Curated playlist

Universal Pictures films

Psycho (1960 film)Paramount refused to fund Hitchcock's Psycho, so he financed the 1960 film himself. He used his television crew.
The Super Mario Galaxy MovieThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie cost $110 million to make and earned $992 million worldwide. Critics were far less generous than ticket buyers. This 2026 animated sequel sends the plumber brothers Mario and Luigi into outer space, where…
Wicked: For GoodNine million colorful tulips were planted on location to surround the Munchkinland set of Wicked: For Good. This 2025 American musical fantasy film, directed by Jon M. Chu, picks up the story of Elphaba and Glinda where its predecessor…
First Man (film)First Man opens with Neil Armstrong's X-15 bouncing off the atmosphere. His daughter Karen was dying of a brain tumor.
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008 film)The 2008 film The Other Boleyn Girl left out Hever Castle, the Boleyn family's real home.
Jaws (film)The broken shark in Jaws made the film scarier. Spielberg had to suggest it with barrels and a fin.
Oppenheimer (film)The teaser for the film Oppenheimer, released on the 28th of July 2022, carried a live countdown to 5:29 a.m. Mountain time on the 16th of July 2023. That hour marked the 78th anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon.…
No Time to DieIn a November 2024 interview about No Time to Die, Daniel Craig left no doubt about the fate of his James Bond. "He's dead! How many times do I have to blow him up?" he asked. The 2021 film is the twenty-fifth in the James Bond series and…
The Beguiled (1971 film)The Beguiled posters showed Clint Eastwood with a gun, but the film has almost no action.
Apollo 13 (film)The Apollo 13 film's famous line "Failure is not an option" was never spoken by Gene Kranz during the real mission.
Hamlet (1948 film)Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet split its first audiences down the middle. The critic Milton Shulman, writing in The Evening Standard, put it this way: "To some it will be one of the greatest films ever made, to others a deep…
Michael (2026 film)Michael, a 2026 biographical film about the singer Michael Jackson, had a teaser trailer that drew 116.2 million views in its first 24 hours. Lionsgate released it on the 6th of November 2025, and 30 million of those views arrived within…
Anne of the Thousand DaysUniversal served champagne and filet mignon to Oscar voters after each screening of Anne of the Thousand Days.
Ex Machina (film)In Ex Machina, an office contest prize turns out to be a test of a robot.
Wicked (2024 film)Wicked, the 2024 musical fantasy film directed by Jon M. Chu, drew some unwelcome aerial visitors early in production. Paparazzi flew over the Munchkinland set in Ivinghoe, England, by hang glider, with GoPro cameras strapped to their…
Jurassic World RebirthJurassic World Rebirth begins in 2008 on Île Saint-Hubert, a research island in the Atlantic Ocean. There, the company InGen keeps mutated dinosaurs that its own head considers disturbing. One of them, a six-limbed Tyrannosaurus called…
Shenandoah (film)In the 1965 film Shenandoah, a farmer's son is captured over a cap. An old rebel hat pulls a neutral family into war.
Bugonia (film)Bugonia, a 2025 black comedy thriller directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, begins with an abduction. Two young men seize a powerful chief executive and lock her away. They are certain she is an alien in disguise, and that she intends to destroy…
American GraffitiEvery major Hollywood studio refused American Graffiti before Universal agreed to distribute it.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)Universal expected the 1978 Sgt. Pepper film to be this generation's Gone with the Wind.
Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)Arnold Schwarzenegger trained for 18 months before filming Conan the Barbarian. He dropped from 240 to 210 pounds.
Session 9Session 9 was filmed in a real abandoned hospital that needed almost no set dressing.
The Odyssey (2026 film)The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's film of Homer's ancient epic, went on sale to ticket buyers on the 17th of July 2025, exactly one year before its release. That was considered an unprecedented move for a major distributor, and audiences…