Shakespeare, vampires and MMA: where does this year’s Oscar race stand?

As the fall festivals come to a close, the awards season is slowly taking shape but without a substantial amount of sure things, questions remain

American independent cinema owes much to Sundance king Robert Redford

With his Sundance film festival and institute, Robert Redford used his considerable power to bring generations of talented film-makers to a bigger audience

Robert Redford: the incandescently handsome star who changed Hollywood forever

Robert Redford, who has died at the age of 89, began as a blond bombshell at a time when American cinema favoured grit, then turned into a supremely assured director and unlikely keeper of the indie flame

Robert Redford, giant of American cinema, dies aged 89

Redford achieved huge critical and commercial success in the 60s and 70s with a string of hits including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Way We Were and The Sting, before becoming an Oscar-winning director

Hamnet wins top award at the Toronto film festival

Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare drama has picked up the people’s choice award, which has become predictor of Oscar success

Eternity review – it’s a charming afterlife in high-concept love triangle comedy

Elizabeth Olsen must choose who she spends eternity with in an often ingenious throwback that can’t quite stick the landing

The Fence review – Claire Denis stumbles with a grim and grating misfire

The French director has made of one her least effective movies with this dull and clunkily adapted version of 1979 play with a miscast Matt Dillon at its centre

James McAvoy reportedly assaulted in Toronto bar

Actor promoting his directorial debut California Schemin’ at the city’s film festival is reported to have been punched by another drinker

Couture review – Angelina Jolie is the wrong fit for inert fashion drama

The Oscar winner is adrift in Alice Winocour’s uninvolving film, premiering in Toronto, about three thinly written women involved in Paris fashion week show

Nuns vs the Vatican: documentary alleges sexual abuse and misconduct in the Catholic church

A new film, premiering at the Toronto film festival, follows women who claim to have been abused by a former Jesuit priest

The Christophers review – Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel spar in smart Soderbergh original

The actors play off each other beautifully in an intimate London-set comedy drama about art, commerce and the mess in-between

Dust to Dreams review – a baffling short film from director Idris Elba

The actor recruits Seal for a Lagos-set 19-minute misfire that inelegantly stuffs in far too much

Nuremberg review – Russell Crowe’s Göring v Rami Malek’s psychiatrist in swish yet glib courtroom showdown

Crowe and Malek are hugely watchable but this ultimately fails to deliver an authentic version of events

Hamnet review – Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal excel in stately Shakespeare drama with overwhelming finale

The two stars are knockouts in Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker ending

Hedda review – Ibsen gets a Saltburn makeover in Amazon’s ill-advised romp

Nia DaCosta ups the nastiness of Hedda Gabler in a stylish but over-egged adaptation with lead Tessa Thompson losing the film to a standout Nina Hoss