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With his latest work, the six-part Disney+ documentary series “Light & Magic,” Kasdan has reconciled the two sides of his filmmaking sensibility to tell a sweeping story of spectacular technology through a personal lens. The show follows the evolution of the most influential special effects house in the history of cinema, Industrial Light & Magic, through an expertly assembled combination of archival footage and contemporary interviews that provide a crash course in the key technical developments of 20th-century effects while also exploring the moving, funny, and profound histories of the men and women responsible....

“Stephen King is someone who’s been able to understand our humanity in a very universal ways,” said Larraín in a new behind-the-scenes featurette released by Apple. Because King is such a cultural force, Larraín traveled to Maine, where King lives, and stayed in the author’s house. There, the director would go over the scripts and try to understand what King was really looking for that maybe wasn’t confined to the page....

Fight scenes are no different. For every wide shot of a skirmish — in the case of Episode 6, “Udûn,” ones in the Southlands village near the tower Ostirith — each bit of chaos has to mesh together. For series stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, that starts with assembling a team. When hiring local stunt performers, Armstrong looks not only at strength and agility, but the true element of performance that goes hand-in-hand with them....

Fletcher became one of the great icons of cinematic villainy as Ratched, who menaced the patients at an institution for the mentally ill in the 1975 film. After a career in TV, Fletcher’s performance as the wicked nurse, who battles with Jack Nicholson’s R.P. McMurphy, was just her fourth in a film. “Cuckoo’s Nest,” directed by Milos Forman from the Ken Kesey novel, ended up winning the five “major” Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher), and Screenplay....

Eagle-eyed viewers might remember Rainsford from “Severance,” the final season premiere of TV’s “Mad Men,” starring as a lithe and slightly mischievous young woman modeling a fur coat for ad executive Don Draper, and looking like she has a secret. She’s also had appearances in “Mighty Fine” and “Ocean’s 8,” and has a role in the upcoming Freeform rom-com series “Love in the Time of Corona,” but where she’s really carved a space is as a singer/songwriter....

“The Last Duel” takes a page from Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” in telling the same event from three varying perspectives. The story centers around a duel between Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) after the former accuses the latter of raping his wife, Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer). The narrative is told from the viewpoints of each character. Damon recently confirmed to Entertainment Tonight how this story structure shaped the writing process....

Van Peebles gave American independent cinema exactly what it needed, when it needed it most: an explosive shake-up, with his unfiltered expression of Black consciousness and energetic style. The anarchic 1971 blaxploitation classic “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” undeniably shifted the course of American film history, and it was just one piece of a remarkably varied career that also encompassed forays into European arthouse cinema (“The Story of a Three Day Pass”), Hollywood comedy (“Watermelon Man”), Broadway productions (“Don’t Play Us Cheap”), novels, and performances....