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365 Days Reviews

Come for the simulated bumping and grinding, stay for the ridiculous drama, stilted acting, hilarious soundtrack, and laughably offensive ideas about male and female desire.

Full Review | Feb 2, 2021

This repugnant Fifty Shades knockoff plays like an erotic rewrite of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 29, 2020

The Room meets Beauty and the Beast, 50 Shades of Grey and the stockholm syndrome in this cheesy erotic thriller with not a single positive aspect about it. Why such a product is Netflix's top movie of 2020 baffles almost everyone.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/10 | Jul 30, 2020

If you find yourself watching this make zero expectations. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 5, 2020

It's the kind of movie you fast forward to get to all the good parts, only to realize that there are no good parts.

Full Review | Jun 29, 2020

It's only on the strength of its looking-good-naked leads and their palpable hot people chemistry that the film remains perversely watchable, though at two hours it's more an exercise in cinematic self-flagellation than high-trash entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 26, 2020

Like a big-budget porn film with dramatically thinned out narrative and character development, a bunch of unambiguously abusive "foreplay" added in, and all of the hardcore elements taken out.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2020

Sex domination fantasy is graphic and violent.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 23, 2020

There haven't been line readings this poor since the third act of The Room...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 22, 2020

The problem lies in the fact that the makers of 365 Days counter every morally incorrect step with a self-aware one.

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/5 | Jun 19, 2020

Strictly for those wondering, "what would a straight-up ripoff of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' look like if it were made in Poland?"

Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | Jun 16, 2020

A porn movie is more honest than this trash. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 15, 2020

365 DNI romanticizes an extremely toxic relationship, which is never okay.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2020

Thoroughly terrible, politically objectionable, occasionally hilarious...

Full Review | Jun 10, 2020

The movie pretty much cops every move made by 50 Shades, as if it were a bible of antisexy awfulness.

A "Fifty Shades of Grey" kidnapping porn mafia picture - softcore, of course

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 8, 2020

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘365 Days’ on Netflix, a Screamingly Bad ‘50 Shades of Grey’ Rip-off

Where to stream:.

Netflix movie 365 Days — or 365 dni — is Poland’s version of 50 Shades of Grey , so insert your kielbasa joke here. At least superficially, it follows the formula perfectly: Based on an “erotic novel” (by Blanka Lipinska) , taboo content, rich guy with kinks, female protagonist who lacks a certain intellective je na sais quoi, etc. But will it differ from its vapid American predecessor and compel us not to fast forward through the soapy-story stuff to get to the inevitable sweatball scrump-o-rama?

365 DAYS/365 DNI : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Fate has grabbed Massimo (Michele Morrone) by the face and forced his face into a rancid pie: One moment, he’s spying on a gorgeous woman on the beach with his binoculars, and the next, he takes a bullet in the abdomen after it passed through his father’s chest. He will never forget that day, because five years later, he’s still obsessed with the woman (and maybe misses his old man too). He inherited the family business, a criminal empire that affords him to live in a sprawling castle-villa LUST PALACE. To ask the question no doubt passing through the minds of everyone who’s seen a terrible movie, is he Italian? Does Paulie Walnuts like macaroni and gravy?

The woman is Laura (Anna Maria Sieklucka), a frustrated corporate higher-up who goes home to her lout of a boyfriend and his goddamn camo cargo shorts. She’s so frustrated, she tests the endurance of her battery-operated bedside implements while Lugnuts watches TV in the next room. They leave the next day for a vacation in Sicily (uh oh) for her 29th birthday. They quarrel, she takes off from the hotel and hasn’t the slightest inkling that Massimo spotted her at the airport and had her stalked, drugged and kidnapped back to his chateau where he gives her 365 days to love him, or she can go back to her cruddy, cruddy life in Poland.

“Teach me to be gentle,” Massimo says. He insists he won’t do anything without her consent, which is supposed to be one of the things persuading Laura not to be freaked the holy eff right out, considering she’s trapped, and he owns the town and its cops and has armed goons everywhere. Let it be known that Massimo is a towering hunk of swarthy muscle, and she rolls over one morning and wakes up unexpectedly with her nose in his fat-free armpit. She decides to tease him, so she gets her butt out and walks to the glassed-in couples’ shower, and he joins her, and she gawks and gawks at his spicy Italian sausage. Hey, maybe being a hostage ain’t so bad after all! He sidles up to her slackened jaw and dampened bod and, with all the seductive hormonal ooze he can summon, whispers to her, “When your entire life is based on taking everything with force, it’s hard to react in a different way, especially if someone is taking away the pleasure you really desire.” HOW could she RESIST?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I think we’ve covered this already.

Performance Worth Watching: Surely you jest.

Memorable Dialogue: Let’s see — which ESL howler shall I choose? How about Laura’s impassioned protest to Massimo’s attempts to control her: “I’m not a bag of potatoes you can transfer without my permission!”

Sex and Skin: Let’s see, we’ve got a thorough smorgasbord of inside-outside-upside-down hetero-hardish-softcore bonery-pokery: Frontal (barely any male, though), backal and side-al nudity; HEAPS and HEAPS of oral tomfoolery; some relatively tame BDSM; a smidgen of voyeurism; two instances of saliva-as-lubicrant; and a bona-fide HUMPTAGE punctuated by Massimo’s incinerating line reading, “We only slept one hour.”

Our Take: Sure, it’s tasteless and regressive and cynical and anti-feminist and intellectually barren, but is it HOT? Maybe, if you can compartmentalize the context and concentrate really hard on the idea that not-quite-pornographic sexual intercourse is occurring right before your very eyes. Funny how the camera comes mere millimeters from showing dong, while otherwise shamelessly cramming in all the crass hallmarks of a movie written by a marketing department hoping to bullseye women: beefcake, girl’s-night shenanigans, a makeover montage, a wedding and, count ’em, THREE different clothes-shopping sequences. In a movie that’s essentially about Stockholm syndrome!

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ashes’ on Netflix, a Turkish Erotic Thriller That Arrives Just In Time For Valentine's Day

The 14 steamiest movies to stream this valentine's day 2024, sexy movies on netflix, from 'x' to 'magic mike’s last dance', 'burning betrayal's pornographic sex scenes make it netflix's steamiest erotic thriller since '365 days'.

Outside of its putrid, execrable, contemptible, smell-ass content, the movie is a slickly directed shitshow, a hodgepodge of scenes desperately seeking a decent character or tone. The dialogue — spoken in English, Polish and Italian for maximum targeting of international demographics — is awkward, as if it’s being recited phonetically. The hilariously smarmy quasi-pop-song soundtrack would’ve been rejected by Tommy Wiseau. And frankly, you’ll get bored by the third or fourth time (I gave up counting) Massimo gets a beej. The movie pretty much cops every move made by 50 Shades , as if it were a bible of antisexy awfulness. 365 Days at least improves upon its thematic and stylistic predecessor by rendering its male antihero in a more flattering moral light: Massimo is merely a gangster who murders people and trafficks drugs, where Christian Gray was a corporate billionaire. Baby steps.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Sure, in its elephantine wrongheadedness, 365 Days is screamingly funny at times. But it’s ultimately as arousing as a washing machine diagnostics manual.

Should you stream or skip the Polish erotic thriller 365 DNI on @netflix ? #SIOSI #365dnimovie — Decider (@decider) June 9, 2020

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba .

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365 days: this day, common sense media reviewers.

Obsessive sex sequel is graphic; violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Good women fall in love with bad guys. Domineering

Laura points out that she fell in love with Massim

The characters are mostly White, Italian, and Poli

S&M scenes showcase consensual bondage, shackl

It takes only two minutes for the movie to offer t

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," "hell," "damn," "p

Ferraris, Corvettes, BMWs, jewelry, lobster dinner

Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. When so

Parents need to know that 365 Days: This Day is the 2022 sequel to the popular Netflix soft-core porn feature 365 Days and is definitely adult fare. Although no genitals are shown, other body parts are, and sex scenes, from merely torrid to S&M, are graphic and plentiful. Sex is the focus,…

Positive Messages

Good women fall in love with bad guys. Domineering men ultimately get their way with seemingly autonomous women. "Men are only good at lying."

Positive Role Models

Laura points out that she fell in love with Massimo despite the fact that his kidnapping of her was "sick."

Diverse Representations

The characters are mostly White, Italian, and Polish.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

S&M scenes showcase consensual bondage, shackles, restraints, and anal penetration. Massimo is rude and abrupt in his treatment of Laura. Laura is resistant and rebellious in response. The two seem at odds in almost all situations that aren't sexual. A man wrestles an intruder to the ground. Shootings result in bloody wounds.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

It takes only two minutes for the movie to offer the first sexual encounter between Massimo in tux and Laura in wedding dress moments before their wedding. Later breasts and behinds are shown, as are lengthy montages of thrusting, licking, kissing, oral sex, masturbation, penetration by bodily parts and foreign objects, as well as moaning, grunting, and orgasmic release. S&M scenes emphasize consensual bondage and the use of myriad sex toys. At one point the action suggests a dildo is used for anal penetration. A woman sits spread-legged on a golf course green and asks her husband to putt into her privates.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," "hell," "damn," "piss," "screw," and "balls."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Ferraris, Corvettes, BMWs, jewelry, lobster dinners, high-end sunglasses, and other signs of opulent living are displayed throughout.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. When someone has a problem, her friend suggests, "Booze will help."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that 365 Days: This Day is the 2022 sequel to the popular Netflix soft-core porn feature 365 Days and is definitely adult fare. Although no genitals are shown, other body parts are, and sex scenes, from merely torrid to S&M, are graphic and plentiful. Sex is the focus, leaving plot and acting relegated to accessory status. Some people are shot and bleed. Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. When someone has a problem, her friend suggests, "Booze will help." Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," "hell," "damn," "piss," "screw," and "balls." Mostly in English, but also in Polish, Italian, and Spanish, with English subtitles. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Nacho sucks

If you have watched all three of these movies, you are now on the cia wacthlist, what's the story.

365 DAYS: THIS DAY gets right to it as Laura ( Anna Maria Sieklucka ) lolls in her wedding dress on a gazebo overlooking a scenic Sicilian coast. Enter Massimo ( Michele Morrone ), the brooding fiancé who kidnapped and imprisoned her in the first 365 movie , offering her a year to fall in love with him. Although seeing the bride before the wedding supposedly brings bad luck, in full wedding tuxedo, he has sex with her. That Laura is going through with a wedding to a Sicilian Mafia boss seems a demonstration of bad judgment, but perhaps marriage will make Massimo happy and even crack a smile. No such luck. Soon, Massimo is displaying all the controlling surliness Laura despised in the first movie. Marriage has neither softened him nor made him more cheerful. The two seem utterly mismatched except in the bedroom (and all their other sex venues), where in various states of dress and undress they carnally couple in various positions, kissing, licking, sucking, penetrating, and thrusting, with and without sex toys, indoors and out, in bright light and low. When Massimo's Sicilian ex plots to split the couple up, Laura catches Massimo cheating, only to learn she's played into the hands of enemies, all of which ends in violence.

Is It Any Good?

This erotica sequel offers more of the same. The first in this 365 Days franchise was a weirdly, sleazily entertaining male fantasy romp promoting the questionable notion that women crave domination, sexual and otherwise, and 365 Days: This Day is all that and less. It's a laughable scenic Italian travelogue that goes nowhere, with repetitive stops for sumptuous expensive meals and leisurely sex. The two leads are pouting, self-serious, over-privileged examples of stunted emotional growth, both ordering each other about as if their good looks made developing decency, empathy, and good manners unnecessary.

It's the juvenile nature of the characters, as portrayed in a reductive script and through cliched direction, that makes this little more than a plotless and pointless meandering from one -- yawn -- male sexual fantasy to the next. The beautiful people in it all fit cookie-cutter face and body types (a beef-cake gardener named Nacho played by Simone Susinna shows up out of nowhere, a smiling clone of the moodier Massimo). Predictable, repetitive, and ultimately boring overall, this feels like the Green Eggs and Ham of soft-core porn, a kind of condescending spoon-fed erotica. Will they do it on the floor?/Will they do it at the shore?/ Will they do it in a tree?/ Watch the movie and you'll see.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether the depiction of pretty people having sex is enough to generate popularity in a movie, or is something else needed to make a movie watchable?

Do you think erotica has value? Do you think it's important that only adults have access to such materials? Why or why not?

The movie's end leaves the question of another sequel open. Do you think another in this series would be a good idea? Why or why not?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : April 27, 2022
• Cast : Anna Maria Sieklucka , Michele Morrone , Simone Sussina
• Director : Barbara Bialowas. Tomasz Mandes
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Romance
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Netflix’s controversial Eurotrash sex franchise goes soft in 365 Days: This Day

Its sunglasses game is strong, though

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In June 2020, as a hot-and-bothered world fretted through a lockdown summer, Netflix slipped a Polish-Italian erotic drama called 365 Days into its algorithm. A softcore fantasy of yacht sex, thick accents, and troubling consent issues, it came across as a low-rent Fifty Shades of Grey : flashier, trashier, simultaneously tamer and more offensive, and much more inept and cheesy. An unequivocally terrible film, it was also an enormous hit. It went straight to No. 1 in Netflix’s top 10 chart and stayed there for 10 days, still one of the longest runs the service has seen.

Now we have a sequel, 365 Days: This Day , which features more sex (or at least more participants), more brooding, more expensive cars and clothes, more unintentional comedy, even less plot, and the same number of visible penises (zero). As difficult as it might be to believe, it’s even worse than the first movie. But it goes down easier, because much of the first film’s ugly side has been smoothed away. That’s a good thing — isn’t it? Well, that depends on why anyone was watching in the first place. To pick that apart, we need to revisit the original.

Based on the first of a trilogy of erotic novels by Polish author Blanka Lipińska, 365 Days follows a young woman, Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka), from Warsaw to Sicily, where she’s spotted and promptly kidnapped by Massimo (Michele Morrone), a glowering, chiseled, obscenely rich Mafia scion. It turns out Massimo has been obsessed with Laura since he observed her on a beach, through binoculars, the day his father was assassinated and he himself almost died. (The film doesn’t take time to explore why a bullet passing through his father’s body and into his own would carry such a lingering erotic charge for Massimo, but wow .)

Massimo says he will keep Laura captive for 365 days, enough time for her to fall in love with him. But while he desperately wants her and he’s used to taking whatever he wants, he promises to refrain from raping her. What a gentleman. The fiery Laura blazes back at him throughout her early captivity, but without the horror her situation would seem to demand. At the risk of spoilers, before the 365 days are up, they’re consensually going at it in a series of very vigorous, surprisingly vanilla sex scenes.

This grotesque, disquieting setup sparked a lot of conversation at the time . An early scene where Massimo wordlessly demands and receives oral sex from one of his employees carries a distinctly unpleasant flavor of sexual violence. The bland and largely kink-free nature of the rest of the romps is still colored by the coercion inherent in the film’s premise. The film was co-directed and co-written by women, and based on a book by a woman, but the male gaze dominates both the narrative and the camera’s leering presence.

Kidnapping as an established female sex fantasy, with its complex layers of control and consent, is too big and tricky a topic for this review. What 365 Days does is create a kind of aesthetic safe space for that fantasy. With its thin characters, bad acting, laughably threadbare plot, music-video direction, and sex that’s explicit only to a point, 365 Days is porn-but-not. It has neither the emotional stakes of actual drama nor the stigma of actual smut. You can laugh it off. (Perhaps this also explains why people choose to watch stuff like this even when it sits right next to the full-frontal nudity and explicit unsimulated sex of something like Gaspar Noé’s Love , which was also on Netflix for a while.)

All of these qualities are shared by the sequel 365 Days: This Day , except those that made the first film troubling but gave it its (few, wobbly) teeth. Adapted from the second of Lipińska’s books, This Day picks up where the first film left off — kind of. In one of the awkward lurches and clumsy, nonsensical elisions that are the unfortunate trademark of directors Barbara Białowąs and Tomasz Mandes, 365 Days ’ cliffhanger ending is unceremoniously brushed aside. Now it’s Laura and Massimo’s wedding day!

After some boning, it’s revealed that Laura lost the child she was carrying at the end of the first film, but never mind — more boning. Massimo is still withholding and controlling, but now within the context of a “normal” trophy-wife Mafia marriage — and there’s always the boning. Laura’s best friend Olga (Magdalena Lamparska, charming and garrulous, once again the standout performer by far) couples up with Massimo’s right-hand man Domenico (Otar Saralidze) to join in the boning fun.

Nothing else happens for the first half of this film. Squandering what narrative tension the first film had, and in no particular hurry to set up its own, This Day starts out as a limp, redundant frame for fantasy sex. In the second half, a telenovela-level melodrama comes to a reluctant boil. Massimo’s ex has a nefarious plan, Massimo has family he hasn’t mentioned, and Laura is visited by mysterious, hunky gardener Nacho, who wears a hat that literally says “cock” on it. It’s all very silly in a way that’s almost endearing, although it’s handled so sloppily that it can still become boring.

365 Days: This Day frequently slumps into a torpid haze of wheeling, slow-motion montages that don’t really distinguish between shots of sex, shopping, supercars, and heartwarming family dinners. The wealth-porn is as prominent as the porn-porn. There’s a carpet of numb Europop over the whole thing, some of it sung by Morrone himself. (One choice couplet: “I’m a little bit of a psycho / I’m driving you like a Lambo.”)

Defanged of the first film’s problematic premise, This Day is easier to enjoy as guilt-free camp. There are moments of ripe, tasteless abandon that are absolutely hilarious, intentionally or (more likely) not. The white bridal Lamborghini. The honeymoon game of sex golf, where Laura pole dances on the green’s flag, then spreads her legs to invite Massimo’s putt . The shackles that have “fuck me” embossed on them in gold. The extraordinary display of eyewear throughout, as Massimo and Laura mask their squinting pouts, constipated frowns, and grimacing sex faces in ever more extravagant assemblies of tinted glass. (Talk about 50 shades.)

There’s nothing like reality here, and certainly nothing like real sex. There’s isn’t much sex at all in the last half hour, as the plot, such as it is, gets down to business and sets up an ending that the inevitable third film will probably ignore. There are no stakes, and there’s little that’s offensive, except to the art and craft of cinema. It’s funny. It’s glossy. It’s a fantasy. It’s safe. It’s soft.

365 Days: This Day is now streaming on Netflix.

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‘365 Days: This Day’ Review: Netflix’s Icky Answer to ‘Fifty Shades’ Gets an Even More Problematic Sequel

Kate erbland, editorial director.

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When it landed on Netflix in the summer of 2020, Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes’ smash hit “365 Days” offered the streamer something special: its very own spin on “Fifty Shades of Grey,” complete with paper-thin plots, supposedly kinky sex, and a popular book series that included two more books ripe for the film treatment. Two years later, the popular — but controversial — film series chugs onward with its first sequel, a nearly two-hour affair that doesn’t just push the boundaries of tasteful entertainment, but simply steamrolls right over them in service to an even more problematic outing that’s alternately hilarious and boring. Sexy, right?

Bialowas and Mandes’ first film stuck faithfully to the material provided by author (and co-screenwriter) Blanka Lipinska: a bored Polish hotel worker (Anna Maria Sieklucka as Laura) becomes the object of obsession for a sexy, if seriously fucked up, mafioso named Massimo (Michele Morrone). Massimo’s desire for Laura, initially kicked off after he spotted her on a beach before his father was murdered before his eyes (that old story), culminates in the mob don eventually tracking her down, kidnapping her, and vowing to imprison her for 365 days until she falls in love with him.

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Say what you will about that plot — that it’s gross, violent, rape-y, misogynistic, all that and more! — but in the world of “365 Days,” it worked out just as Massimo planned. Laura resists, then doesn’t. The two fall in love, engage in vigorous sex in a variety of locations, and decide to spend the rest of their lives together, good taste or common sense be damned. And then, the shock ending: Laura is (maybe?) killed by Massimo’s enemies, and the film concludes with her life hanging in the balance.

“365 Days” didn’t give a damn about narrative conventions, and so it is with “365 Days: This Day,” which opens on a very-much-alive Laura, gussied up in a sexy wedding dress and the worst dye job you’ve ever seen, primed to walk down the aisle with Massimo. But not before a healthy pre-wedding boinkfest that opens with her telling her soon-to-be hubby, “I don’t have panties” and only sort of ends when her shocked BFF Olga arrives on the scene. (Of note, Olga, played by returning co-star Magdalena Lamparska, has her own issues to work through; and it’s one of the more unintentionally hilarious bits of the film that she’s hellbent on lecturing her perv-y pals about good taste when she’s sporting a bare midriff to a formal wedding. Truly, what a world .)

But despite her panting, panty-less happiness, Laura has a secret: She survived the attack at the end of “365 Days,” but her unborn child, about which Massimo still doesn’t know, didn’t. “A dark secret is the foundation of any successful relationship,” Olga advises, one of the few moments when anything approaching reality creeps into the film. (Later, of course, Olga will continue her own sexy, strange relationship with Massimo’s righthand man Domenico, again adding copious amount of accidental laughs in an otherwise staid soap.)

Bialowas and Mandes lean heavily on the film’s sweeping vistas (from Italy to Spain and back) and a pop-centric soundtrack to telegraph emotion and paper over a film lacking in chemistry, plot, direction, or even the barest of attention to detail. Never before have bland pop songs done so much to advance a storyline, with lyrics that remind us of necessary bits (like how these two “fools in love” or “monsters” or even, as one later song explains, “a little bit … psycho”), as Massimo and Laura bang each other in a series of sterile settings. In the film’s first 18 minutes, five songs roll out, offering more in the way of emotion and dialogue than the entire rest of the film.

Like the first film, “365 Days: This Day” offers up a staggering amount of sex scenes, even if many of them are decidedly un-sexy. Frankly, they’ve got more in common with “Team America: World Police” than “Fifty Shades,” repetitive and empty to the point of being laughable. Consider a post-wedding sequence in which the newlyweds head out for a round of golf, only for Laura to turn a flagstick into a stripper pole (girl, it’s too flimsy for that), before plopping herself right onto the green, spreading her legs, and encouraging Massimo to hit his ball into (forgive me, everyone) another kind of hole.

In between constant montages that rely heavily on a) an incredible amount of thrusting, b)  mouths hanging open to approximate passion, and c) all those pop jams, “365 Days: This Day” attempts to sneak in some semblance of a plot. Laura is unhappy with her new lot in life as a mob wife, and repeatedly tells Massimo that she does not appreciate being told what to do, despite that being spectacularly  disproven in the first film. She wants more! And when sexy gardener Nacho (Simone Susinna) suddenly appears on their estate, she has a new outlet for her passion.

That’s a plot twist that both matters and, as in accordance with the dim logic of this franchise, doesn’t. While Laura is both bemoaning her lot in life and sporting kinky bracelets that read “FUCK” and “ME” (hey, she contains multitudes), other machinations are spinning just out of frame. Massimo’s revelation that he has a brother should instantly raise the hackles of anyone who has ever watched even an episode of a soap opera, while Nacho’s inexplicable arrival should send those same instincts into overdrive.

Along the way, Laura — again, someone who is desperate for even the person she loves most to recognize she has her own desires — continues to be nothing but a tool for cruel men, all dumb bunny naiveté and open-mouthed gawping, a vessel for perverse, silly stories. No, most audiences who tune into “365 Days: This Day” are likely not seeking out female empowerment tales or coherent plots, but the disdain with which the film treats both its viewers and its star can’t help but grate. It feels  bad , and it will only feel worse again — there’s still one more film planned for the series, and we’re guessing it will only provide more of the same, flaccid thrusting of all kinds.

“365 Days: This Day” is now streaming on Netflix.

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‘The Next 365 Days’ Review: For Masochists Only – and Not the Sexy Kind

The third go-round in Netflix's moronic Polish bonkfest reduces a once proudly yuck premise to a limp love triangle between deeply boring hotties.

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In a shocking abrogation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — at least as it pertains to film critics — a mere 114 days has elapsed between Barbara Białowas and Tomasz Mandes ‘ two sequels to their 2020 Netflix -busting softcore phenom, “365 Days.” So just a few scant months after “365 Days: This Day” left us in a swirl of Steadicam and a hail of bullets, here’s “ The Next 365 Days ,” plunging the series’ fans, and its contractually obliged observers, back into the lightly kink-dusted erotic adventures of Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) and Massimo (Michele Morrone), the streaming era’s favorite oversexed, underclad rape-apologist couple. What a time to be alive.

In truth, the shortness of that window is a blessing, given the third film optimistically expects us to remember what happened in the second — beyond there being an evil twin, a blisteringly attractive gardener called Nacho (Simone Sussina) and a comical climactic shootout — and therefore to be mildly taken in by the fake-out beginning. Once again we’re teased with tiny ninny Laura’s possible death, as Massimo, her hulking mafioso kidnapper-husband, grieves at a gravestone obscured by his ludicrously broad shoulders (straining at a jacket which, as ever with Piotr Koncki’s costume design, walks a dangerous line between being tailored to a sculptural tightness, and simply being a bit too small). Meanwhile Olga (Magdalena Lamparska), a pair of designer sunglasses with a person attached, sobs about missing her bestie Laura while trying on a wedding dress: She’s is now engaged to Domenico (Otar Saralidze), Massimo’s consigliere, do keep up.

Nacho, who absconded with Laura, aka “baby girl” (still ick), in episode two and was then revealed to be the scion of another Sicilian gangster clan, attends a post-bloodbath parlay with Massimo. The two alpha-smokeshow rivals glower at each other, the ridges of their bestubbled jaws twitching like fissures on the unstable slopes of Mt. Vesuvius just before it engulfed Pompeii. The prospect of this rumbling feud erupting into violence is a tantalizing one: Given the physical fitness and gorgeousness of all concerned it would be devastating but also extremely hot, rather like Abercrombie declaring war on Fitch.

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Sadly, no such conflagration occurs. Instead, late on, in the series’ one truly surprising and cherishable moment, Białowas and Mandes finally give the horned-up audience what it really wants: Nacho and Massimo kissing. Not to suggest that these few seconds of guy-on-guy fantasy action (1:29:10 if you just want to skip straight there) justify the existence of the whole trilogy, but it sure does put all the coy titillations of the movie’s hetero lovemaking in perspective. Except for a weird nightclub/gimp-mask sequence, and this imaginary threesome, the sex scenes this time are tediously vanilla, and nothing holds a candle to episode two’s putting-green orgasm for sheer comedy.

Because, of course, the two musclebound thirst-traps are not mourning Laura at all. Baby girl and, more importantly, baby girl’s libido have recovered from her gunshot wound, and now she’s ready to get back to full-time writhing duties atop her brooding hubs. The only wrinkle is that occasionally, while engaged in one of her curiously anhydrous romps with Massimo, she fantasizes about Nacho. And who can blame her? As fine as Morrone is, he’s only given “smolder” to play, where Sussina gets to flash his dazzling smile while also fixing the camera with a gaze that could crisp up a rosemary and black olive focaccia at twenty paces.

These are the astronomical stakes of “The Next 365 Days”: Should Laura be with Massimo or Nacho? One wants to ball her in the Mediterranean, the other wants “to meditate with her in Bali.” Tomasz Mandes and Mojca Tirš, co-writing with the books’ author Blanka Lipinska, already distanced “This Day” from the original film’s queasy rapiness, but now seem eager to engineer a full 180. Given the ultra-sensitive, ribbed-for-her-pleasure alternative offered by Nacho, also a mafia boss but one who surfs and has unambiguously consensual candlelit beachside sex, Laura is finally working out that maybe the guy who kidnapped and sexually enslaved her and now jealously monitors her every move is not the prince she Stockholmed herself into believing he was. It took three movies, a failing mafia marriage, getting shot, a lost pregnancy, a car crash and the patient, undying affections of an even hotter, even richer guy, but whatever. Go feminism.

It’s not just the plotting that feels bone-tired this time out. The design departments seem underslept too: the outfits are ho-hum, even those at the atelier Laura sometimes remembers she runs. The al fresco dining areas and nightclub scenes during which Olga’s evident full-blown alcoholism is constantly played for klutzy laughs, are entirely interchangeable. And once you’ve seen one dramatic sky skidding off the infinity pool of a modernist villa at dusk, you’ve seen ’em all. Furthermore, we’re used to the oddly inflected, non-native English dialogue (“The plane is to your disposal,” “This white shit replaced me”) but now even the bikini-waxed images from franchise DP Bartek Cielica come across as gauzily inattentive. During one would-be dramatic confrontation between Laura and Massimo, it’s hard not to be distracted by the handprints on the glass rooftop railing between them that glint greasily in the lens flare.

Indeed, the only contributors who don’t appear completely tapped out by the end of “The Next 365 Days” are those with arguably the most reason to be. Composers Patryk Kumór and Dominic Buczkowski-Woytaszek pen a Herculean 25 original soft-rock ballads for the soundtrack, many of which play out for a couple of minutes or more, because that’s how much of this movie takes place in slo-mo montage. Granted, the songs are 100% indistinguishable and all the lyrics appear written by the same algorithm that generates the dialogue: Who knows what to make of a sex scene scored to a gravel-voiced chorus of “Fuck society?” Still, 25!

But just because almost everyone’s exhausted by this crummy cash-cow franchise, doesn’t mean the franchise is exhausted in turn. The hope that “The Next 365 Days” will be the last “365 Days” merely because it’s based on the final book is a slim one, especially given how it ends, on a question left infuriatingly dangling, with only a wailing rawk crescendo and a deranged camera doing infinity loops around the two stars for resolution. “I need more time,” Laura husks repeatedly, to Nacho, to Massimo, to Olga and to the warm wind tousling her hair. Though she’s referring to her deeply uninvolving romantic dilemma, it’s hard not to hear her speaking with the wistful voice of the Netflix accountancy department, as they, and they alone, offer up a prayer that there might be many more “365 Days” to come.

Reviewed on Netflix, Aug. 19, 2022. Running time: 114 MIN. (Original title: "Kolejne 365 Dni")

• Production: (Poland) A Netflix release of an Ekipa, Open Mind One production. Producers: Ewa Lewandowska, Tomasz Mandes, Maciej Kawulski.
• Crew: Directors: Barbara Białowas, Tomasz Mandes. Screenplay: Mojca Tirš, Blanka Lipińska, Tomasz Mandes, based on the book series by Lipińska. Camera: Bartek Cielica. Editor: Marcin Drewnowski. Music: Patryk Kumór, Dominic Buczkowski-Woytaszek.
• With: Anna-Maria Sieklucka, Michele Morrone, Simone Susinna, Magdalena Lamparska, Otar Saralidze, Karolina Pisarek, Ewa Kasprzyk, Dariusz Jacubowski. (English, ​​Polish, Italian dialogue)

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Directed by Barbara Białowąs , Tomasz Mandes

Massimo Torricelli, a young and handsome boss of a Sicilian Mafia family, has no other option but to takeover after his father has been assassinated. Laura is a sales director in a luxurious hotel in Warsaw. She has a successful career, but her private life lacks passion. She is taking one last shot to save her relationship. Together with her bone-headed boyfriend Martin and some other friends, she takes a trip to Sicily. She does not expect that Massimo, the most dangerous man on the island, will get in her way, kidnap her, hold her captive and give her 365 days - to fall in love with him.

Anna-Maria Sieklucka Michele Morrone Bronisław Wrocławski Otar Saralidze Magdalena Lamparska Natasza Urbańska Grażyna Szapołowska Tomasz Stockinger Gianni Parisi Mateusz Łasowski Agnieszka Warchulska Przemysław Sadowski Michał Mikołajczak Andrea Batti Mateusz Grydlik Natalia Janoszek Tomasz Mandes Blanka Lipińska Ewa Lewandowska Bartek Cierlica Ewelina Plizga Adrianna Bartkowska

Directors Directors

Barbara Białowąs Tomasz Mandes

Producers Producers

Ewa Lewandowska Tomasz Mandes Maciej Kawulski Anna Waśniewska-Gill Robert Kijak

Writers Writers

Barbara Białowąs Tomasz Klimala Tomasz Mandes

Original Writer Original Writer

Blanka Lipińska

Casting Casting

Tomasz Mandes Agata Biedrzycka

Editor Editor

Marcin Drewnowski

Cinematography Cinematography

Bartek Cierlica

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Adrianna Bartkowska

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Marek Serdiukow

Production Design Production Design

Agnieszka Bartold

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Dagmara Pokromska

Composers Composers

Mateusz Sarapata Michał Sarapata

Sound Sound

Marcin Kasiński

Costume Design Costume Design

Magdalena Sekrecka Malgorzata Skorupa

Makeup Makeup

Grzegorz Szczuka

Ekipa Future Space Next Film TVN Group

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English French Polish Italian

Releases by Date

06 feb 2020, 07 feb 2020, 09 jun 2020, releases by country.

• Digital R18+ Netflix
• Digital 18 Netflix
• Digital 16 Netflix
• Premiere 16 Warsaw
• Theatrical 16
• Digital Netflix

116 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by el 🫧 💌 🪩 ½ 24

i think i wrote something similar to this when i was 15 on wattpad

Review by Olivia Ferrucci ½ 26

if u hate women u will love this movie

Review by HANNAH* ½ 25

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

what if you😳 kidnapped me🔗🙎🏻‍♀️✨ and you’re rich💸💫 and hot👅🔥💦 so i let you👀🧔🏻 plant a baby🌱👼🏻 on me🤰🏼🧚🏼✨ and we get married🥰💍👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 👰 jk.... unless👁👄👁

Review by james💫 ½ 11

2019 has Parasite, 2020 has 365 Days ❤️

Review by brooklyn ★ 13

take a shot everytime massimo says "are you lost babygirl?" because you physically cannot get through this movie sober

Review by Alainah ½ 6

call it what it is. terrorism

Review by sree ½ 3

this reminds me of the time when i was getting ready for school, putting my long brown hair into a messy bun. and as i looked at my blue eyes in the mirror, my mom came in. “i sold you to pay our debts” she said. “come meet your new master.” i went downstairs and there he was... harry styles

Review by pentamerone ½ 10

Today I've learned that people teleport during sex.

Review by dia 🏹 ½ 5

horny people are not valid ❤️

Review by maria ½ 21

massimo: i'm gonna fuck you so hard that they hear you scream in warsow christian grey: i fuck... hard same energy

Review by ‮🐌‬ ½ 4

please stop adapting 2011 wattpad harry styles x y/n fan fictions into movies i thought we learned from fifty shades of grey and after

Review by RuthASecas ★½ 2

ARE YOU LOST BABY GIRL?

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• What To Watch Next?

A spirited young woman finds herself imprisoned by a mafia boss who offers a deal to fall in love with him in 365 days or he'll set her free. If Fifty Shades and Beauty and the Beast had a porno baby, 365 DAYS would be it.

If you're curious as to why 365 DAYS/365 DNI suddenly became the number one watched movie on Netflix, let me just say, it's not because it's an incredible film. Far from it. It has been compared to Fifty Shades Of Grey but steamier. It's more like if Fifty Shades and Beauty and the Beast had a porno baby, 365 DAYS would be it.

It starts out in Sicily when Massimo and his father are negotiating, or rather rejecting a deal from a local mafia family .

Almost instantly his father is assassinated, with the bullet also hitting Massimo ( Michele Morrone ). Lying injured on the ground Massimo keeps seeing visions of a beautiful woman he saw earlier on the beach.

Fast forward five years and Massimo is the head of the crime family the beautiful girl, Laura from Poland, is now in Sicily on holiday with her boyfriend.

Laura ( Anna Maria Sieklucka ) soon finds herself dragged off the street and wakes up in Massimo's mansion.

He then proposes a deal. If she stays with him for 365 days and does not fall in love with him, he will allow her to leave.

But Laura has no intention of being imprisoned by the man who has been searching for her for five years. Sadly, escaping the mafia is trickier than she thought. As are Massimo's advances as he pursues her.

Once she realises that, it's easier to stay and then the steamy affair happens. That's the bit everybody is talking about!

My earlier reference to Beauty And The Beast is simply because he's portrayed as an angry dangerous man who has imprisoned a young woman, refusing to let her return to her family, in the hopes that she will fall in love with him. But Disney this ain't.

Is 365 Days Worth Watching?

To give it any credit, the chemistry between the two leads is undoubtedly there. Sadly, there aren't many other positives that I can conjure up.

The acting is atrocious, as is the script which is laughable it's so bad. The ending was a bit surprising and unexpected but it possibly also left the door open for a second movie . And, if the film follows the books then there is definitely a sequel to come.

365 DAYS is a dodgy, low budget romance but despite all it's faults it's strangely compelling.

I know critics have panned it but I found it more engaging and watchable than I thought it would be. For a less raunchy, more rom-com Polish offering, check out Squared Love .

• Chemistry Between The Leads
• Story is Strangely Compelling
• Cliffhanger Ending

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The 7 Most Controversial Movies on Netflix Right Now

Some of these films don't deserve the outrage, but others definitely do.

There’s an old saying in the marketing world, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity." And that’s just as true with movies as it is in advertising. Some films become controversial because of their subject matter, others because of how they’re packaged or the potentially damaging narratives they unpack. In some cases, controversy can be generated just because a movie is simply too much for certain segments of the audience to stomach. But whatever the reasons, controversy builds curiosity, and we can’t help but ask ourselves, “Could it really be that bad?” Well, when it comes to controversial content, Netflix is no exception, and there are plenty of titles in the streaming giant’s library that have polarized audiences. It’s quite a varied range, from documentaries tackling difficult subjects to genuinely good films that just happen to also be divisive, and even some movies that are controversial because they’re, well, terrible. Below, we've put together a handpicked selection of the most controversial movies on Netflix right now, but be warned, some of it is pretty harrowing stuff.

For more recommendations, check out our list of the best movies on Netflix or the best Netflix shows you can binge watch .

Disclaimer: These titles are available on US Netflix.

'365 Days' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes: 0% | imdb: 3.3/10.

Directed by Barbara Białowąs and Tomasz Mandes , 365 Days is a 2020 Polish erotic thriller film that’s based on the works of Blanka Lipińska . In the film, an Italian mobster ( Michele Morrone ) happens to see a young Warsaw woman ( Anna-Maria Sieklucka ) and instantly falls in love. When the woman visits Italy years later, he kidnaps her, imprisons her, and gives her 365 days to fall in love with him. And because this is erotica and not a hostage thriller about a woman surviving a psychopathic predator, she does exactly that. With all the literary nuance of online erotic fiction, 365 Days was predictably panned by critics. Yet, despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews, the film gained global popularity and became one of Netflix’s most-watched properties in multiple countries across continents. Unfavorably compared to the 50 Shades trilogy, the movie has been criticized for its glorification of sexual violence, predatory behavior, and the mafia. However, despite petitions to remove the film from Netflix’s library and a Golden Raspberry for Worst Screenplay, 365 Days ’ popularity still led to the release of two sequels, 365 Days: This Day and The Next 365 Days .

Watch on Netflix

'May December' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 91% | imdb: 6.8/10, may december.

Directed by Todd Haynes from a screenplay by Samy Burch , May December stars Natalie Portman as Elizabeth, an actress working on a movie about Gracie ( Julianne Moore ), a woman who was at the center of a national scandal 20 years before due to her relationship with her now-husband Joe ( Charles Melton ), which started when she was 36 and he was 13. As they all get to know each other, the many layers of their personalities are peeled away to reveal a complicated mess of emotions. The controversy surrounding May December is largely due to the film’s subject, but despite the uncomfortable topics of grooming and pedophilia, the movie is a fascinating watch. Both Portman and Moore deliver intense, pitch-perfect performances, with a chemistry between them that mixes hostility and sexual tension. Meanwhile, Melton is an absolute revelation in his role as a man questioning the very basis of his life. An acclaimed drama, May December won several awards and is widely considered one of the best films of 2023 .

'Cuties' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes: 86% | imdb: 3.6/10.

Written and directed by Maïmouna Doucouré in her feature directorial debut, Cuties is a French drama film starring Fathia Youssouf as an 11-year-old Senegalese-French girl brought up in a traditional Muslim household who joins a twerking dance crew. While Cuties is an acclaimed and award-winning film, the reason it’s controversial is partly due to its initial marketing campaign, which included a poster showing the four young girls striking suggestive poses. This led many people to assume that the film sexualizes pre-adolescents, though the movie is, in reality, a critique of that exact kind of inappropriate hypersexualization . It also draws heavily from Doucouré’s own upbringing, exploring the pains of childhood and the clash between traditional values and the modern world. Don’t let the media storm and cancel campaign fool you — Cuties is a carefully made film that talks about serious, difficult topics through a poignant coming-of-age story, and it’s as honest as it is uncomfortable.

'Blonde' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 42% | imdb: 5.5/10.

Written and directed by Andrew Dominik , Blonde is a fictional take on the life of Marilyn Monroe , based on Joyce Carol Oates ’ 2000 novel of the same name. The film boasts an ensemble cast led by Ana de Armas in the lead role, appearing alongside Adrien Brody , Bobby Cannavale , Xavier Samuel , and Julianne Nicholson . Blonde was a subject of controversy even before it was released, as it received the rare NC-17 rating for its extremely graphic depictions of rape, abortion, and more. Once it came out, the film became even more controversial because it’s an exploitative, sexist, and disrespectful take on Monroe’s life . While purporting to be a critique of how Marilyn Monroe was exploited by Hollywood, the film goes ahead and exploits her image even more, which ironically underscores its central point: Marilyn deserved better. Blonde ’s one saving grace is Armas’ performance as Monroe, which earned the actor nominations for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and more.

'The Bleeding Edge' (2018)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 7.6/10, the bleeding edge.

A Netflix original documentary film, The Bleeding Edge is an investigation into the $400 billion medical device industry and the lax regulations and corporate cover-ups that are putting patients at risk on a daily basis. Written and directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy , the film focuses primarily on the biotech and pharma giant Bayer and its Essure birth control device. The Bleeding Edge has received widespread critical acclaim and has been hailed as an eye-opening piece of investigative filmmaking. Unlike some of the entries on this list, the film is controversial for all the right reasons, as it brings to light a glaring issue in the medical industry that has a serious impact on the lives of millions. It has reportedly had a significant impact not just on the public at large but also on doctors and other industry professionals, who have raised calls for stricter testing and evidence for medical devices before they’re given FDA approval.

'Open Wide' (2024)

Imdb: 5.8/10.

Directed by Sara Goldblatt and distributed by A24 , Open Wide is a documentary film about an orthodontist father-son duo who went viral for their controversial method of reshaping people’s jawlines. Its subjects, John and Mike Mew, present themselves as underdogs fighting against the establishment to popularize a ground-breaking new medical technique that can lift the jawline, alleviate pain, improve sleep, and supposedly even cure speech disorders. The only problem with that story is that the technique, called “mewing”, is not actually scientifically proven. The film has generated a ton of backlash for delivering a platform for what can only be termed a pseudoscience. While mewing isn’t necessarily harmful, the only real reason anyone pays attention to it is because it is a TikTok trend. To its credit, Open Wide is more concerned with the people than the technique, focusing on the story of a family fighting for what they believe in. The fact that what they believe in is a load of hooey is just an unfortunate side effect.

'Hope Frozen: A Quest to Live Twice' (2019)

Imdb: 6.5/10, hope frozen: a quest to live twice.

A 2019 Thai documentary film that was added to Netflix in September 2020 , Hope Frozen was directed by Pailin Wedel , who also co-wrote the movie with Nina Ijäs . The documentary follows the heartbreaking story of a Thai scientist and his family cryogenically preserving the head of their two-year-old daughter, who died of brain cancer in 2015. An acclaimed film, Hope Frozen was released on Netflix under the title Hope Frozen: A Quest to Live Twice , and became the first Thai production to win the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary. Why is it controversial? Because cryogenics, the process of freezing a clinically dead body in the hopes of future revival, simply does not work. Hope Frozen also faced criticism for focusing on the pseudoscientific headline and missing the real human story of a grieving family. While those are all valid concerns, the film remains a moving document of real-life pain, the clash of science and religion, and the lengths to which people will go to hold on to the ones they love.

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‘In Our Day’ Review: Meditations on the Spice of Life

The Korean director Hong Sang-soo winds together the slenderest strands of two intersecting stories to make a tender film about simple pleasures.

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By Brandon Yu

In another world there’s a Hong Sang-soo Cinematic Universe, where a rabid fandom celebrates the one or two movies every year featuring a revolving door not of familiar superheroes but of poets, filmmakers and actors, each of them contending with questions of life and love rather than planetary threats. Those elements, of artists in quotidian scenarios, drinking soju and smoking amid everyday conversation, are present in many of the small humanist gems that make up this South Korean auteur’s filmography, and the same goes for his latest, “In Our Day.”

The film, as warm and wise as it is simple and languid, follows two separate parties (diptychs are another Hong trademark) across a single afternoon. One involves Sangwon (Kim Min-hee, Hong’s frequent collaborator and offscreen partner), an actress pondering retirement, as she spends the day with her friend and her younger cousin; the other involves Uiju (Ki Joo-bong), an old poet dispensing life lessons in his apartment to two university students, one of whom is filming him for a documentary.

The two story lines don’t cross paths, as they often do in Hong’s films; they are united only by the deployment of a culinary hack: mixing hot pepper paste into ramyun. His gochujang-inflected noodles provide a simple pleasure made all the more satisfying in recent days for Uiju, who, on doctor’s orders, is abstaining from drinking and smoking. But he can’t quite resist on either front, reflecting a sentiment from early in the film when Sangwon, offering up treats to a friend’s cat, says, “What’s the point of living, anyway? Eat your fill.”

It’s a glimmer of existential wisdom buried in the mundane, if you look at it the right way. Most of the film is made up of these moments. Isn’t life like that, too? To search for or expect more would be to court disappointment. “Don’t look for meaning. That’s cowardice,” Uiju tells a young pupil searching desperately for grand answers. “Just jump in the water. Don’t try knowing it all before jumping, like a coward.”

In Our Day Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters.

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Movie Review: 'The Garfield Movie' is a bizarre animated tale that's not pur-fect in any way

This image released by Sony Pictures shows characters Odie, voiced by Harvey Guillén, from left, Vic, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, and Garfield, voiced by Chris Pratt, in a scene from the animated film "The Garfield Movie." Credit: AP

If you catch the latest Garfield movie, you might not expect to find the famous orange feline at one point running from bad guys on the top of a speeding train. Lasagna eating? Sure. But any sort of cardio?

Then prepare for “The Garfield Movie,” a curious new animated attempt to monetize the comic icon again by giving him an origin story and then asking him to do things a galaxy away from what he does in the funny pages. It's like if Snoopy ran an underground bare-knuckle fight club.

Chris Pratt voices the Monday-hating, self-centered hero and Samuel L. Jackson animates his long-lost father, who abandoned Garfield in an alley one rainy night, leading to lifelong trauma. That may explain his endless appetite, to fill the void of parental neglect. What does “The Garfield Movie” say about that idea? Are you kidding?

“The Garfield Movie,” directed by Mark Dindal, reunites Garfield and his not-so-savory dad — there's no mention of a mom and there are shades of the plots from “Kung Fu Panda 3” and "Chicken Run” — as he gets caught up in a criminal plot to raid a corporate dairy and steal thousands of gallons of milk.

Sorry, what was that? Garfield is perhaps the most indoor cat in history and seeing him dodge massive chopping blades or boulders onscreen is just plain weird. Making it even weirder is that his partner Odie — traditionally a drooling idiot — is remade here as highly competent, perhaps even a savant. This is not canon.

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The movie gets mildly amusing as it recreates the kind of vent-crawling, security guard-avoiding heist in the dairy along to the theme from “Mission: Impossible” and that's largely because the gang is being directed by a bull voiced by Ving Rhames, a veteran of that franchise. There are also nods to “Top Gun”: I do my own stunts,” Garfield says. “Me and Tom Cruise.”

The script — by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds— grounds the movie firmly in today, with Garfield using food delivery phone apps and Bluetooth, watching Catflix and characters declaring that they are “self-actualized.” There's also some pretty awkward product placement, like for Olive Garden, that may not send the message they wanted.

This image released by Sony Pictures shows characters Vic, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, right, and Garfield, voiced by Chris Pratt, in a scene from the animated film "The Garfield Movie." Credit: AP

This is the part when we talk about food abuse. Garfield has a bit of a problem on this front, and the filmmakers more than lean into it. Thousands of pounds of junk food get inhaled by the tabby, but not salad. Heaven is described as an “all-you-can-eat buffet in the sky” and cheese is Garfield's “love language.” It's the laziest kind of writing.

There's a mini “Ted Lasso” reunion when Hannah Waddingham (playing a psychotic gang leader) and Brett Goldstein (as her henchman) appear, while Snoop Dogg has a cameo as the voice of a one-eyed cat and offers a song that runs over the credits.

The animation is pretty great — the backgrounds, at least. Ladders show rust and forests are lush, but then the main characters are a step or two less realized, more cartoonish. Jim Davis, who created Garfield, is an executive producer so he must be OK with all of this, a forgettable, unfunny animated slog. At one point, Garfield says "Bury me in cheese" and that seems a fitting final resting place for this cat's film career.

“The Garfield Movie,” a Columbia Pictures release that opens in movie theaters Friday, is rated PG for “mild thematic elements, action and peril.” Running time: 101 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Garfield, voiced by Chris Pratt, in a scene from the animated film "The Garfield Movie." Credit: AP

MPAA Definition of PG: Parental guidance suggested.

Online: https://www.garfield.movie

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‘Home Alone’ actor reveals fight to quintuple his salary for the sequel

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Daniel Stern nearly lost out on co-starring as Marv the burglar in “Home Alone” and the sequel — by asking for more money.

The actor writes in his new memoir, “ Home and Alone ,” out Tuesday, that he was set to be paid $300,000 for six weeks work on the original 1990 movie.

But then, “I got a call saying they had redone the shooting schedule and they would now need me for eight weeks instead of six,” he writes. “They were asking me to add on 33% more shooting time, so I asked if they were going to raise my salary the same amount, and they said they would not.”

Producers hired a different actor to start rehearsals with Joe Pesci in Chicago — but, luckily for Stern, it didn’t work out.

A couple of days later Stern got a call that they wanted him back and would “honor the original contract and make the schedule six weeks.”

Relieved, he said he learned a valuable lesson from the near-disaster.

“It switches at some point where you go, ‘OK, I’m committed to the project,'” he told The Post. “If it takes 14 weeks, I’m going to miss the kid’s graduation because I committed to this. And so that was the lesson.

“Luckily I dodged the bullet of my stupidity and ended up in the movie.”

“Home Alone” grossed nearly $500 million worldwide — after costing just $18 million to make — leading Twentieth Century Fox to plan a sequel almost immediately.

According to the book, the film’s pint-sized star, Macaulay Culkin, had a sequel deal for $5 million plus 5% of the gross box office.

“So, I said, ‘Well, you know, this is going to be awesome,'” Stern told The Post.

It took producers six months to even make an offer of “$600,000, double my original salary, but not quite the pot of gold I was hoping for,” he writes. “I asked if that was the same as Joe [Pesci] was getting, and they said it was not.”

The studio eventually upped the offer to $800,000 but Stern discovered that Pesci was “getting somewhere between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 plus gross percentage of the profits.”

He was determined to get at least half of what Pesci was making. So when Stern’s agent advised him to take the offer, the actor fired him.

Now, he admits it was a “prideful thing to do,” but he adds that, if that’s best his agent could do, “then he wasn’t very good at his job.”

Stern took over his own negotiations — by playing a game of chicken. He practically doubled his ask, shooting for $1.5 million and 2% of the gross profits.

The ploy went down to the wire until the then-head of Fox, Joe Roth, personally called and asked Stern to start filming without a contract.

In the end, the gambit played off: Stern got his asking salary and 1% of the gross.

“I knew they couldn’t do the movie without me, but I was also insecure, since I almost blew it the first time,” he writes. “I didn’t want to be too greedy when I loved the movie and the part so much.”

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Tv ratings: ‘young sheldon’ series finale scores four-year high.

The CBS comedy ends with one of the biggest same-day audiences for any scripted show this season.

By Rick Porter

Rick Porter

Television Writer

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The final episodes of Young Sheldon drew a big crowd for CBS.

The comedy ended its seven-season run Thursday night with 9.32 million viewers for its series finale, according to final same-day ratings from Nielsen (which don’t include streaming). That’s the biggest same-day audience for the show in four years — since its third season finale on April 30, 2020.

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Sheldon also recorded its two best showings of the season among adults 18-49, scoring a 0.71 rating (937,000 viewers in the demographic) for its first episode and a 0.76 (about 1.01 million viewers) for the finale.

Young Sheldon came into Thursday averaging 7.03 million same-day viewers this season, making it the most-watched network comedy for the fifth straight season. Thursday’s episodes finished 30 percent and 32 percent above the same-day average.

CBS has an ongoing, 19-year run of having the most-watched comedy of the season on its airwaves. The streak began with the final season of Everybody Loves Raymond in 2004-05 and continued with Two and a Half Men and Young Sheldon’ s predecessor, The Big Bang Theory . The latter three are all executive produced by Chuck Lorre.

The finale of So Help Me Todd (4.4 million viewers) on CBS was the top show among total viewers after Young Sheldon, while ABC’s 911 was the best of the rest in adults 18-49 with a 0.44 rating (580,000 viewers).

May 17, 1:25 p.m. Updated with final same-day ratings figures from Thursday.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3

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• Jeff Fowler
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• Trivia The film makers of the prior movies have mentioned playing both "Sonic Adventure 2" and the "Shadow The Hedgehog" solo game for inspiration. The film also has elements from the television series "The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" which aired in 1993.
• Connections Follows Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
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• December 20, 2024 (United States)
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• Dolby Digital
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