "Logan" as Andre Hayworth, a missing man from Brooklyn. Suspecting a conspiracy, Rod tries to tell the police, but his claims are dismissed. While Chris packs to leave, he finds photos of Rose in prior relationships with several black partners, including Walter and Georgina, contradicting her earlier claim that Chris is the first black person she has dated. He tries to leave the house, but Rose and her family lock him in. Chris attacks Jeremy, but Missy uses a "trigger" that she implanted during his hypnosis, knocking him out.


title: Get Out

text: Chris awakens strapped to a chair in the basement. In a video presentation, Rose's grandfather Roman explains that the family transplants people's brains into others' bodies, granting them preferred physical characteristics and a twisted form of immortality. The host's consciousness remains in the Sunken Place, alive but powerless. The video then connects to a feed of Jim, speaking with Chris through an intercom. Jim says that although the Armitages target mainly black people, he doesn't care about Chris' race: he only wants his eyesight. Missy performs hypnosis, seemingly knocking Chris out.


title: Get Out

text: When Jeremy comes to fetch Chris for the surgery, it is revealed that Chris blocked the hypnosis trigger by plugging his ears with cotton stuffing pulled from the chair. Chris bludgeons Jeremy unconscious with a bocce ball and heads to the operating room where Dean is about to perform the surgery replacing Jim's body with Chris'. Chris impales Dean with the antlers of a deer mount, knocking over a candle which sets fire to the operating room with an anesthetized Jim inside. Missy attacks Chris in the kitchen but he stabs and kills her, and is then attacked again by Jeremy as he heads towards the door; he overpowers and kills Jeremy before leaving in the latter's car. On the way out, he hits Georgina—who is revealed to be possessed by Rose's grandmother, Marianne—and knocks her unconscious. Compelled by guilt from his mother's death, he decides to carry her into the car, but she awakens and attacks him. In the ensuing struggle, the car crashes and Georgina is killed.


title: Get Out

text: An armed Rose apprehends Chris with Walter, who is possessed by Roman. Chris uses the flash on his phone to neutralize Roman, allowing Walter to regain control of his body. Walter takes Rose's rifle and shoots her in the stomach before shooting himself. Chris begins to strangle Rose, but he finds himself unable to kill her. Police sirens approach, and Rose cries out for help. However, the driver is revealed to be Rod, who drives away with Chris as Rose is left bleeding out on the road.


title: Get Out

text: Writer-director Jordan Peele voices the sounds made by the wounded deer, and narrates a UNCF commercial.


title: Get Out

text: "Get Out" is the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, who had previously worked in comedy, including the sketch show "Key & Peele". He felt the horror and comedy genres are similar in that "so much of it is pacing, so much of it [hinges on] reveals", and that comedy gave him "something of a training" for the film. "The Stepford Wives" (1975) provided inspiration, about which Peele said, "it's a horror movie but has a satirical premise." As the film deals with racism, Peele has stated that the story is "very personal", although he noted that "it quickly veers off from anything autobiographical."


title: Get Out

text: Peele was introduced to producer Sean McKittrick by comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key in 2013. "I was shooting a movie with Keegan-Michael Key. He said, 'You gotta meet Jordan, he's a horror fanatic and he has all these ideas.' Jordan and I met for coffee in New Orleans. He said, 'Here's one you'll never want to make,' and he pitched me the whole story. I'd never seen that movie before. It fascinated me. So I said right at the table, 'Okay, I'm going to buy this pitch and pay you to write it.' I think he was a little shocked." Peele wrote the first draft of the script in two months.


title: Get Out

text: The lead actors, Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams, were cast in November 2015, with other roles cast between December 2015 and February 2016. Kaluuya was cast based on the strength of his performance in "Black Mirror" episode "Fifteen Million Merits". "That party sequence is why I really wanted to do this film, because I've been to that party," Kaluuya told the "Los Angeles Times." "He [Chris] feels like an everyman. He's kind of like J. Cole. Chris is that guy that everyone knows, who has been in everyone's class at school. That good guy from around the area." Tiffany Haddish was asked to audition for a role in the film but declined.


title: Get Out

text: Williams said she was cast by Peele as a sneaky gambit to disorient audiences. "Jordan told me that he had always pictured me as Rose because Peter Pan or Marnie would make it easier for people to trust me," Williams noted. "I was looking for a role that would weaponize everything that people take for granted about me. So I instantly signed on to it." Williams later observed that white audiences frequently misinterpret the motivations of her character Rose by defending her as being a victim of the cult, an interpretation she rejects, as the character is simply evil. The scene where Rose drinks milk while looking at potential future victims was conceived shortly before shooting to add an additional creepy element to the character. The song used in the scene, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", is intended to reflect Rose's emotional detachment. "There's something kind of horrific about milk," Peele explained. "Think about it! Think about what we're doing. Milk is kind of gross."


title: Get Out

text: Principal photography began on February 16, 2016. Shooting took place in Fairhope, Alabama, for three weeks, followed by Barton Academy and in the Ashland Place Historic District in midtown Mobile, Alabama. The exterior and interior of the house was filmed just south of Fairhope. Principal photography lasted 23 days. Although this movie was filmed in Alabama, Jordan Peele has stressed that the story is not supposed to be understood as taking place in Alabama or anywhere in the South. During a February 2017 interview with Bethonie Butler in the "Washington Post", Peele said "he deliberately avoided setting the movie in red state territory. 'It was really important for me to not have the villains in this film reflect the typical red state type who is usually categorized as being racist. It felt like that was too easy,' he said. 'I wanted this film to explore the false sense of security one can have with the, sort of, New York liberal type.'" According to a February 2017 Geoff Herbert article in the Syracuse (NY) "Post-Standard", the movie is set in Upstate New York.


title: Get Out

text: Peele described conceptualizing the "sunken place" as an impassioned journey in an interview with "Vanity Fair". "I always had this concept of the place that you're falling toward when you're going to sleep, and you get that falling sensation and catch yourself. And if you didn't catch yourself, where would you end up? I had this hellish image, and I thought of this idea of, 'What if you were in a place, and you could look through your own eyes as if they were literal windows or a screen, and see what your body was seeing, but feel like a prisoner in your own mind—the chamber of your mind?'" Peele explained. "The moment I thought of that, it immediately occurred to me the theme of abduction and connection to the prison industrial complex that this movie was sort of presenting a metaphor for. It was a very emotional discovery. I remember having so much fun writing it, but at that moment when I figured out this weird, esoteric, but also an emotionally brutal form of suffering to put the character through—I literally cried writing the scene."


title: Get Out

text: Lil Rel Howery says the allegorical symbolism in the film is strongly entrenched in the fear historically experienced by African Americans. "It goes back to the way I grew up; I'm just being honest," Howery explained. "Segregation created this. Stories about people like Emmett Till. It's history; crazy things have happened, so people are going to embellish and pass that onto their kids as a warning. Jordan was so smart to hit on all these stories that could be considered myths, but a lot of it is rooted in truth."


title: Get Out

text: Peele was worried about the film's chances of success, telling the "Los Angeles Times", "What if white people don't want to come to see the movie because they're afraid of being villainized with black people in the crowd? What if black people don't want to see the movie because they don't want to sit next to a white person while a black person is being victimized on-screen?"


title: Get Out

text: In the original ending, Chris is arrested by the police after strangling Rose. Instead of rescuing Chris, Rod meets him in jail and asks him for information about the Armitage family to investigate, but Chris insists that he stopped them and everything is fine. Peele intended this ending to reflect the realities of racism. By the time production had begun, however, several high-profile police shootings of black people had made discussion, in Peele's words, "more woke". After gauging reception at test screenings, he decided the film needed a happy ending, but felt a moment when the audience believes Chris is about to be arrested would preserve the intended reaction.


title: Get Out

text: Peele considered several other endings, some of which are included on the DVD and Blu-ray release. In one ending, Rod breaks into the estate, finds Chris, and calls his name, but Chris responds, "I assure you, I don't know who you're talking about."


title: Get Out

text: Michael Abels composed the film's score, which Peele wanted to have "distinctly black voices and black musical references." This proved to be a challenge, as Peele found that African-American music typically has what he termed "at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it." At the same time, Peele also wanted to avoid having a voodoo motif. The final score features Swahili voices as well as a blues influence. "Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga" is a Swahili phrase that translates to "listen to (your) ancestors," which indicates to the listener, "something bad is coming. Run."


title: Get Out

text: "The words are issuing a warning to Chris," Peele said. "The whole idea of the movie is 'Get out!'—it's what we're screaming at the character on-screen." The song "Redbone" by Childish Gambino appears at the movie's beginning. Other songs in the film include "Run Rabbit Run" by Flanagan and Allen and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.


title: Get Out

text: The soundtrack was released on vinyl for the first time in 2018 by Waxwork Records and included an exclusive essay by Peele.


title: Get Out

text: Lanre Bakare in "The Guardian" wrote: "The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'alt-right'. They're middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe's, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could. The thing "Get Out" does so well—and the thing that will rankle with some viewers—is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It's an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous."


title: Get Out

text: Peele said about the film, "The real thing at hand here is slavery ... It's some dark shit." Peele stated that the character of Hudson, who "is the farthest from racist" due to his blindness, "still plays a part in the system of racism. And the way it manifests in that movie is, yeah, a guy who believes that the eye of this better artist, this black artist, is what's separating him from being a success or a failure. Which also, to me, is a commentary on a sentiment I was hearing a lot during the Obama era, this whole mythology of a [purported] advantage of being black in this culture."


title: Get Out

text: The film also depicts the lack of attention on missing black Americans compared to missing white girls and women. "Slate"s Damon Young stated the film's premise was "depressingly plausible ... Although black people only comprise 13 percent of America's population, they are 34 percent of America's missing, a reality that exists as the result of a mélange of racial and socioeconomic factors rendering black lives demonstratively less valuable than the lives [of] our white counterparts."


title: Get Out

text: Chris' perceived superiority is one of the reasons why the white characters in the movie are so fixated on him. Get Out shows how the white characters' interest in black bodies is more closely related to jealousy and covetousness than it is to condescension, which is how racism is typically defined as the perception of another race as inferior. Dean explains to Chris that Jesse Owens, a black runner, defeated his father in the 1936 Olympic qualifying rounds. Throughout the dinner, numerous people compliment Chris on various characteristics, from his body to his artistic talent as a photographer. As it turns out, the Armitages' method entails inserting a white brain into a black body to transfer the black person's talent to the awareness of the white person. Because he wants to view and capture images with Chris' expertise, Jim Hudson wants to get his brain implanted into Chris' skull.


title: Get Out

text: Peele wrote Rose as a subversion of the white savior trope, and in particular, of films where most white characters are evil, but one is good. Peele and Williams stated that Rose behaved like a teenager as her emotional development was delayed. Williams believed that Rose was not a victim of indoctrination, hypnotism or Stockholm syndrome, but simply evil. After Rose's intentions are revealed, her previous "soft and welcoming" appearance becomes a "vision of cold, meticulous elitism", with hunting jodhpurs, a white dress shirt, and a "sleek ponytail"; she hangs photographs of her ex-partners on her wall like hunting trophies.


title: Get Out

text: "Get Out" grossed $176 million in the United States and Canada and $79.4 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $255.5 million, against a production budget of $4.5 million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $124.8 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the 10th most profitable release of 2017. Vulture described "Get Out"s 5.3 multiple as "staggering".


title: Get Out

text: In North America, "Get Out" was released on February 24, 2017, alongside "Collide" and "Rock Dog", and was expected to gross $20–25 million from 2,773 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.8 million from Thursday night previews and $10.8 million on its first day. It went on to open for $33.4 million, finishing first at the box office. 38% of the film's opening-weekend audience was African American, while 35% was white, with Georgia being its most profitable market. 90% of its opening weekend ticket sales were purchased at the theater (versus in advance). In its second weekend, the film finished in second at the box office behind new release "Logan" ($88.4 million), grossing $28.3 million, for a drop of 15.4%. Horror films tend to drop at least 60% in their second weekend, so this was above average. In its third weekend, the film grossed $21.1 million, dropping just 25% from its previous week, and finished third at the box office behind newcomer "" and "Logan".


title: Get Out

text: In March 2017, three weeks after its release, "Get Out" crossed the $100 million mark domestically, making Peele the first black writer-director to do so with his debut movie. On April 8, 2017, the film became the highest-grossing film domestically directed by a black filmmaker, beating out F. Gary Gray's "Straight Outta Compton," which grossed $162.8 million domestically in 2015. Gray reclaimed the record two weeks later when "The Fate of the Furious" grossed $173.3 million on its fourteenth day of release on April 27. Domestically, "Get Out" is also the highest-grossing debut film based on an original screenplay in Hollywood history, beating the two-decade-long record of 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" ($140.5 million). By the end of March, "Los Angeles Times" had declared the film's success a "cultural phenomenon" noting that in addition to its box office success, "moviegoers have shared countless 'sunken place' Internet memes and other "Get Out"-inspired fan art across social media." Josh Rottenberg, the editor of the piece, attributed the film's success to the fact that it was released "at one of the most politically charged moments in memory."


title: Get Out

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 400 reviews, and an average rating of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, "Get Out" seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride." The film was the highest rated wide release of 2017 on the site. On Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 85 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave an 84% overall positive score and a 66% "definite recommend".


title: Get Out

text: Richard Roeper gave the film stars, saying: "the real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style—and is flat-out funny as well." Keith Phipps of "Uproxx" praised the cast and Peele's direction, saying, "That he brings the technical skill of a practiced horror master is more of a surprise. The final thrill of "Get Out"—beyond the slow-building sense of danger, the unsettling atmosphere, and the twisty revelation of what's really going on—is that Peele's just getting started." Mike Rougeau of IGN gave the film 9/10, and wrote, ""Get Out"s whole journey, through every tense conversation, A-plus punchline and shocking act of violence, feels totally earned. And the conclusion is worth each uncomfortable chuckle and moment of doubt." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave "Get Out" a 3.5 out of 4, and called it a "jolt-a-minute horrorshow laced with racial tension and stinging satirical wit." Scott Mendelson of "Forbes" said the film captured the zeitgeist and called it a "modern American horror classic".


title: Get Out

text: Critic Armond White gave a negative review in "National Review", referring to the film as a "Get-Whitey movie" and stating that it "[reduces] racial politics to trite horror-comedy ... it's an Obama movie for Tarantino fans." The "New York Observer" critic Rex Reed included the film on his list of 10 Worst Films of 2017, and later sardonically stated in a "CBS Sunday Morning" interview, "I didn't care if all the black men are turned into robots." A writer on "Sunday Morning"s website noted that there are no robots in the film.


title: Get Out

text: In 2018, IndieWire writers ranked the script the third best American screenplay of the 21st century, with Chris O'Falt arguing that Peele "walked a narrative tightrope that required as much craft as insight [...] the audience's understanding of what Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is thinking and feeling is always clear. Hitchcock-like in its execution, and playing off genre and audience expectation (especially about how racial dynamics are traditionally portrayed on screen), the twists and turns of "Get Out" are not only gasp-inducing; each one reveals a new layer to its exploration of systematic racist belief systems."


title: Get Out

text: At the 90th Academy Awards, the film earned four nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Daniel Kaluuya. Peele became the third person (after Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks) to earn Best Picture, Director and Screenplay nominations for a debut film, and the first African-American winner for Best Original Screenplay (and fourth overall nominated, after John Singleton, Spike Lee, and Suzanne de Passe). "Get Out" divided Oscar voters, with many older members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences dismissing it or choosing not to see it. According to Vulture, new voting members said they ran into "interference" from more senior members when it came to evaluating the film as Best Picture. "I had multiple conversations with longtime Academy members who were like, 'That was not an Oscar film,'" according to a new voter. "Honestly, a few of them had not even seen it and they were saying it, so dispelling that kind of thing has been super important." One anonymous Oscar voter told "The Hollywood Reporter" they felt alienated by the Oscar campaign: "Instead of focusing on the fact that this was an entertaining little horror movie that made quite a bit of money, they started trying to suggest it had deeper meaning than it does, and, as far as I'm concerned, they played the race card, and that really turned me off. In fact, at one of the luncheons, the lead actor [Kaluuya], who is not from the United States, was giving us a lecture on racism in America and how black lives matter, and I thought, 'What does this have to do with "Get Out"? They're trying to make me think that if I don't vote for this movie, I'm a racist.' I was really offended."


title: Get Out

text: At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, "Get Out" received two nominations: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Comedy or Musical for Daniel Kaluuya. The submission in the comedy category prompted debate about the premise of the film. Although advertised as a "satirical horror film," Universal Pictures submitted it as a comedy because of less competition in the category, which gave the film a greater chance of receiving accolades. Peele joked in a tweet, "'Get Out' is a documentary," but it was reported he approved of the submission.


title: Get Out

text: The film also received nominations at the 24th Screen Actors Guild Awards, 49th NAACP Image Awards, and 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, among others. It won Best Foreign International Film at the British Independent Film Awards. At the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards on March 3, 2018, Jordan Peele won the Best Director Award and the film won Best Picture. In 2021, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay the greatest of the 21st century so far.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Hereditary is a 2018 American psychological horror film written and directed by Ari Aster in his feature directorial debut. It stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro and Gabriel Byrne as the members of a family haunted by a mysterious presence after the death of their secretive grandmother.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Aster's short film work attracted the attention of A24, who greenlit "Hereditary" as his first feature film. Aster conceived it as primarily a family drama and a story consisting of two distinct halves. Filming took place in Utah in 2017, with most indoor scenes shot on custom built sets on a soundstage to give the film a dollhouse aesthetic.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: "Hereditary" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 8, 2018. The film received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise for Collette's performance and Aster's direction. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest horror films of all time. It made over $80 million on a $10 million budget to become A24's highest-grossing film worldwide at the time.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Miniature artist Annie Graham lives with her psychiatrist husband Steve, their 16-year-old son Peter, and their 13-year-old daughter Charlie. The family attends the funeral of Annie's cold distant mother, Ellen, and Annie is surprised at the number of people in attendance. Annie attends a bereavement support group, revealing she and her mother had a fraught relationship until Charlie was born when Ellen became a significant figure in raising her. Meanwhile, Steve gets a phone call during a conversation with Annie telling him that unknown perpetrators desecrated Ellen's grave, but he does not reveal this to her.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Peter is invited to a party, and Annie insists on Charlie going with him. On the way to the party, the siblings pass a telephone pole carved with an old sigil. At the party, Peter leaves Charlie by herself, and Charlie, who has a severe nut allergy, eats chocolate cake containing walnuts and goes into anaphylactic shock. As Peter drives Charlie to the medical centre, she leans out of the window for air; when Peter swerves to avoid a dead animal, she is decapitated by the sigil telephone pole. In shock, Peter drives home and leaves Charlie's body in the car, where Annie discovers it the following morning. Annie grieves deeply and blames Peter for Charlie's death, while Peter becomes reclusive and feels incredibly guilty. Steve attempts to bring them back together during this time.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Annie befriends support group member Joan. Joan teaches Annie to perform a séance to communicate with Charlie. Later that night, Annie convinces her family to attempt the séance. Objects begin to move and break. Peter is petrified when Annie speaks in Charlie's frightened voice until Steve douses her with water. As Peter begins to be plagued by supernatural forces, Annie suspects Charlie's spirit has become malevolent. When she sees images in Charlie's sketchbook threatening Peter, she throws the book into the fireplace. However, her clothing catches fire alongside the book and only stops when she pulls it away from the flames.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Annie goes through her mother's old belongings. She finds a photo album featuring pictures of Joan and Ellen together, despite Joan claiming she never knew Annie's mother. Ellen is revealed to have been Queen Leigh, the leader of a coven. Annie also discovers a book about a demon king named Paimon, which states that King Paimon wishes to inhabit the body of a male host. The summoner of Paimon will receive wealth and rewards. In the attic, Annie finds Ellen's body and occultist symbols.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: While Peter is outside his school, Joan appears and attempts to expel his spirit from his body for the demon king. In class, he is taken over by an unseen force and slams his head against his desk. Annie informs Steve of her discoveries and implores Steve to burn the sketchbook. When Steve accuses Annie of being ill, Annie seizes the book. She throws it into the fireplace, but Steve erupts into flames as it burns. As Annie looks on, she becomes possessed by King Paimon himself.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Peter awakens to find his father's charred corpse by the fire, and nude coven members in the house before a possessed Annie chases him into the attic. Peter watches Annie decapitate herself with a piano wire before diving out of the attic window to escape. As Peter lies on the ground, Paimon possesses him, and Annie's headless corpse levitates into Charlie's treehouse. The now-possessed Peter follows his mother's floating body into the treehouse. There, he finds Joan, other coven members, the headless corpses of his mother and grandmother, and Charlie's crowned, severed head resting atop a mannequin. Joan appears and places the crown on Peter's head. She addresses him as Charlie, swears an oath to him as Paimon, and declares that he is now free to rule over the coven. As the coven members chant "Hail Paimon," Peter stares blankly ahead.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Ari Aster has an uncredited voice cameo as Annie's art dealer, who calls to offer support after the tragedy she has been experiencing. Kathleen Chalfant makes an uncredited appearance as Ellen Taper Leigh, Annie's mother. Aster refers to her as "the sweetest person in the world".


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Writer-director Ari Aster embarked on a career in the film industry while a student at the American Film Institute; he scripted and directed two provocative short films, "The Strange Thing About the Johnsons" and "Munchausen", bringing him under the scope of A24. Aster originally pitched "Hereditary" as a family tragedy, careful not to call it a horror film outright. A fan of domestic dramas, Aster incorporated themes of the genre into his script, envisioning a film rooted in family dynamics, trauma, and grief; "Carrie" and "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" were works Aster specified as influences on "Hereditary". He interpreted the film as two halves which are "completely inextricable from each other": "It begins as a family tragedy and then continues down that path, but gradually curdles into a full-bore nightmare."


title: Hereditary (film)

text: The script resembles a real-life incident from 2004 in Marietta, Georgia, in which John Kemper Hutcherson accidentally decapitated his childhood friend and passenger, Frankie Brohm, on a telephone pole, after the latter had leaned his head from the vehicle to relieve the symptoms of his inebriation. Hutcherson then drove home with Brohm's headless corpse in the car and fell asleep, until a passerby, walking with his toddler, noticed Brohm's body still in the truck the next morning and notified authorities. Aster has never commented on this.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Toni Collette was one of the first actresses Aster sought for the role of Annie Graham, a miniaturist and the matriarch of the Graham family. Though Collette was reluctant to work on a horror film, the script's grounded approach to the genre convinced her to commit to the project: "He [Aster] just really understood the dynamics in the family, has such an understanding of what it is to be human, what it is to experience loss".


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Gabriel Byrne agreed to play the family's patriarch Steve; Alex Wolff, who previously collaborated with Byrne in the HBO program "In Treatment" was cast as the Grahams' son Peter. Cast in her cinema debut, 14-year-old Broadway theatre actress Milly Shapiro, winner of a Tony Honor for her performance in "Matilda the Musical", earned the role of the daughter Charlie. After watching Shapiro's audition, Aster was immediately relieved "'cause I knew the chances were slim that I would find somebody who would be right", having left Charlie's personality more ambiguous than other characters in the script. Ann Dowd portrays grieving mother Joan, who convinces Annie of her ability to contact the dead.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: The film began shooting in February 2017 in Utah. The exteriors of the Graham family house and the tree house were shot in Summit County, Utah, and the cemetery scene was filmed at Larkin Sunset Gardens in Sandy, Utah. The school scenes were shot at West High School and Utah State Fairpark, but all other interiors (including both versions of the treehouse) were built from scratch on a sound stage. Since each of the rooms was built on a stage, walls could be removed to shoot scenes at a much greater distance than a practical location would allow, creating the dollhouse aesthetic of the film.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Aster said that during filming, "Alex Wolff told me not to say the name of William Shakespeare's Scottish play out loud because of some superstitious theater legend. I smugly announced the name, and then one of our lights burst during the shooting of the following scene."


title: Hereditary (film)

text: "Hereditary" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. The trailer for the film was released on January 30, 2018. On Anzac Day in 2018, the trailer for "Hereditary" played before the PG-rated family film "Peter Rabbit" in a cinema in Innaloo, Western Australia. According to a report in "The Sydney Morning Herald", the "Hereditary" preview was accidentally shown to family audiences and created a small panic in the theater. The theater was apparently full of families including "at least 40 children".


title: Hereditary (film)

text: The film was released in the United States by A24 on June 8, 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom by Entertainment Film Distributors on June 15, 2018.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: "Hereditary" grossed $44.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $36.2 million in other countries, for a total worldwide gross of $80.2 million, against a production budget of $10 million.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Hereditary" was released alongside "Ocean's 8" and "Hotel Artemis", and was originally projected to gross $5–9 million in its opening weekend, similar to the debuts of previous A24 horror films "The Witch" ($8.8 million in 2016) and "It Comes at Night" ($6 million in 2017). It was also the widest-ever release for an A24 film with 2,964 theaters, besting the 2,553 of "It Comes at Night". After making $5.2 million on its first day, including $1.3 million from Thursday night previews, weekend estimates were increased to $12 million. It went on to debut to $13.6 million, finishing fourth at the box office, behind "Ocean's 8", "" and "Deadpool 2", and marking the best-ever opening for an A24 title. In its second weekend the film dropped just 49.5% to $6.9 million (compared to the 60–70% fall many horror films see in their sophomore frame), finishing sixth. On July 29, 2018, the film became A24's highest-grossing film worldwide at $80 million, beating "Lady Bird" ($78.5 million); it held the record until June 2022 when it was surpassed by "Everything Everywhere All at Once".


title: Hereditary (film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 383 reviews, and an average rating of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Hereditary" uses its classic setup as the framework for a harrowing, uncommonly unsettling horror film whose cold touch lingers long beyond the closing credits." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 49 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and called it the scariest movie of 2018, saying "it's Collette, giving the performance of her career, who takes us inside Annie's breakdown in flesh and spirit and shatters what's left of our nerves. Her tour de force bristles with provocations that for sure will keep you up nights. But first, you'll scream your bloody head off." For "The A.V. Club", A.A. Dowd gave the film an A−, stating that, "In its seriousness and hair-raising craftsmanship, "Hereditary" belongs to a proud genre lineage, a legacy that stretches back to the towering touchstones of American horror, unholy prestige-zeitgeist classics like "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby". Remarkably, it's a first feature, the auspicious debut of writer-director Ari Aster, whose acclaimed, disturbing short films were all leading, like a tunnel into the underworld, to this bleak vision." Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars and advised that it was suitable for viewers aged 17 or older.


title: Hereditary (film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale. Some publications noted the critics-to-audience discrepancy, comparing it to "Drive", "The Witch" and "It Comes at Night", all of which were critically acclaimed but failed to impress mainstream moviegoers.


title: Michael Caine

text: Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films in a career spanning seven decades, and is considered a British film icon. He has received various awards including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of February 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. He has appeared in seven films that featured in the British Film Institute's 100 greatest British films of the 20th century. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to cinema.


title: Michael Caine

text: Often playing a Cockney, Caine made his breakthrough in the 1960s with starring roles in British films such as "Zulu" (1964), "Alfie" (1966), "The Italian Job", and "Battle of Britain" (both 1969). He was nominated for an Academy Award for "Alfie". His first of five appearances as Harry Palmer in "The Ipcress File" (1965) saw him begin, by wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses, to establish a distinctive visual style, which he used alongside a laconic vocal delivery; these, which he combined with sharp suits in "Alfie" and "The Italian Job", made him a style icon of the 1960s. A trailer for "Funeral in Berlin" (1965), his second performance as Palmer, described the character as possessing "horn rims, cockney wit and an iron fist". His roles in the 1970s included "Get Carter" (1971), "The Last Valley" (1971), "Sleuth" (1972), "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975), "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), and "California Suite" (1978). During the 1980s he received immense critical success with "Dressed to Kill" (1980), "Educating Rita" (1983), and Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986), the latter earning him his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine is also known for his performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992), and for his comedic roles in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988), "Miss Congeniality" (2000), "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002), and "Secondhand Lions" (2003). He received his second Golden Globe Award for "Little Voice" (1998). In 1999, he received his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "The Cider House Rules". He continued acting in acclaimed dramas such as "Quills" (2000), "The Quiet American" (2002), and Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian drama film "Children of Men" (2006). Caine portrayed Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" Trilogy (2005–2012). He appeared in several other of Nolan's films including "The Prestige" (2006), "Inception" (2010), "Interstellar" (2014) and "Tenet" (2020). He also appeared in the heist thriller film "Now You See Me" (2013), the action comedy film "" (2014), the Italian drama "Youth" (2015) and the crime film "King of Thieves" (2018).


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite on 14 March 1933 at St Olave's Hospital in Rotherhithe, London, England. His English mother, Ellen Frances Marie ("née" Burchell; 1900–1989), was a cook and charwoman, while his father, also named Maurice Joseph Micklewhite (1899–1956), was a fish market porter of Romani, English and Irish heritage. He was brought up in his mother's Protestant faith.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine had an elder maternal half-brother named David William Burchell, and a younger full brother, Stanley Micklewhite. He grew up in Southwark, London, and during the Second World War was evacuated north to North Runcton near King's Lynn in Norfolk, where he made his acting debut at the village school and had a pet carthorse called Lottie. After the war, his father was demobilised, and the family were rehoused by the council in Marshall Gardens at the Elephant and Castle in a prefabricated house made in Canada, for much of London's housing stock had been destroyed during the Blitz in 1940–1941:


title: Michael Caine

text: At the age of 10, Caine acted in a school play as the father of the ugly sisters in "Cinderella". His fly was undone and he got a laugh, and he took on acting based on the laugh. In 1944, Caine passed his eleven-plus examination, winning a scholarship to Hackney Downs School (formerly The Grocers' Company's School). After a year there he moved to Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell (now Wilson's School in Wallington, London), which he left at 16 after gaining a School Certificate in six subjects. He then worked briefly as a filing clerk and messenger for a film company in Victoria Street and film producer Jay Lewis in Wardour Street.


title: Michael Caine

text: In 1952, Caine was called up to do his national service. Between 1952 and 1954 he served in the British Army's Royal Fusiliers, first at the British Army of the Rhine Headquarters in Iserlohn, West Germany, and then on active service in the Korean War.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine went into Korea feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family, but the experience left him permanently repelled due to the human wave attacks practised by North Korea and China, which left him with the sense that their governments did not care about their citizens. He experienced a situation in which he thought he was going to die, the memory of which stayed with him and formed his character. In his 2010 autobiography "The Elephant to Hollywood", he wrote that "The rest of my life I have lived every bloody moment from the moment I wake up until the time I go to sleep."


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine has said that he would like to see the return of national service in Britain, to help combat youth violence, stating: "I'm just saying, put them in the Army for six months. You're there to learn how to defend your country. You belong to the country. Then, when you come out, you have a sense of belonging, rather than a sense of violence."


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine began his acting career at the age of 20 in Horsham, Sussex, when he responded to an advertisement in "The Stage" for an assistant stage manager who would also perform small walk-on parts for the Horsham-based Westminster Repertory Company who were performing at the Carfax Electric Theatre. Adopting the stage name "Michael White", in July 1953 he was cast as the drunkard Hindley in the company's production of "Wuthering Heights". He moved to the Lowestoft Repertory Company in Suffolk for a year when he was 21. It was here that he met his first wife, Patricia Haines. He has described the first nine years of his career as "really, really brutal" as well as "more like purgatory than paradise". He appeared in nine plays during his time at the Lowestoft Rep at the Arcadia Theatre with Jackson Stanley's Standard Players.


title: Michael Caine

text: When his career took him to London in 1954 after his provincial apprenticeship, his agent informed him that there was already a Michael White performing as an actor in London and that he had to come up with a new name immediately. Speaking to his agent from a telephone booth in Leicester Square, London, he looked around for inspiration, noted that "The Caine Mutiny" was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, and decided to change his name to "Michael Caine". He joked on television in 1987 that, had a tree partly blocking his view been a few feet to the left, he might have been called "Michael Mutiny". (Humphrey Bogart was his "screen idol" and he would later play the part originally intended for Bogart in John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King".) He also later joked in interviews that had he looked the other way, he would have ended up as "Michael One Hundred and One Dalmatians". In 1958, Caine played the minor role of a court orderly in a BBC Television adaptation of the story, "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial".


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine moved in with another rising cockney actor, Terence Stamp, and began hanging out with him and Peter O'Toole in the London party scene after he had become O'Toole's understudy in Lindsay Anderson's West End staging of Willis Hall's "The Long and the Short and the Tall" in 1959. Caine took over the role when O'Toole left to make "Lawrence of Arabia" and went on to a four-month tour of the UK and Ireland.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine's first film role was as one of the privates in George Baker's platoon in the 1956 film "A Hill in Korea". The stars of the film were Baker, Harry Andrews, Stanley Baker and Michael Medwin, with Stephen Boyd and Ronald Lewis; Robert Shaw also had a small part. Caine also appeared regularly on television in small roles. His first credited role on the BBC was in 1956, where he played Boudousse in the Jean Anouilh play "The Lark". Other parts included three roles in "Dixon of Dock Green" in 1957, 1958 and 1959, prisoner-of-war series "Escape" (1957), and the crime/thriller drama "Mister Charlesworth" (1958).


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine continued to appear on television, in serials "The Golden Girl" and "No Wreath for the General", but was then cast in the play "The Compartment", written by Johnny Speight, a two-hander also starring Frank Finlay. This was followed by main roles in other plays including the character Tosh in "Somewhere for the Night", a "Sunday-Night Play" written by Bill Naughton televised on Sunday 3 December 1961, another two-hander by Johnny Speight, "The Playmates", and two editions of BBC plays strand "First Night", "Funny Noises with Their Mouths" and "The Way with Reggie" (both 1963). He also acted in radio plays, including Bill Naughton's "Looking for Frankie" on the BBC Home Service (1963).


title: Michael Caine

text: A big break came for Caine when he was cast as Meff in James Saunders' Cockney comedy "Next Time I'll Sing To You", when this play was presented at the New Arts Theatre in London on 23 January 1963. Scenes from the play's performance were featured in the April 1963 issue of "Theatre World" magazine.


title: Michael Caine

text: When this play moved to the Criterion in Piccadilly with Michael Codron directing, he was visited backstage by Stanley Baker, one of the four stars in Caine's first film, "A Hill in Korea", who told him about the part of a Cockney private in his upcoming film "Zulu", a film Baker was producing and starring in. Baker told Caine to meet the director, Cy Endfield, who informed him that he already had given the part to James Booth, a fellow Cockney who was Caine's friend, because he "looked more Cockney" than Caine did. Endfield then told the 6'2" Caine that he did not look like a Cockney but like an officer, and offered him a screen test for the role of a snobbish, upper class officer after Caine assured him that he could do a posh accent. Caine believes Endfield offered him, a Cockney, the role of an aristocrat because, being American, he did not have the endemic British class-prejudice. Though he tested poorly, Endfield gave him the part that would make him a film star.


title: Michael Caine

text: Location shooting for "Zulu" took place in Natal, South Africa, for 14 weeks in 1963. According to his 2010 autobiography "The Elephant to Hollywood", Caine had been signed to a seven-year contract by Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Films was distributing "Zulu". After the return of the cast to England and the completion of the film, Levine released him from the contract, telling him, "I know you're not, but you gotta face the fact that you look like a queer on screen." Levine gave his contract to his "Zulu" co-star James Booth.


title: Michael Caine

text: Subsequently, Caine's agent got him cast in the BBC production "Hamlet at Elsinore" (1964) as Horatio, in support of Christopher Plummer's Hamlet. Horatio was the only classical role which Caine, who had never received dramatic training, would ever play. Caine wrote, "...I decided that if my on-screen appearance was going to be an issue, then I would use it to bring out all Horatio's ambiguous sexuality."


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine's roles as effete-seeming aristocrats were to contrast with his next projects, in which he was to become notable for using a regional accent, rather than the Received Pronunciation then considered proper for film actors. At that time his working-class Cockney speech stood out to American and British audiences alike, as did the Beatles' Liverpudlian accents. "Zulu" was followed by two of Caine's best-known roles: the rough-edged petty-crook-turned-spy Harry Palmer in "The Ipcress File" (1965), and the titular womanising young Cockney in "Alfie" (1966). In a 2016 interview Caine cited "Alfie" as his favourite film of his career, saying, "it made me a star in America as well, and it was my first nomination for an Academy Award". He went on to play Harry Palmer in a further four films, "Funeral in Berlin" (1966), "Billion Dollar Brain" (1967), "Bullet to Beijing" (1995) and "Midnight in Saint Petersburg" (1996). Caine made his first film in Hollywood in 1966, after an invitation from Shirley MacLaine to play opposite her in "Gambit". During the first two weeks, whilst staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he met long-term friends John Wayne and agent "Swifty" Lazar. Wayne was a fan of Caine's performance in "Alfie" and suggested to Caine, "Speak slow and speak low". Caine was always grateful for that advice. Caine starred in the film "The Magus" (1968) which, although BAFTA-nominated for Best Cinematography, failed at the box office.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine starred in the 1969 comedy caper film "The Italian Job" as Charlie Croker, the leader of a Cockney criminal gang released from prison with the intention of doing a "big job" in Italy to steal gold bullion from an armoured security truck. One of the most celebrated roles of his career, in a 2002 poll his line "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" was voted the second-funniest line in film (after "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy" from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"), and favourite one-liner in a 2003 poll of 1,000 film fans. Culminating in a cliffhanger, "The Italian Job" has one of the most discussed end scenes in film; what happened to the coachload of gold teetering over the edge of a cliff has been debated in the decades since the film was released.


title: Michael Caine

text: After working on "The Italian Job" with Noël Coward, and a role as RAF fighter pilot squadron leader Canfield in the all-star cast of "Battle of Britain" (both 1969), Caine played the lead in "Get Carter" (1971), a British gangster film. Caine continued with successes including "Sleuth" (1972) opposite Laurence Olivier, and John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) co-starring Sean Connery, which received widespread acclaim. "The Times" applauded the "lovely double act of Caine and Connery, clowning to their doom", while Huston paid tribute to Caine's improvisation as an actor: "Michael is one of the most intelligent men among the artists I've known. I don't particularly care to throw the ball to an actor and let him improvise, but with Michael it's different. I just let him get on with it."


title: Michael Caine

text: In 1974, Caine appeared in "The Black Windmill", co-starring Donald Pleasence. In 1976 he appeared in Tom Mankiewicz's screen adaptation of the Jack Higgins novel "The Eagle Has Landed" as "Oberst" (Colonel) Kurt Steiner, the commander of a Luftwaffe paratroop unit disguised as Polish paratroopers, whose mission was to kidnap or kill the then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, alongside co-stars Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasence. Caine also was part of an all-star cast in "A Bridge Too Far" (1977). In 1978, Caine starred in "Silver Bears", an adaptation of Paul Erdman's 1974 novel of the same name, and co-starred in the Academy Award-winning "California Suite".


title: Michael Caine

text: In the late 1970s, Caine's choice of roles was frequently criticisedsomething to which he has referred with self-deprecating comments about taking parts strictly for the money. He averaged two films a year, but these included such films as "The Swarm" (1978) (although critically panned it was Academy Award-nominated for Best Costume Design), "Ashanti" (1979) and "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" (1979).


title: Michael Caine

text: In the early 1980s Caine appeared in "The Island" (1980), "The Hand" (1981), and had a reunion with his "Sleuth" co-star Laurence Olivier in "The Jigsaw Man" (1982).


title: Michael Caine

text: During the 1980s Caine enjoyed further acclaimed roles and awards attention. He co-starred with Julie Walters in "Educating Rita" (1983), for which he won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe Award. In 1986, he portrayed the neurotic Elliot in Woody Allen's ensemble comedy "Hannah and Her Sisters", starring Barbara Hershey, Dianne Wiest, and Mia Farrow. For his performance he won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Caine also played a suave English conman, opposite a clumsy American played by Steve Martin, in the crime comedy "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988), directed by Frank Oz. The film earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine's other successful films (critically or financially) were the 1980 Golden Globe-nominated slasher film "Dressed to Kill", the 1981 war film "Escape to Victory" featuring Sylvester Stallone and footballers from the 1960s and 1970s, including Pelé and Bobby Moore, the 1982 film "Deathtrap", and the Academy Award-nominated "Mona Lisa" (1986). In 1987, Caine narrated "Hero", the official film of the 1986 FIFA World Cup. In 1988 he played Chief Insp. Frederick Abberline in the two-part TV drama "Jack the Ripper", which co-starred Jane Seymour and was produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the notorious Jack the Ripper murder spree in Victorian London.


title: Michael Caine

text: Despite his success in the 1980s, Caine also appeared in some poorly received films such as "Blame It on Rio" (1984), the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais comedy "Water" (1985), the fourth and final film in the "Jaws" franchise, "" (1987), and "Without a Clue" (1988) (portraying Sherlock Holmes). Caine's commitment to filming "Jaws: The Revenge" in the Bahamas meant that he was unable to receive his Academy Award for "Hannah and Her Sisters" in person and Dianne Wiest accepted it on his behalf. On "Jaws: The Revenge", Caine said "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."


title: Michael Caine

text: In the 1990s, Caine found good parts harder to come by. He played the mysterious bartender Mike in "Mr. Destiny" in 1990 and appeared with Roger Moore in "Bullseye!" (1990). A high point came when he played Ebenezer Scrooge in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992). Having been chosen by Brian Henson, Caine stated: "I'm going to play this movie like I'm working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role and there are no puppets around me." He played the beleaguered stage director Lloyd Fellowes in the film adaptation of "Noises Off" (1992). He also played a villain in the Steven Seagal film "On Deadly Ground" (1994). He was in two straight to video Harry Palmer sequels and a few television films. However, Caine's reputation as a pop icon was still intact, thanks to his roles in films such as "The Italian Job" and "Get Carter". His performance in "Little Voice" (1998) was seen as something of a return to form, and won him a Golden Globe Award. Better parts followed, including "The Cider House Rules" (1999), for which he won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Michael Caine

text: In the 2000s, Caine appeared in the comedy "Miss Congeniality" (2000) as the refined pageant coach opposite Sandra Bullock as the undercover FBI agent. The film was a massive box office success and Caine earned praise for his comic turn. That same year Caine also appeared in Philip Kaufman's controversial yet acclaimed film "Quills" (2000) as Dr. Royer-Collard opposite Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, and Joaquin Phoenix. In 2001, Caine starred in the ensemble dramedy "Last Orders" starring Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, and Tom Courtenay. Caine's next film "The Quiet American" (2002) won him great critical acclaim, earning him his sixth Academy Award nomination. Caine also earned a Golden Globe Award and British Academy Film Award for his performance.


title: Michael Caine

text: Several of Caine's classic films have been remade, including "The Italian Job", "Get Carter", "Alfie" and "Sleuth". In the 2007 remake of "Sleuth", Caine took over the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 version and Jude Law played Caine's original role. Caine is one of the few actors to have played a starring role in two versions of the same film. In an interview with CNN, Law spoke of his admiration for Caine: "I learned so much just from watching how he monitored his performance, and also how little he has to do. He's a master technician and sometimes he was doing stuff I didn't see, I couldn't register. I'd go back and watch it on the monitor, it was like 'Oh my God, the amount of variety he's put in there is breathtaking".


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine also starred multiple comedies during this time, including playing Austin's father in "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002). In 2003 he co-starred with Robert Duvall, and Haley Joel Osment in the family comedy "Secondhand Lions". Caine played family elder Henry Lair in the 2004 film "Around the Bend". Also in 2005, he played as Isabel's (Nicole Kidman) father in "Bewitched" alongside Will Ferrell and Shirley MacLaine.


title: Michael Caine

text: In 2005, he was cast as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth in "Batman Begins", the first movie in the new Batman film series known as "The Dark Knight" Trilogy. In 2006, he appeared in Alfonso Cuaron's acclaimed dystopian drama "Children of Men" alongside Clive Owen and Julianne Moore as well as Nolan's mystery thriller "The Prestige" starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. In 2007 he appeared in "Flawless", and in 2008 and 2012 he reprised his role as Alfred in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed "Batman" sequels "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises" as well as starring in the British drama "Is Anybody There?", which explores the final days of life.


title: Michael Caine

text: It was reported by "Empire" magazine that Caine had said that "Harry Brown" (released on 13 November 2009) would be his last lead role. Caine later clarified that he had no intention of retiring, stating that "You don’t retire in this business; the business retires you."


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine appeared in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller "Inception" as Prof. Stephen Miles, Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) mentor and father-in-law. The film was a financial and critical success, earning 8 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. He voiced Finn McMissile in Pixar's 2011 film "Cars 2" and also voiced a supporting role in the animated film "Gnomeo & Juliet". He also starred in the 2012 film "", as Josh Hutcherson's character's grandfather; the film also featured Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine reprised his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman sequel "The Dark Knight Rises", which was released in July 2012. Caine later called "The Dark Knight" Trilogy, "one of the greatest things I have done in my life." In 2013, Caine appeared in the heist thriller "Now You See Me" starring alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Morgan Freeman. Caine played the role of Arthur Tressler, an insurance magnate and the Four Horsemen's sponsor. The film, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, was a financial success at the box office and spawned a sequel, "Now You See Me 2" (2016).


title: Michael Caine

text: He appeared in Nolan's 2014 science-fiction film "Interstellar" as Professor Brand, a high-ranking NASA scientist, ideator of Plan A, former mentor of Cooper and father of Amelia. The film starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain. In 2015, Caine co-starred in Matthew Vaughn's action spy comedy "" starring Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, and Samuel L. Jackson.


title: Michael Caine

text: In May 2015 he starred in Paolo Sorrentino's Italian comedy-drama film "Youth" alongside Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, and Jane Fonda. Caine appeared in the lead role of retired composer Fred Ballinger, where he and the film won great acclaim at its debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Caine received a London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Actor of the Year nomination for his performance. In October 2015, Caine read Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Claus and Big Claus" for the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Dame Joan Collins, Joanna Lumley, David Walliams, Charlotte Rampling and Paul McKenna.


title: Michael Caine

text: In 2017, Caine was cast in a spoken cameo role in Christopher Nolan's action-thriller "Dunkirk" (2017), based on the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II, as a Royal Air Force Spitfire pilot, as a nod to his role of RAF fighter pilot Squadron Leader Canfield in "Battle of Britain" (1969). In 2018, Caine starred as Brian Reader in "King of Thieves", which was based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015.


title: Michael Caine

text: In May 2019, Caine was cast as Sir Michael Crosby, a British Intelligence officer, in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" (2020). The film starred John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh. The film was released during the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020 after being delayed multiple times and became a box office disappointment, despite receiving positive reviews. Caine also appeared in the children's fantasy film, "Come Away" (2020) starring Angelina Jolie, David Oyelowo, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to mixed reviews, with critics praising its performances and lavish production design. In the 2021 film "Twist", an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ "Oliver Twist" set in the present day, Caine plays Fagin. In interviews promoting the 2021 film "Best Sellers", Caine suggested that he would not make another film, citing difficulty in walking and his new interest in novel-writing developed during the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, his representatives told "Variety" that he was not retiring from acting.


title: Michael Caine

text: Caine is regarded as a British cultural icon, with Mairi Mackay of CNN stating: "Michael Caine has been personifying British cool since the swinging sixties. He has brought some of British cinema's most iconic characters to life and introduced his very own laid-back cockney gangster into pop culture. He doggedly retained a regional accent at a time when the plummy tones of Received Pronunciation were considered obligatory. It is a sweet irony that his accent has become his calling card." In 2015 "The Times" called Caine "the epitome of Sixties cool in his first outing as the secret agent Harry Palmer". A trailer for his second role as Palmer described him as possessing "horn rims, cockney wit and an iron fist". With his distinctive voice and manner of speaking, Caine is a popular subject for impersonators and mimics. Most Caine impressions include the catchphrase "Not a lot of people know that." The catchphrase emanates from Caine's habit of informing people of obscure "interesting facts" that he has collected. Referring to Caine as being the "biggest mine of useless information", Peter Sellers initiated the catchphrase when he appeared on BBC1's "Parkinson" show on 28 October 1972 and said: