Table of contents for Hollywood 2024 in Vanity Fair

We celebrate—films, shows, performances, and the enduring and powerful impact of narrative storytelling in our culture—and we reflect on what’s new and exciting and different. We don’t take the celebration part for granted. Since last year’s Oscars, it’s been an excellent stretch at the movies, starting with Anatomy of a Fall’s Palme d’Or at Cannes and keeping the pace through December’s Poor Things. From extraordinary debut films by Celine Song and Cord Jefferson to the pair of big swings that made summer’s box office portmanteau, we’ve relished the range and possibility of contemporary cinema, not just in Hollywood but the world over, and watched the once-separate universes of film and television further cross-pollinate with stellar results. The 11 stars on this cover represent a vibrant selection of our onscreen faves:…

“MY PLANET, ARRAKIS, is so beautiful when the sun is low. Rolling over the sands, you can see spice in the air,” Chani, played by Zendaya, says in 2021’s Dune: Part One. She makes the desert sound serene, but the ensuing action, continued in this month’s second installment, proves its hostility: Sandstorms strong enough to pierce metal rage on, as do battles to control that hallucinogenic “spice,” which is key to interstellar travel. “According to [Dune author] Frank Herbert, spice smells like cinnamon,” the film’s production designer, Patrice Vermette, says. The real-world locations Vermette scouted are just as evocative. In Abu Dhabi’s Liwa desert, blazing sun softened to fog at night, when “the level of humidity in the air made the smell of salt explode,” he says. By contrast, the…

COLMAN DOMINGO KNOWS how unusual this moment is. “I don’t know anyone white or Black or other who has a career like mine,” he says. In his early 50s, Domingo found himself at number one on the call sheet for the very first time, for Netflix’s biopic Rustin—and now, at last, he’s an Oscar nominee. He credits his longevity to his versatility and, perhaps ironically, his lack of visibility. “I’m old as fuck. It’s true. I’ve been working for 33 years,” he says. “For me to have this time now, it is because people have caught up with what I actually do.” Bayard Rustin, the unsung architect of the Civil Rights Movement, feels like the role Domingo was born to play. His exuberance shines through—a journeyman finally getting his showcase.…

Jenner: Hair, Léa Journo; makeup, Etienne Ortega; tailor, Zoya Milentyeva. Produced on location by Portfolio One. Sculpture: © Yoshitomo Nara. DuVernay: Hair, Fesa Nu; makeup, Adam Burrell; tailor, Zoya Milentyeva. Produced on location by Portfolio One. Ronson: Grooming, Vaughn; tailor, Olga Dudnik; set design, Michael Sturgeon. Produced on location by Madi Overstreet. Lee: Produced on location by Madi Overstreet. Wasserman: Grooming, Clay Nielsen. Produced on location by Madi Overstreet. Dunst, Fanning, Coppola, and Spainey: Hair, Orlando Pita (Coppola, Dunst), Marki Shkreli (Fanning, Spaeny); makeup, Tyron Machhausen (Fanning, Spaeny), Gucci Westman (Coppola, Dunst); manicures, Maria Salandra; tailor, Marius Ahiale; set design, Viki Rutsch. Produced on location by Portfolio One. Fonda: Hair, Jonathan Hanousek; makeup, David DeLeon; tailor, Zoya Milentyeva. Produced on location by Portfolio One. Langley: Hair, Beatrice Valenzuela; makeup, Katelin…

UNDER COVER OF darkness, I boarded a Navy vessel at a heavily guarded military base along the Eastern Seaboard. The location and time of departure, as well as the direction and distance of travel, were unknown to me. Adding to the sense of secrecy, a towering sailor in camouflage stood in the rain, examining my belongings for electronics that might leave a digital trail an adversary could intercept and exploit. Buffeted by strong winds and high Atlantic seas, the support ship sailed through the night for more than 15 storm-tossed hours toward a destination somewhere off the continental shelf. Just after dawn, a sleek, inky object appeared in the distance, right above the waterline. It was the protruding bridge of what sailors call a “boomer”—a submarine armed to the gills…

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: the city that never quite got over its ’80s era, its Club 57 or Studio 54, its graffitied subway system, Warhol or his films, St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, Grace Jones clad only in Keith Haring’s squiggles; a cast of characters sometimes mononymous, always prolific, and too often short-lived. In Radiant (Harper)—one of several books this spring that take on the glam and tumult of the decade—Brad Gooch traces Haring’s defiant, definitive lines. There’s his entering a 15-foot-by-3-inch fantasia into his Kutztown, Pennsylvania, junior high school student art exhibit (parsing Haring’s youth feels relevant; the image of the radiant baby would become his signature) through his 1978 move to NYC to attend the School of Visual Arts and his finding community amid a band of Lost Boys. In Jennifer…

THE GREEN LIGHT flashes and I dart forward under the watchful gaze of a giant pigtailed animatronic doll. The doll’s eerie voice intones, “Red light.” I try to stop short, but the vibrating electronic bracelet on my wrist tells me I’ve failed. If I were a character in Netflix’s dystopian drama series Squid Game, I would be executed on the spot. If I were on the recent reality spin-off Squid Game: The Challenge, I’d lose the chance to win millions. Luckily, I’m just a player in a Los Angeles live experience called Squid Game: The Trials, where fans pay to reenact the show’s childish amusements like marbles and Red Light, Green Light. A big X simply appears across my photo on the leader-board, and I exit through the gift shop.…

THE MATRIARCH Murder trials and sex tapes are not the typical stepping stones on the path to mogul status, but Jenner has defied all expectations, both for herself and her five fashion-and-fame-loving daughters. Reality television, it turns out, was just the launching pad for the family’s now multi-billiondollar lifestyle empire. If you’re still asking what their talent is, you haven’t been paying attention.…

“TAKE SUNSET, PASS the Chateau Marmont. Make a left at the Liquor Locker and follow the road until you hit Hollywood Boulevard,” I told the driver of the Liffey Van Lines moving company when he phoned to say he would be arriving in 20 minutes. “How narrow is the street?” he asked. “Not too bad,” I told him. “But sir, there are 29 steps leading to the front door,” I cautioned, grimacing at my husband, John, who was pacing the empty living room. I put on Tom Petty and arranged the Gatorade we had purchased for the movers into color-coded groupings. When John spotted the 18-wheeler chugging up our winding road and yelled, “They’re here,” my stomach fluttered with excitement. It was December 31, 2016, and the idea of waking…

THE GIRLS WERE MELTING. It was Southern California, and though it was spring—and though they weren’t wearing much to begin with—it was so very hot. Ice dissolved in syrupy glasses of Pepsi. The smell of Mystic Tan hung heavy in the air. The Playmates, wearing their Easter best, dabbed their brows with foundation-stained tissues. When were they going to announce the winner? Looking out the warped walls of the tent, I could see the manicured lawn and the koi pond. Even farther in the distance, a pair of identical blonds jumped on the trampoline, skirts flying up and over their belly buttons. They didn’t care who won the egg hunt. But because I was 11, I did. Something had gone wrong, it was obvious. There was never any waiting at…

COUNTER (FROM LEFT): DANIELLE SANCHEZ-WITZEL, DAVID A. GOODMAN, YAHLIN CHANG, ELLEN STUTZMAN, DREW CAREY, MEREDITH STIEHM, ROBB CHAVIS. BOOTHS (FROM LEFT): GREG IWINSKI, KAY CANNON, MICHELE MULRONEY, BETSY THOMAS, CHRIS KEYSER, ERIC HAYWOOD, DAVID SLACK, JOELLE GARFINKEL, MICHAEL SCHUR, LAURA BLUM-SMITH, BRITTANI NICHOLS, LIZ HSIAO LAN ALPER, CHANDRA THOMAS, LISA TAKEUCHI CULLEN. Apparently, it’s not enough that they write the shows that power pop culture. Last year, the WGA had to choose between a strike that few of them could afford and watching their profession go extinct thanks to corporations and AI. The people here (and their 20,000 fellow members) picketed, negotiated, orated, and provided for the most vulnerable among them. It’s more than a guild: It’s a movement.…

AN ORNATELY CLAD ROYAL, DRAPED IN VELVET AND FRILLS, SITS AT HIS DRESSING TABLE WITHIN THE HALLOWED HALLS OF VERSAILLES AWAITING A FINAL DUSTING OF POWDER. Just then, a courtier bursts in with an urgent message concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But this is not the 1700s, and the man in the chair is not King Louis XV. It’s July 2022, and Johnny Depp, of Owensboro, Kentucky, is having his hair and makeup done for his role in a French period piece titled Jeanne du Barry. The messenger is a senior producer with a surprising request: Prince Badr bin Farhan Al Saud wants to meet with Depp. The prince, an amiable fellow with a toothy grin, is Saudi Arabia’s culture minister—and a cousin of the omnipotent Crown Prince Mohammed…

JANE KING SAT down at the bus stop on Franklin Avenue and stretched out her legs, crossing them at the ankles as she inhaled the nighttime air. Class had ended, and King was waiting to board an 89 for the roughly four-and-a-half-mile ride home. Across the way, the old Château Élysée loomed over her. A palatial seven stories of Norman revival architecture, the building had begun its journey in November 1924, when the filmmaker Thomas Ince was stricken with chest pains during a party on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht. Days later, Ince died of heart failure, leaving behind $1.6 million for his widow, the actor Elinor Kershaw, who used a portion of her inheritance to construct the Château Élysée. (Gossipmongers whispered that she’d financed the Château with hush money from Hearst,…