Top 10 Picks of the Day – Monday 1 September
The 2025 MTV Video Music Awards are right around the corner, and the lineup keeps getting better. Along with performances and awards, there are going to be some firsts for the award show this year.
MTV‘s VMAs have been the event of the year for the cable network for four decades, but this year, for the first time ever, the awards show will alter where it airs. Instead of running exclusively live on MTV, the 2025 VMAS will air on network television as well as streaming.
Here is what we know so far about the 2025 VMAs so far.
When are the 2025 VMAs?
The VMAs will air live on Sunday, September 7, at 8/7c, from the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.
Where will the 2025 VMAs air?
The VMAs will air on CBS for the first time in history. So, if you don’t have cable, you will be able to watch it on a broadcast channel instead of MTV. However, the three-hour broadcast will also simulcast on MTV for old times’ sake.
The one-hour live pre-show will air across Paramount Media Networks.
Will the VMAs be streaming?
Yes! The awards will stream on Paramount+ at the same time.
Who is hosting the 2025 VMAs?
LL Cool J will host. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Hip-Hop trailblazer was announced on August 14. He will take the VMAs reins solo for the first time, after previously serving as co-emcee in 2022 with Nicki Minaj and Jack Harlow. He took home his first Moon Person in 1991 for Best Rap and was the first rapper to receive the Video Vanguard Award in 1997. Other milestone moments on the VMAs stage include a show-stopping celebration for Def Jam Recording’s 40th anniversary with surprise guest Public Enemy in 2024 and celebrating Hip-Hop turning 50 with an all-star tribute in 2023. This year, his single “Murdergram Deaux” (ft. Eminem) is nominated for Best Hip-Hop. The song was off his 2024 critically acclaimed album The Force.
In 2024, Megan Thee Stallion hosted the VMAs.
Who is nominated for the 2025 VMAs?
2025 MTV Video Music Awards, Sunday, September 7, CBS and Paramount+, 8/7c
Over the course of the past decade, novelist Ruth Ware has churned out a new thriller just about every year, twisty little gems that smack of Agatha Christie and give plenty of space for complicated, interesting female characters at their heart. Of course, Ware’s bestselling novels also feel ready-made for the big and small screen, so it’s only surprising that we’re just now getting the first adaptation of a Ware hit.
First out of the gate: “The Woman in Cabin 10,” starring Keira Knightley and based on Ware’s 2016 novel of the same name. While the Netflix movie will arrive later this fall, other Ware adaptations are in the offing: New Line Cinema has the rights to “In a Dark, Dark Wood,” while Entertainment One has TV rights to “The Lying Game” and Universal International Studios is developing “Zero Days” for TV as well.
But “The Woman in Cabin 10” is a fine pick for Ware’s first adaptation, and one that gets to the heart of what makes her stories so compulsively readable (and, as surely Netflix brass are betting and hoping, compulsively watchable too). Plus: rich crazy people actin’ badly on a yacht, always a bankable sub-genre.
Per Netflix, the film‘s official synopsis is as such: “While on board a luxury yacht for a travel assignment, a journalist — Lo (played by Knightley) — witnesses a passenger thrown overboard late at night, only to be told that it didn’t happen, as all passengers and crew are accounted for. Despite no one believing her, she continues to look for answers, putting her own life in danger.”
Added Ware in her own statement, “At its heart, the film is about a woman who experiences something wrong, reports it truthfully, and isn’t taken seriously because of who she is. Too many people know what that feels like and I think we want vindication for ourselves as much as Lo.”
The first trailer provides plenty of evidence of Lo’s terror: she sees a body go overboard, and oops, is promptly told by just about everyone around her that she’s nuts. Don’t say that to a woman. Don’t say that to a woman journalist.
Guy Pearce, David Ajala, Hannah Waddingham, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw also star, along with Art Malik, Kaya Scodelario, David Morrissey, Daniel Ings, Gitte Witt, Christopher Rygh, Pippa Bennett-Warner, John MacMillan, Paul Kaye, Amanda Collin, and Lisa Loven Kongsli. Simon Stone directs from a script he cowrote with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse.
The film will start streaming on Netflix on Friday, October 10. Watch the first trailer for “The Woman in Cabin 10” below.
Fanatics hired Jeremi Gorman, the veteran ad exec who led Netflix’s foray into advertising, to lead the sports merchandise and media company’s new advertising division.
Gorman has been appointed Fanatics’ chief revenue officer and will oversee the ad division as it “introduces a new model for positioning brand partners at every touchpoint of modern fandom across content, commerce and culture,” the company announced. She previously served as a strategic adviser to Fanatics since November 2024.
Gorman previously served as president of advertising at Netflix, exiting the streamer after a little over a year. Prior to that, she was chief business officer at Snap, parent of Snapchat, following a seven-year run leading global advertising teams at Amazon.
At Fanatics, Gorman will split her time between Los Angeles and New York City and report into Tucker Kain, Fanatics’ chief strategy and growth officer.
The new vertical reimagines Fanatics’ advertising approach as a unified, end-to-end marketing engine that reflects the scale and global reach of the Fanatics brand, now reaching more than 100 million sports fans worldwide. The team oversees the advertising and brand partnerships strategy that spans Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, Fanatics Betting & Gaming, Fanatics Collect, and Fanatics Events. The model enables brands to reach sports fans in the right place at the right time, creating connections around the clock, whether they are shopping for gear, checking scores, placing bets, participating in live trading card breaks, or attending live events.
“Sports have a unique power to bring people together,” said Jeremi Gorman, Fanatics Advertising Chief Revenue Officer. “Fanatics sits at the center of that passion, with a connected ecosystem that spans commerce, content, and culture. This gives us the ability to deliver for our partners in ways few companies can, authentically engaging fans at scale, at every moment that matters.”
Over the past several months, the Fanatics Advertising team has been building the division’s infrastructure and capabilities and will soon launch the Fanatics Advertising Network (FAN) and Sports Video Network (SVN). Set to debut with the kickoff of the NFL season, these platforms will help brands extend their reach through digital video and CTV placements, strategically positioned alongside key sports programming.
“A unified advertising division unlocks cross-collaboration and creates incredible value for brands who are looking to get the most out of the Fanatics platform — a combination of assets that includes more than 100 million global fans, innovative businesses that reach across the full sports ecosystem, deep relationships with the world’s top sports properties, and a brand that has become synonymous with fandom,” said Tucker Kain, Fanatics Chief Strategy & Growth Officer. “With her impressive track record building and scaling Ad businesses for some of the most transformative global companies, Jeremi is the right leader to launch our new advertising model and offer unique ways for brands to engage deeper with fandom.”
EXCLUSIVE: Ten years have passed since Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes won the Cannes Grand Jury Prize with his debut feature Son of Saul. In that time, Nemes has only released one other feature, 2018’s Sunset, but he’s back in Competition at Venice this year with a new work titled Orphan.
Set in 1957 Budapest, after the uprising against the Communist regime, the film follows a young Jewish boy, Andor, raised by his mother with idealized tales of his deceased father, who has his world turned upside down when a brutish man appears, claiming to be his true father. Newcomer Bojtorján Barábas stars as the young protagonist. The wider cast features Andrea Waskovics, Grégory Gadebois, Elíz Szabó, Sándor Soma, and Marcin Czarnik.
The film is produced by Ildiko Kemeny and Ferenc Szale of Pioneer Pictures and Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos alongside Nemes. Mátyás Erdély, who worked on the last two Nemes films, once again serves as director of photography. The film was shot on 35mm film. Paris-based Charades and Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales are handling world sales on the film.
Ahead of his trip to the Lido, Nemes spoke with us about the story behind Orphan, which is inspired by his father’s upbringing in post-war Hungary. The filmmaker also tells us how what he described as his unsuccessful attempt at developing feature projects with the Hollywood studios, following the buzz around Son of Saul and Sunset, stalled his career.
“It’s hard for me to be compatible with the system run by executives,” Nemes said.
Orphan screens in Venice on Thursday. The festival runs until September 6.
DEADLINE: László, this is your first feature since 2018?
LASZLO NEMES: Yes, there was a worldwide pandemic that left its mark on my work, as well as on many others. I was supposed to shoot this film in 2021. Alongside the pandemic, we also didn’t get the financing we were hoping for, so we had to wait an extra few years to put the whole thing together. I had also been trying to enter the Anglo-American film industry, without much success, so I’m happy to return as a continental European film director with Orphan.
DEADLINE: That’s surprising to hear. I feel like there’s been a lot of buzz Stateside about your return this year.
NEMES: It’s hard for me to be compatible with the system run by executives. It seems that it’s increasingly not human beings who make the decisions. It’s whole teams or marketing algorithms. It’s all the more disturbing because they’re not so good. Every time I wanted to make a project, they would say, ‘Oh, it’s great, but it’s not for us.’ Maybe they want me to do something else, but last time I checked, the filmmaker is still someone who’s supposed to bring their own vision and sometimes material. I had to go all that way to bring down my fantasy of the Anglo-American system. Really, I was valorizing a system that has passed.
DEADLINE: Where did this project come from?
NEMES: This project originated in my own family. It’s my father’s story that I adapted to the screen. The story follows a 12-year-old boy in 1957, one year after the failed Hungarian Revolution. The boy thinks that his father can still come back after being killed in the war. But then another man shows up at his door. He’s a brutish guy from the countryside, and he claims to be his father. He’s an abuser, and it’s the journey of this young boy trying to discover whether he can live with this man. When I came to terms with this whole story, I realized it’s a Hamlet story. It’s the ghost of the father.
DEADLINE: Was this history something your father discussed a lot throughout your life?
NEMES: Yeah, especially my grandmother. It became a constant ghost in our family. And in a way, it reflects the fate of 20th-century Europe, the effects of which we still feel today. The traumas that are layered upon each other. The repression, genocide, and war. After the war, they just turned the page as if nothing had happened, but it all remains in the unconscious. It still haunts us. You see wars popping up in Europe again, and they wonder why. This is why.
DEADLINE: Did you shoot in Budapest?
NEMES: Yes, in Budapest and a little bit in the countryside. But all in Hungary.
DEADLINE: What’s it like shooting in Hungary these days?
NEMES: It’s crazy. It’s so hard to get a crew nowadays. There’s Dune 3 and so many other major series and big films being shot. It’s a big production hub. And because the talent level is high, it has effectively become a mini Hollywood. On one hand, it’s good because there’s a big filmmaking community, but on the other hand, it has become very expensive. Even the international productions are now thinking it’s getting a little bit too expensive.
DEADLINE: Politically, though..? Do you feel any pushback or pressure from the state?
NEMES: No, not at all. I’m lucky that nobody has ever interfered with me creatively, which is funny, because after trying the Anglo-American system, where everybody wants to control, it’s ironic that in Hungary, they give me so much freedom.
DEADLINE: Let’s talk about your lead, Bojtorján Barábas. He’s 12 years old. How did you find him?
NEMES: We had a huge open call for the movie. Thousands of kids sent in self-tapes. There was one video with a young guy. You could barely see him, and in the background, a little dog was running around him. He was a little bit nervous. But you could immediately feel there was something very specific about him. He had a strength. He had opinions, and it was immediately apparent that he was very photogenic and smart. So that was the process. It was very interesting, even during the read-through of the script, Bojtorján had all kinds of questions. At every line, he had questions about the motivations, like a professional actor. It was very impressive.
DEADLINE: This is your ‘return’ to feature filmmaking. Do you feel pressure to live up to your past success?
NEMES: At some point, I had to leave all those anxieties and expectations behind. My wife keeps telling me not to be attached to the outcome. And I have to say, I’m not so much attached to the outcome anymore. What’s important is reaching the people and connecting with audiences. What really touches me is when someone at the end of a screening comes to see me, and I can see some emotion in their eyes. That’s the most important thing.
DEADLINE: If you’ve given up on the Studio System, what do you think is currently the best environment for you to work?
NEMES: I would love something like the new Hollywood era of the 70s. A world in which entertainment and art are cohesive and not separated. Good art is entertainment, and good entertainment is art. When I think about Jaws by Steven Spielberg, the way it’s directed, you cannot find that level of directing in any of the Cannes competition films anymore. At least that’s the way I see it. That kind of directing is hard to find. It seems the world has stopped believing that old archetypal stories can be told in ways that are different. There are a limited number of stories that can be told, but the way you make them can be very different. People are hungry for the retelling of the old stories. A system in which we are allowed, as filmmakers, to bring our singular vision, to tell one of the great human stories, would be the ideal environment. Hopefully, it can exist.
Saturday Night Live castmember Devon Walker is leaving the show after three seasons.
Walker announced his departure on social media Monday, writing in an Instagram post that “me and baby broke up.” He further wrote that “To me, jobs in this industry feel like a bunch of little marriages. Some of ‘em last for a long time, but most of them are fleeting. Permanent until they’re not. That’s the deal. You know what it is when you sign up.
“Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But … we made the most of what it was, even amidst all the dysfunction. We made a fucked up lil family.”
Walker will likely not be the only change to the SNL cast as the show enters its 51st season on NBC. In an interview with Puck last week, executive producer Lorne Michaels said that some changes were likely, though he specified that James Austin Johnson would continue playing President Donald Trump on the show.
Walker joined SNL as a featured player in the 2022-23 season and became part of the repertory cast last year. Prior to joining the show, he wrote for Netflix’s Big Mouth and Freeform’s Everything’s Trash. He also has a half-hour stand-up special on Hulu and hosts a podcast called My Favorite Lyrics.
In an Instagram story separate from the above-quoted post, Walker added, “Just to be clear, this is good news! It was just time for me to do something different. Please don’t be hitting me with the ‘I’m so sorry’ — we not on that at ALL. Sometimes mom and dad just don’t see things eye to eye.”
Typically, Jackson has written powerfully punchy young adult books which are absolutely worth popping on your TBR.
Read on for our handy guide to the works of Holly Jackson, and how to read them in order.
Holly Jackson books in order
There are two orders you can technically read Holly Jackson’s work in: the Good Girl’s Guide order and her complete works order.
The complete works order is as follows:
And the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder order is as follows:
- A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019)
- Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)
- As Good As Dead (2021)
- Kill Joy (2021)
That means that Five Survive, The Reappearance of Rachel Price and Not Quite Dead Yet are standalone.
Read on for a detailed description of each novel.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019)
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder marks Holly Jackson’s debut in smart and electric fashion. We’re introduced to Pippa ‘Pip’ Fitz-Amobi, a student in the fictional town of Little Kilton, Buckinghamshire, who’s a true crime enthusiast and sets about investigating the murder of Andie (the popular girl at school) and the suicide of Sal (the alleged perpetrator).
Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020)
Good Girl, Bad Blood is the second in the Good Girl’s Guide series and continues right after the dramatic events of book one. Pip has just launched a podcast based on the events of the first novel and is lauded online as a skilled amateur detective. She tries to give up investigative work after her first case turned out to be so perilous, but when a friend needs a favour, Pip can’t help herself.
As Good As Dead (2021)
The third book in the series continues after the events of Good Girl, Bad Blood, where Pip has been left deeply traumatised and unable to sleep. Her life takes a turn for the worse when she gets stalked by a menacing figure with a connection to her past cases.
Kill Joy (2021)
Kill Joy is a prequel novella, set before A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder but still focused on Pip’s life. She is invited to a 1920s murder mystery dinner despite not wanting to go, and soon finds herself enthralled in the case she simply has to solve – and who knows, maybe the murder-suicide she solves in Kill Joy may have an impact on her investigations later in her life…
Five Survive (2022)
Five Survive is another young adult novel from Holly Jackson, the first set outside of the world she created in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. This time, we follow Red and her friends, who are in an RV heading for Spring Break. But when a sniper pops their tyres, the group work out that someone is hiding a secret worth being killed for…
The Reappearance of Rachel Price (2024)
Bel has always existed in the shadow of her mum’s disappearance, and when a true crime documentary comes around to investigate the strange case, Bel wants nothing more than to move on with her life. But when her mum returns unexpectedly, Bel realises life will never be the same again.
Not Quite Dead Yet (2025)
Not Quite Dead Yet is Jackson’s first foray into adult fiction – and it’s a juicy crime story. Jet has her whole life ahead of her – and she’ll get to it eventually. But her plans are put to an end when she’s brutally attacked to within an inch of her life one fateful Halloween.
When the doctors reveal she has a unique condition which will cause a brain aneurism within a week, Jet decides to accomplish something in her life: solve her own murder.
HUNGRY FOR MORE? For this month’s midweek treat, Joanna Page sat down and read intense thriller Not Quite Dead Yet, which she paired with a delicious and equally intense Pepperoni-Salame pizza from Dr. Oetker Ristorante.
For all the latest RT Book Club news, interviews, Q&As with the authors, reviews of previous books and more, visit The Radio Times Book Club sponsored by Dr. Oetker Ristorante.
You can purchase Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson, our book of the month, at the Radio Times Shop.
Get ready to dive into an all-new workplace comedy with CBS‘s DMV as the network offers a first look at the fun ahead in several first-look photos from the pilot.
Set to arrive Monday, October 13, the new series follows the employees of the East Hollywood Department of Motor Vehicles, which includes driving examiners Colette (Harriet Dyer), Gregg (Tim Meadows), Vic (Tony Cavalero), clerk Noa (Alex Tarrant), newly-promoted manager Barbara (Molly Kearney), and disillusioned Ceci (Gigi Zumbado).
In the premiere episode, viewers will learn more about this ragtag team as Colette pines after Noa, while enduring teasing from Gregg, Vic, and Ceci. Meanwhile, Barb faces the challenge of saving their branch from a potential government shutdown in the half-hour installment that also features Gerry Dee as Dan and Reshma Shetty as Kshitija.
DMV joins CBS’s already great lineup of comedies among which includes Ghosts, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, and The Neighborhood. You won’t want to miss this single-camera comedy, which is sure to deliver big laughs if the images below are any indication.
Scroll down for a closer look and stay tuned for more on DMV as the series approaches its debut on CBS.
DMV, Series Premiere, Monday, October 13, 8:30/7:30c, CBS
The story of comedian Will Ferrell‘s cross-country journey with his long-time friend and collaborator Harper Steele, after she came out as a transwoman, captured the hearts of millions of Netflix viewers — and, now, the TV Academy, who awarded “Will & Harper” five Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, along with nods for cinematographer Zoë White and director Josh Greenbaum.
There’s an assumption that documentary often requires filmmakers to simply capture life as it unfolds in front of the lens, but White and Greenbaum’s work is an excellent example of how they used the camera to bring the audience into Ferrell and Steele’s relationship, and also Steele’s point of view. It’s a topic the director discussed while a guest of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, and in the video above.
“I really wanted to capture the essence of Will and Harper‘s relationship visually,” said Greenbaum. “And to me, their relationship [is] full of grace, it’s full of warmth, there’s a softness to it, there’s a gentle kindness to it.”
Avoiding the vivid sharpness of a modern digital documentary and the contrasty look of the overhead sun on a cross-country trip, Greenbaum and White leaned into using older Cooke anamorphic lenses.
“There’s a nostalgic look to some of those lenses,” said Greenbaum of the Cookes. “These older anamorphic primes have these chromatic aberrations, and there’s softness to them that’s really beautiful and graceful and elegant.”
So much of the film takes place in the car, and Greenbaum would be rolling through most of Steele and Ferrell’s 16-day road trip, so how the camera was attached to the vehicle itself was no small matter, but how to transition out of the car would be almost more important.
“We talked a lot about, ‘How do we rig the car?’ But then, when we get out of the car, I really wanted that graceful poeticness to continue, and so we made the choice to use a Steadicam,” said Greenbaum.
White’s background is primarily grounded in stylized scripted television series, like “The Penguin” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and she reached for steadicam operator Devon Catucci, who also came from a heavy scripted background. Greenbaum said there was a slight learning curve in adjusting to the nonfiction demands of “Will & Harper,” but the trade-off was well worth it.
“[They] brought a beautiful kind of narrative sense, and just had incredible instincts. Occasionally, I’m in their ears saying, ‘Come here, come there,’ but honestly, I love to hire talented people, [get] their reactions, let them follow the story themselves and follow their instincts,” said Greenbaum. “[I wanted to] let them feel empowered to make creative choices on their own. It was a joy to see the two of them work and figure out how to cover scenes.”
The “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and “Strays” director himself has kept one career foot firmly planted in the world of scripted narrative filmmaking. A key part of the pre-planning became discussions about the locations and compositions that captured the unique way Harper saw the country, and why these cross-country trips are so special to her.
“I really wanted to capture Harper’s version of America,” said Greenbaum. “She specifically finds the beauty in the mundane and the beauty in the ugly.”
In one early scene, the friends take in the sunset at a Walmart parking lot — Steele is prepared with lawn chairs, a cooler of her favorite beer, Old Milwaukee, and Pringles. These were moments, locations, and frames Greenbaum and White were also prepared for and wanted to capture distinctly.
“She [takes in the beauty of America] on a random service road, not at the government-chosen vista point, and I wanted to honor that version of her view of America,” said Greenbaum. “Because it is such a beautiful country, but there are so many parts that are forgotten. And she loves to go to those places, and so that’s why we also went there.”
To hear Josh Greenbaum‘s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
Prime Video has unveiled the first stills from “Snake Killer,” a crime thriller starring Pilou Asbæk (“Game of Thrones”) which marks Amazon MGM Studios’s first Danish original.
Written and directed by Anders Ølholm (“Shorta”), “Snake Killer” shot around Copenhagen with a cast that also includes Lars Ranthe (“Another Round”), Mira Obling (“Dark Horse”), Joey Moe (“Fugleflugten”), Joen Højerslev (“Danefæ”), Laura Christensen (“Huset”) and Ali Al-Bayate (“Sommerdahl”).
Now in post-production, “Snake Killer ” is inspired by real events and follows Copenhagen’s narcotics patrol which is considered the most notorious police unit in Danish history. Asbæk stars as a charismatic officer, Brian, who is notorious for its extreme methods and often breaks the law to enforce it. When a young female informant is brutally murdered, a group of outlaw officers from Uropatruljen wages war against a criminal network.
Nikolaj Thaning Rentzmann/Prime
The four-episode series is co-produced with Nordisk Film, and will be launched in early 2026 on Prime Video in the Nordic region.
“We’re thrilled to bring ‘Snake Killer’ to Prime Video as our first Danish scripted series, an exciting milestone for our Nordic slate,” said Emilia Widstrand, head of Nordic Originals for Amazon MGM Studios.
“Partnering with the brilliant team at Nordisk Film, our stellar cast and visionary director has been incredible. We can’t wait for viewers to experience this gripping crime thriller that perfectly showcases Danish world-class storytelling,” said Widstrand, who added that “Snake Killer” underscores Prime Video’s “growing commitment to investing in authentic, high-quality local productions across the Nordics.”
Nikolaj Thaning Rentzmann/Prime