On Sunday, the 78th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) was handed out at the Royal Albert Hall in London hosted by David Tennant. And Awards Season continues to surprise as Conclave upset very recent Best Picture frontrunner Anora to won Best Film and Best British Film at the annual fete for the best films in British cinema. However, Anora, our runner-up on the awards leaderboard, did not get shut out, taking home Best Casting and Best Actress for breakout Mikey Madison. We are hoping we can reach a consensus when the SAG Awards are announced on Sunday. Keep the Awards Tour Hub bookmarked so you can stay up to date with all the industry happenings.
Read on for the full list of BAFTA winners. Was your favorite snubbed? Let us know in the comments.
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave – WINNER
Emilia Pérez
Bird
Blitz
Conclave – WINNER
Gladiator II
Hard Truths
Kneecap
Lee
Love Lies Bleeding
The Outrun
Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Hoard
Kneecap – WINNER
Monkey Man
Santosh
Sister Midnight
All We Imagine As Light
Emilia Pérez – WINNER
I’m Still Here
Kneecap
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig
Black Box Diaries
Daughters
No Other Land
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story – WINNER
Will & Harper
Flow – Gints Siibalodis, Matīss Kaža
Inside Out 2 – Kelsey Mann, Mark Nielsen
Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham, Richard Beek – WINNER
The Wild Robot – Chris Sanders, Jeff Hermann
Anora
The Brutalist – WINNER
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
The Substance
Anora
The Brutalist
Kneecap
A Real Pain – WINNER
The Substance
A Complete Unknown
Conclave – WINNER
Emilia Pérez
Nickel Boyss
Sing Sing
Cynthia Erivo – Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez
Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths
Mikey Madison – Anora – WINNER
Demi Moore – The Substance
Saoirse Ronan – The Outrun
Adrien Brody – The Brutalist – WINNER
Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo – Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
Hugh Grant – Heretic
Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice
Selena Gomez – Emilia Pérez
Ariana Grande – Wicked
Felicity Jones – The Brutalist
Jamie Lee Curtis – The Last Showgirl
Isabella Rossellini – Conclave
Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez – WINNER
Yura Borisov – Anora
Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain – WINNER
Clarence Maclin – Sing Sing
Edward Norton – A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce – The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice
Anora – WINNER
The Apprentice
A Complete Unknown z
Conclave
Kneecap
The Brutalist – WINNER
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
Anora
Conclave – WINNER
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Kneecap
The Brutalist – WINNER
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
The Wild Robot
Blitz
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Nosferatu
Wicked – WINNER
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
The Substance – WINNER
Wicked
The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nosferatu
Wicked – WINNER
Blitz
Dune: Part Two – WINNER
Gladiator Ii
The Substance
Wicked
Better Man
Dune: Part Two – WINNER
Gladiator II
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
Wicked
Marisa Abela
Jharrel Jerome
David Jonsson- WINNER
Mikey Madison
Nabhaan Rizwan
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(Photo by Courtesy of Neon)
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced the winners for their 2025 film and television awards last night in Los Angeles and Anora leapfroged to the top of the Best Picture race taking home Oustanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Picture over previous frontrunners The Brutalist and Conclave. Universal Pictures The Wild Robot contines it imressive run of wins winning Oustanding Animated Theatrical Motion Picture after at the Critic Choice Awards, and Annie Awards . On the TV side, it was Shogūn and Hacks that came out on top again, making it a clean sweep for both shows at the Emmys, Critics Choice, and Golden Globes.Read on for the full list of winners at the 36th annual Producers Guild Awards, and let us know your favorite win in the comments.
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
Anora – WINNER
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
A Real Pain
September 5
The Substance
Wicked
Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Flow
Inside Out 2
Moana 2
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot – WINNER
Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama
Bad Sisters
The Diplomat
Fallout
Shōgun – WINNER
Slow Horses
Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy
Abbott Elementary
The Bear
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Hacks – WINNER
Only Murders in the Building
David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television
Baby Reindeer – WINNER
FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans
The Penguin
Ripley
True Detective: Night Country
Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures
Carry On
The Greatest Night in Pop – WINNER
The Killer
Rebel Ridge
Unfrosted
Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television
30 for 30
Conan O’Brien Must Go
The Jinx – Part Two
STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces – WINNER
Welcome to Wrexham
Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television
Ali Wong: Single Lady
The Daily Show
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Saturday Night Live – WINNER
Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television
The Amazing Race
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Traitors
The Voice
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures
Gaucho Gaucho
Mediha
Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
Porcelain War
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story – WINNER
We Will Dance Again
The Award for Outstanding Children’s Program
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Sesame Street – WINNER
SpongeBob SquarePants
The Award for Outstanding Short Form Program
The Crown: Farewell To A Royal Epic
Hacks: Bit By Bit
The Penguin: Inside Gotham
Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime
Shōgun – The Making of Shōgun – WINNER
The Award for Outstanding Sports Program
Formula 1: Drive to Survive
Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants
Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend
Simone Biles Rising – WINNER
Triumph: Jesse Owens and the Berlin Olympics
The PGA Innovation Award
Critterz
Emperor
Impulse: Playing with Reality
Orbital – WINNER
The Pirate Queen with Lucy Liu
What If…? – An Immersive Story
SpongeBob SquarePants
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And the Golden Tomato goes to…
It’s been our annual tradition to hand out trophies for the best-reviewed movies and TV series of the year, with winners of the past five years including Oppenheimer, The Last of Us, Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and House of the Dragon.
For our 26th edition of the Rotten Tomatoes Awards, let’s celebrate 2024’s best in film and TV, acclaimed works that have taken us to sand-swept planets, the dazzling land of Oz, feudal Japan, the Gotham City underworld, and inside and outside the vaults of post-apocalyptic America.
Rotten Tomatoes Awards winner are determined using an adjusted formula, a weighted ranking whose factors include a movie or show’s Tomatometer rating, and its number of critics reviews. Learn more in the How It Works section at the end.
In total this year, there are 30 categories, plus our all-new Fan Favorite Movies, created through our audience-driven Popcornmeter and Verified Hot ratings left all throughout 2024. And, finally, there’s Golden Year, a look back on stars who have made the most impact through their works.
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Shōgun is FX’s long-awaited limited series adaptation of James Clavell’s classic novel about feudal Japan during the pre-Edo period. The primarily Japanese series was created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, and stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga and Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne. It will premiere its first two episodes on Tuesday, February 27 to FX and Hulu.
Included in the ensemble cast are Anna Sawai as Lady Mariko; Néstor Carbonell as Vasco Rodrigues; Fumi Nikaidô as Ochiba No Kata; Takehiro Hira as Ishido Kazunari; Toshi Toda as Sugiyama; Hiro Kanagawa as Igurashi; and Yuki Kura as Yoshi Nagakado.
There’s a groundswell of hype leading up to the epic series’ premiere. Will it stick the landing? Here’s what critics are saying about Shōgun.
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Almost 50 years since Clavell’s Shogun hit bookshelves and close to 45 since it was a hit TV miniseries starring the legendary Toshiro Mifune, it is reborn as a sprawling 10-episode drama on FX. Often violent, sometimes erotic, and at all times magnificent in its pure entertainment factor and period immersion, Shogun clears any rightfully placed suspicions over its ungainly premise to tell a classic tale of understanding and discovery, wrapped up in a complex political thriller.
— Eric Francisco, Inverse
The bulk of the series is presented in Japanese, with English subtitles. Early scenes immediately dig into the nitty gritty of Osaka’s dirty politics, before Blackthorne even has a chance to interlope on the action. Most importantly, Jarvis’s Blackthorne isn’t a dashing hero swiftly adapting to Japanese life, but an opportunist confusedly surfing the waves of fortune.
— Meghan O’Keefe, Decider
Adapted directly from Clavell’s novel, this sprawling, 10-part historical drama takes a far broader view than its predecessor, moving beyond the Western outsider’s perspective to survey a fracturing society that is just as baffled by this interloper’s ways as he is by theirs.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
In recent years, Sanada has shown up briefly in titles such as Westworld, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Bullet Train, and basically stolen the show every time, so it’s a real treat to see him in such a meaty role here.
— Amy West, Total Film
Shōgun star and EP Hiroyuki Sanada brings his trademark blend of danger and gravitas to Toranaga, turning him into a titan just with his presence alone. Raised by Wolves alum Cosmo Jarvis lends Blackthorne his gravelly voice and quirky onscreen presence. It’s a combination that turns a character who could have felt like a two-dimensional white savior trope into a complex human being.
— Meghan O’Keefe, Decider
The breakout star, though, is Anna Sawai as Mariko, Blackthorne’s translator and a sort of right-hand to Toranaga, a meaty and sometimes unwieldy role that Sawai embodies with grace.
— Brandon Yu, TheWrap
Anna Sawai is alluring as the pillar-like Mariko, a high-class noble and translator (and inevitable love interest) for Blackthorne. Tadanobu Asano, who got a serious short end of the stick in the Thor movies, shines as the brash samurai lord Yabushige, risking his head in playing both sides of a bubbling civil war. Nestor Carbonell, as a Spanish sailor and rival to Blackthorne, makes for an overall entertaining foil, lending a touch of anti-heroic whimsy reminiscent of a Pirates of the Caribbean baddie.
— Eric Francisco, Inverse
Tadanobu Asano as Yabushige, Toranaga’s shifty commander, is a standout. There’s a consistent mirth in his eyes, and his demeanor works for the occasional comedic relief, but Asano understands the balance Yabushige must have for it to work.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Shōgun‘s story goes hard at every turn, gleefully serving up gore alongside eloquent sequences of poetry contests.
— Meghan O’Keefe, Decider
In terms of storytelling, viewers’ ability to understand what the Japanese characters are saying to one another opens up Shōgun’s world immensely. We get private conversations, backstories, access to the inner lives of scheming double agents and ambitious courtesans and sons impatient to prove themselves through combat.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
The high stakes and sense of danger, which looms over every plotting conversation, are palpable, which adds intrigue and thrill to the dialogue-heavy proceedings.
— Amy West, Total Film
There are so many moving parts, but the writers carefully craft a story that never overwhelms. Watching Shōgun’s story unfold is a slow, sizzling burn in the best possible sense.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Marks and Kondo, with the help of a stable of directors across the season, have overseen a period piece of awesome scale and impeccable detail. Forgiving a couple moments of iffy visual effects, the production and costume design are wonderfully immersive, and a booming score reinforces the gravitas of the show’s large canvas.
— Brandon Yu, TheWrap
Cinematographers Sam McCurdy (Game of Thrones), Marc Laliberté (Gen V), and more limit themselves on sweeping vistas – and let’s face it, what could have been dodgy VFX – and instead, favor framing that highlights the exquisite work done by the production design, makeup and hair, and costume departments. High-contrast lighting adds to each episode’s moody and intense atmosphere, while composers Nick Chuba, Leopold Ross, and Atticus Ross’ score accompanies the aesthetics perfectly.
— Amy West, Total Film
Fittingly, the show looks great—the sets, the landscapes, or the costumes—and boasts of attention to detail.
— Akhil Arora, AkhilArora.com
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
The visceral quality to the show’s violence can be exciting or horrifying, sometimes both, but Shōgun never spills blood just for the sake of shocking us.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
The resources to portray such battles are far greater in 2024 than the previous 1980 miniseries adaptation of Shogun. But, Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ adaptation is equally focused on the brutality of the politics, with cable/streaming allowances for language, sex and violence.
— Fred Topel, United Press International
There is a decent amount of action and violence, though that is not the story’s focus by any means. Instead, it is about the way all the characters are navigating the violent forces of fate that will cast them aside without a moment’s notice.
— Chase Hutchinson, Collider
Shogun is a blend of period drama with bloody violence while never taking for granted the realism this story needs to deliver its narrative. There are battle sequences that are stunning to watch as well as a fair amount of nudity.
— Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Shogun is a rich, textured, even sensitive grownup drama that knows how to strike the razor-thin balance between spectacle and spectacular.
— Eric Francisco, Inverse
Shōgun is in many ways all about death, and specifically how different cultures and religions view it. But it’s also a sweeping historical epic, with all the intrigue, plotting, and clashes of arms you could hope for.
— Travis Johnson, Flicks (AU, NZ, UK)
Even if the payoffs aren’t always there, “Shōgun” stands to be one of the most engaging, impressive shows of the year.
— Brandon Yu, TheWrap
At a time when so many of TV’s biggest swings, from Amazon’s The Rings of Power and Citadel to Netflix’s Stranger Things and The Crown, have yielded at least partial misses, FX’s Shōgun stands apart as a genuine masterpiece.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
Shogun is instantly a masterpiece and supplants the 1980 version of the story. This series is beautiful, powerful, stirring, and engrossing and gives the great Hiroyuki Sanada a long-awaited lead role for a global audience.
— Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network
The decision to use Mariko and Toranaga as central characters alongside Blackthorne, who was the sole protagonist of both the book and the acclaimed 1980 TV adaptation, is an effective way to avoid the “white savior” tropes that the tale dances with. And it’s ultimately the thing that makes this Shōgun more than another elegantly staged historical drama, using three distinct perspectives to turn it into a rumination on life and death.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
The latest FX series (also set to premiere on Hulu) is ripe with political tension and treachery, a chessboard of moving pieces that change up the game and create obstacles within relationships and alliances that will leave you waiting to see what happens next. If there’s any series that has come close to being what Game of Thrones once was, it’s this one.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant
Shōgun: Limited Series
(2024)
premieres on Tuesday, February 27 on FX and Hulu.
Thumbnail image by FX
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The 1980 television adaptation of James Clavell’s historical novel Shōgun is one of the most celebrated and influential miniseries of all time, so it was always going to be a daunting task to bring it back for a new generation. Acclaimed actor Hiroyuki Sanada, however, was up to the challenge, as he not only takes on the central role of powerful 16th century feudal lord Yoshii Toranaga but also serves as producer on the new FX series. He is flanked on screen by Cosmo Jarvis as shipwrecked English sailor John Blackthorne, who forms an unlikely alliance with Toranaga, and Anna Sawai as Lady Mariko, the interpreter assigned to Blackthorne.
Ahead of the series premiere of Shōgun, Sanada, Jarvis, and Sawai chatted with RT correspondent Nikki Novak about their work on the series, covering the painstaking process of translating the script, the challenges and rewards of representing feudal Japan authentically, the need to balance action with drama, and more.
Nikki Novak for Rotten Tomatoes: What was your first impression when you walked on set and you saw the scope of it? Give me a little bit of virtual reality. What were you seeing, smelling, touching. I wanted to live in that world… except for the violent part..
Anna Sawai: Yes, yes, yes, we don’t want that. I just remember going on set and you can smell the tatami floor, and just with that alone, you’re kind of transported to this very Japanese world. And wearing the kimono and having all that weight on you, and that’s kind of fixing your posture and the way you walk and the way you sit. You know, it changes the way you speak. I think all of it together really just made it very easy to feel like we were in 1600.
Cosmo Jarvis: The manpower and the scale of what had been built and the efforts that had gone into manifesting the fiction into reality and how many professionals within so many different departments had built everything and everything was just perfect as far as the eye could see. Plane of vision would be a village that had been built or a town or a castle. And the greens, the work that the greens did to make these trees and greenery, and the SFX team and what they had built… Just phenomenal effort all around.
Watch the video for the full interview with Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, and Cosmo Jarvis.
Shōgun: Limited Series
(2024)
premieres on Hulu and FX on February 27, 2024.
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If January was a little slow, February has caught up big time, offering a number of high-profile titles fans are absolutely clamoring for. The top three choices this month are all new interpretations of things we’ve seen before — FX’s Shogun, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith — and while we’d all probably like to see more original programming, these three titles in particular look good enough to silence the naysayers. Then we have the return of both popular Star Wars animated series The Bad Batch and Paramount+’s video game adaptation Halo.
Disagree with the results? Have your say in the comments.
No. 1
Shōgun: Limited Series (2024) (FX, Hulu)
#1 on Facebook and Instagram, #2 on X (tie)
Premieres: Tuesday, February 27
FX has been working on a new adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name — which has already seen a fairly iconic miniseries adaptation in 1980 — for about 11 years, and while that may not be common knowledge, it has to be a relief that anticipation for it is sky high. Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth) plays John Blackthorne, an English sailor who finds himself in the service of a Japanese feudal lord after a shipwreck; acclaimed actor Hiroyuki Sanada takes on the role of of that feudal lord, Yoshii Toranaga, which was played in the 1980 series by legendary screen icon Toshiro Mifune, while Anna Sawai (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) plays Lady Mariko, the translator assigned to Blackthorne to help him learn the culture. The series looks violent, epic in scope, and impeccably photographed, so it’s no wonder it rose to the top of the list.
How to Watch: FX, Hulu
No. 2
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Season 1 (2024) (Netflix)
#1 on X, #2 on Facebook and Instagram
Premieres: Thursday, February 22
M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action adaptation of the beloved Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of contemporary cinema’s most famous cautionary tales, rejected wholesale by fans of the show and people who generally enjoy, you know, well-made movies. So it is with some trepidation and much anticipation that we all look forward to Netflix’s new live-action adaptation, which is appropriately also a TV series and hopefully a more faithful rendering of the story.
How to Watch: Netflix
No. 3
Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Season 1 (2024) (Prime Video)
#2 on X (tie), #3 on Instagram, #4 on Facebook
Premieres: Friday, February 1
Speaking of new versions of things, we’re also getting an update of the film that, if nothing else, birthed the power couple we know as “Brangelina.” While the 2005 films starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie centered on a married couple who were both unaware of each other’s clandestine spy activities, this new Prime Video series stars Donald Glover (who also co-created the show) and Maya Erskine (PEN15, Blue Eye Samurai) as two strangers who willingly sign up to play a married couple for a shadowy agency. The series has already gotten high praise from critics, and fans of Glover’s Atlanta will be happy to know that producer Francesca Sloane and director Hiro Murai are also along for the ride.
How to Watch: Prime Video
No. 4
Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 3 (2024) (Disney+)
#4 on Instagram and X
Premieres: Wednesday, February 21
The Star Wars universe always has several plates spinning, and while we await live-action offerings like Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, and of course season 2 of Andor, we have the reliably solid The Bad Batch, which drops its third season Disney+ this month. This spin-off of The Clone Wars follows a band of clone trooper mercenaries on the run from the Empire, and the third season focuses on their efforts to reunite with Omega (voiced by Michelle Ang). Though the drop-off after the top three entries on this list was rather large, this series remains a fan favorite.
How to Watch: Disney+
No. 5
Halo: Season 2 (2024) (Paramount+)
#3 on Facebook
Premieres: Thursday, February 8
Finally, we have the sophomore season of Paramount+’s live-action adaptation of the popular video game series Halo, following the exploits of Pablo Schreiber’s Master Chief and his AI sidekick (sort of) Cortana, voiced by Jen Taylor. The first season earned a decent but somewhat lukewarm reception, with critics citing glimpses of higher potential, and so far it looks like season 2 has corrected course admirably, so here’s hoping fans of the games are a bit more satisfied with the end product.
How to Watch: Paramount+
Thumbnail image by Kurt Iswarienko/©FX
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There’s more than one blockbuster TV series about battles, intrigue, and warring dynasties. Before House of the Dragon swoops back onto screens this summer, FX is going to transport audiences to 17th-century Japan for Shōgun, a 10-episode limited series set to premiere on Hulu this February. Let’s unsheath our katana and cut right to the heart of everything there is to know about Shōgun.
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Shōgun is an adaptation of the acclaimed 1975 historical fiction novel by James Clavell of the same name. The series, like the book, tells the tale of an Englishman who arrives in Japan in the year 1600, just before the onset of a vicious civil war and the rise of a feudal lord (a daimyō) to the powerful position of shogunate. Here’s the official synopsis of the series, per FX:
“When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, its English pilot, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), comes bearing secrets that could help Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) tip the scales of power and devastate the formidable influence of Blackthorne’s own enemies — the Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants. Toranaga’s and Blackthorne’s fates become inextricably tied to their translator, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a mysterious Christian noblewoman and the last of a disgraced line. While serving her lord amidst this fraught political landscape, Mariko must reconcile her newfound companionship with Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her and her duty to her late father.”
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Although fictionalized quite a bit, Shōgun is based on true events and heavily inspired by real historical figures. John Blackthrone is a fictional character, but he’s modeled off of William Adams, who in real-life was the first Englishman to reach Japan, eventually becoming a samurai and serving as an advisor to the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who the book and show’s Lord Yoshii Toranaga is based on. The time period in which the series is set begins at the very end of Japan’s feudal period, and it deals with the start of the Edo period — a time of radical transformation of Japan under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate.
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Originally announced in 2018, Shōgun has been in the works for some time. Justin Marks, creator of the Starz sci-fi espionage series Counterpart, writer of the live-action Jungle Book and, co-writer of Top Gun: Maverick and The Jungle Book, created the series in its final form alongside his wife, writer Rachel Kondo.
Celebrated Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who has appeared in several high-profile Western movies and shows, plays Yoshii Toranaga. Sanada’s past credits include Ringu, The Last Samurai, the 2021 Mortal Kombat, Bullet Train, John Wick: Chapter 4, and HBO’s Westworld, among many others. Anna Sawai, a New Zealand actress of Japanese descent, plays Toda Mariko. Sawai is coming off a leading role in the Apple TV+ Godzilla series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and she also starred in Pachinko and F9. Cosmo Jarvis, a British actor who has appeared in films like Lady Macbeth, Calm With Horses, and Persuasion, plays John Blackthorne. Another veteran Japanese actor, Tadanobu Asano, who might be best known for playing Hogun, one of the Warriors Three in the MCU’s Thor movies, also stars as a daimyō who supports Toranaga.
The majority of the rest of the cast is made of Japanese actors who Western audiences likely aren’t familiar with. (At least, not yet.)
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
Shōgun is primarily in English, although given the setting and subject matter, you can probably expect significant parts of it to be in subtitled Japanese.
A teaser trailer, which is light on dialog and primarily showcases the series’ vibe and various action scenes, was released in November. A full trailer, which features more dialogue but is still fairly light on plot specifics, came out the same month.
In January, two new trailers for the show came out. One, a teaser, doesn’t reveal too much more than the two that came out last fall. The other, a red-band trailer, makes it clear that this is going to be a violent and sexy show, featuring a pretty graphic decapitation, people getting obliterated by a canon, and some quite revealing nudity.
(Photo by Kurt Iswarienko/FX)
The first two of Shōgun’s 10 episodes will premiere on Tuesday, February 27 on Hulu. The series will also air on cable television, premiering on the FX channel, but the exact airtime hasn’t been revealed yet. Subsequent episodes will drop weekly.
Shōgun: Limited Series (2024) debuts on FX and Hulu on Tuesday, February 27.
