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HOLLYWOOD’S MOST ATTRACTIVE FAMILIES

Keeping up with the Joneses has a whole new meaning when the Joneses pose together on the cover of Vogue. Is there any way mere mortals can compete with the sheer beauty of the Beckhams? Would we even be able to subsist on a diet of bee pollen and hours-long workout routines? Let’s face it: there’s pretty and then there’s Hollywood pretty.

Hollywood beauty knows no bounds, and when gorgeous people fall in love at A-list events (or even on the set of their blockbuster hits), they tend to eventually have gorgeous offspring. These offspring are somehow blessed enough to skip through the awkward phases of puberty (braces be darned) and end up walking runways at the same age we awkwardly tried to cover our acne with ill-matching concealer.

No matter how you put it, these families are the most attractive in Tinsel Town — from the Hadids to the Smiths. Let us bow down at their Louboutin-clad toes.

The Kardashian-Jenners

The Kardashians are basically the royal family of Hollywood — or in the very least, the E! network. Their look launched an army of Instagram models and a cottage industry of fast-fashion, designer rip-offs (here’s looking at you Fashion Nova). Kim even once x-rayed her famed behind to let the world know, once and for all, that it’s not an implant.

Ever since the family burst into the spotlight after Kim’s video leak, the girls have been making millions from their good looks and business savvy. Kim doesn’t just spark modern fashion trends, which are sometimes ripped off before she even wears her outfit outdoors. She’s Kanye West’s muse. West told The Hollywood Reporter the reality star was the “Marie Antoinette of our time.” But she’s not the only one of the sacred five sisters to inspire with her beauty. Kendall Jenner was named the highest paid model of 2018 by Forbes; Kylie Jenner built a $1 billion beauty empire from her famously plumped-up lips; and Khloe Kardashian snagged the reality series Revenge Body after an incredible weight loss transformation.

Their coveted looks also have some serious selling power. Collectively, Khloe, Kourtney, and Kim command $1 million to lock down sponsored Instagram posts, according to US Weekly. Meanwhile, CNBC reports that a single post from Kylie alone costs $1 million, making her the highest paid celebrity influencer on all of Instagram.

The Hadids

For the Hadids, beauty runs in the bloodline. The ladies are bona-fide supermodels, starting with Real Housewives star Yolanda Hadid, who came to New York City from Holland with just $55 to pursue a career in modeling, according to Money. The star, who was discovered by Eileen Ford, then spent the better part of the ’80s and ’90s traveling the world perfecting her craft for high-profile clients like Vogue and Grazia.

If you don’t recognize Yolanda for her modeling, you probably recognize her as mom to her uber-famous model children, Gigi, Bella and Anwar Hadid. Once the trio turned 18 they were allowed to jump into the fashion industry. Both Gigi and Bella graced Forbes’ 2017 list of highest-paid models in the world. Bella even went as far as to bleach her eyebrows for Prada.

Regardless of Gigi’s epic modeling credits, the true testament to the star’s good looks is the Taylor Swift stamp of approval. To officially join her girl squad, you’ve basically got be a wildly talented musician or so gorgeous it hurts (and we haven’t really heard much about Gigi’s musical prowess).

The Beckhams

The Beckhams basically hit the genetic lottery, not that they needed anymore cash. The family reportedly has more money than the Queen (and therefore should probably also own all the unmarked, wild swans in the UK, but that’s a debate for another time). When it comes down to it, there’s a reason Victoria got the role of Posh rather than Ginger, but keeping up appearances isn’t easy. It requires a strict workout regimen and more than a few spoonfuls of bee pollen (because “we can’t have wrinkles,” she told Vogue). If there was ever a reason to save the bees from extinction, it might just be Posh’s face.

The fashion designer, whose brand was worth an estimated $133 million in November 2017, also has gorgeous offspring. That’s apparently just what happens when a Spice Girl shacks up with a footballer-turned-underwear model (Elle even called David Beckham the “underwear model of the century”). According to Vanity Fair, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper were all “developing their personal brands” (yes, even a kindergartner can have a “personal brand” if their parents are famous enough). Harper could reportedly run in heels by the time she turned five, and Romeo made his modeling debut with Burberry at the ripe age of 10.

The Rosses

Diana Ross didn’t just pass her beauty (and stunning jawline) onto her five children — she passed on her talent. 44 years after her mom won a Golden Globe, Black-ish actress Tracee Ellis Ross took home the award for best actress in a comedy or musical for her role on the ABC series. Diana’s equally as handsome son (and husband to Ashlee Simpson) also inherited some massive skills. Evan has credits in The Hunger Games and 90210 and graced the Billboard charts with his wife in 2018.

Despite the family’s obvious talents, there’s one definitive trait Diana passed down to her offspring: looking totally glam under pressure. Tracee told the New York Times, “My mom had beautiful clothes; my mom is elegant; my mom is glamorous. But my mom is also really real, and I grew up with a mother who had babies crawling on her head and spitting up on her when she was wearing gorgeous, expensive things, and it was never an issue.”

The Stallones

Sylvester Stallone is just about as attractive as you’d expect for a notorious action star. Seriously, we’ve all seen him in Rocky. His glorious abs somehow catapulted the franchise into eight (eight!) different films. He passed his fit frame onto his trio of incredibly gorgeous daughters. Though an elderly Stallone still managed to take home a Golden Globe in 2016 for Creed, the seventh Rocky film, it was his three teenage daughters who stole the show the following year. According to People, Sophia, Sistine, and Scarlet, collectively won the title of Miss Golden Globes in 2017.

“I think that just being able to be with my sisters, [having] my best friends by my side, is going to make this experience absolutely memorable and something I’ll never forget,” second daughter, Sistine, told People.

That same year, the Stallone sisters graced the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, an honor reserved for the most beautiful stars on the planet. It’s not Vogue, but it’ll do. Did we mention their mother, Jennifer Flavin, is also a model?

The Gerbers

Cindy Crawford is one of the most famous models on the planet. Years after her iconic, Daisy Dukes-clad Pepsi commercial debuted, the then-middle-aged star recreated the look for Town & Country magazine. It was as stunning as ever, and as it turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber is her spitting image, and while she might not be prancing around in Daisy Dukes yet, the teenager took the globe’s various fashion weeks by storm. According to USA Today, the star “walked dozens of runways” for designers like Longchamp, Anna Sui, Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs in New York, Milan, and Paris for each city’s respective fashion weeks in 2019. After an undeniably long month of jet-setting and walking in heels, the star was scooped from the airport by her brother and chowed down on fast food on the way home. Hey, that In-N-Out was well deserved.

Crawford’s son Presley Gerber is also a model. According to TMZ, the star has been signed to IMG for years and worked on campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana and Paris Vogue.

The Smiths

Admit it: most of us grew up having a crush on Will Smith. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was indeed fresh — and he still is. Both Will and Jada Pinkett Smith seem immune to the unfortunate but painfully human trait of aging (Hello, Illuminati). The reigning couple of staying eternally youthful has passed the crown onto their offspring Jaden and Willow Smith, who consistently make the fashion world scratch their heads in the best possible way.

Jaden has a knack for breaking down gender barriers, like when he modeled Louis Vuitton dresses in 2016. He also wore a Batman suit to Kim Kardashian’s wedding, leading most of us to believe he confused the American phrase “fancy dress” for the British phrase for costume party. Though really, he shouldn’t have been wearing white.

Jaden isn’t the sole Smith child taking the fashion world by storm. In 2015, Willow signed to The Society Management (the same folks who manage Kendall Jenner) and became the face of Marc Jacobs’ 2015 fall-winter campaign. She also starred in a 2017 Chanel advertisement.

The Harveys

Steve Harvey has a large family. According to Essence, he became a father of seven when he married Marjorie Harvey in 2007. He basically doubled his family’s attractiveness by adding Marjorie’s three children into the mix. Here’s the whole rundown of the insanely attractive Harvey clan:

Lori Harvey, the youngest of the crew, is a muse to celebrity makeup artist Pat McGrath. You might know him by his $125 eyeshadow palettes. She told W Magazine that one must “always cleanse and moisturize your neck and decollete, not just your face,” so we’re already assuming she’ll probably never age. Jason, who is married to a model and runs the luxury footwear company Yevrah, walked a Dolce & Gabbana show alongside Lori and his mom in 2017.

Twins Brandi and Karli are a fitness instructor and fashion columnist, respectively. In other words, they teach people how to look good for a living. Wynton, Steve’s youngest, has also dabbled in modeling and styling like Lori and Jason. According to Essence, Broderick is a “fashion enthusiast” (which totally shows), and Morgan Hawthorne is a food blogger (which means she undeniably knows her way around a camera). Finally, there’s matriarch Marjorie, who wore no less than 10 ensembles to Paris Fashion Week in the fall of 2016. Of course her kids have style.

The Braxtons

We already knew big sister Toni Braxton was the most famous of the Braxton bunch. The girl has a whopping 7 Grammy wins and a total of 11 nominations. She’s stunned on Broadway and navigated her way in and out of bankruptcy (apparently, she can un-break her bank the same way she un-break a heart). Let’s not forget the time she nearly posed in Playboy, as if we didn’t have enough proof of her stunning good looks.

“The women are beautiful. I thought about it,” she said during a 20/20 interview (via ABC News). “The money was tempting, but I’m thinking, I have kids, I have a son, I have boys. What are their friends going to say?”

The rest of the Braxtons have been living it up on reality TV since 2011 with their long-running series Braxton Family Values. Youngest sister Tamar undeniably has a face and attitude built for the genre. The reality star also co-hosted The Real for three years. In 2017, she released her final studio album Bluebird of Happiness.

The Simmonses

Ming and Aoki Lee with Russell SimmonsRussell Simmons and Kimora Lee have absolutely stunning offspring. Though sons Kenzo Lee and Wolfe Lee are undeniably good looking, the pair’s two daughters are a fashion force to be reckoned with. Both girls served as models for Kimora’s Baby Phat designs. In 2017, they posed together in Kimora’s lookbook for her eponymous line. Ming even wore one of her mother’s designs to prom. Yet, people have the audacity to tell Aoki that she’s “not as pretty” as her mom and sister. In an Instagram Stories post (via E! News), Aoki revealed the real reason she started sharing more photos of her face on the social network.

“I used to be very picky about pictures and not really show my face,” she said (via E! News). “And would often not post pictures of cool events or important moments because I didn’t like my smile or I was standing next to my beautiful sister. It’s easy to get insecure when your sister and mom are models.”

Ming reposted the message and added, “I literally aspire to be my sister.” It just goes to show you, even the most beautiful teens battle insecurity. Having such a stunning family isn’t easy.

The Hamlins

The HamlinsMost millennials know Lisa Rinna from her drama-filled role on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but the actress is used to a life in the spotlight. The soap opera star spent years on Days of our Lives as the fiercely beautiful Billie Reed, reprising her role in 2018. If Reed ever needed a younger stand-in, Rinna could enlist her daughter Delilah Belle Hamlin (above middle), who’s the spitting image of her gorgeous mom. It’s pretty uncanny.

Both of Rinna’s daughters, Delilah and Amelia Gray Hamlin, are naturally stunning. That’s just happens when your DNA comes from a soap star and 1987’s sexiest man alive. Their good genes have absolutely rocked the fashion world. Amelia, who’s signed to Women 360 Management New York, strutted down the catwalk with other celebri-spawn in a secret Dolce & Gabbana show during Milan Fashion Week in 2017. Though older sister Delilah is more focused on her studies at NYU, she still rocked the runway for Tommy x Gigi (Gigi Hadid’s Tommy Hilfiger capsule collection) during NYFW in 2016.

The Baldwins

The Baldwins are so attractive that even their offspring is in awe. Ireland Baldwin signed to DT Model Management in 2015, according to E! News, and definitely got her good looks from papa Alec Baldwin and mama Kim Basinger, the sex icon from the 1986 blockbuster 9 ½ Weeks. “I have no idea how people are born this beautiful,” Ireland once captioned an Instagram photo of her famous mother.

Moving onto the other side of Baldwin family, Hailey Baldwin, daughter of Stephen and Kennya Baldwin, signed to IMG Models, who helped her land covers at some of the most sought-after fashion magazines. Think: Elle, Marie Claire and Vogue, where she posed alongside her husband, singer-slash-Calvin Klein model Justin Bieber. Incidentally, Bieber’s Calvin Klein ad was so swoon-worthy, it helped catapult sales by a whopping 13 percent, according to Racked.

Hailey’s good looks are so innate that she didn’t even try to model. “It’s not something I always wanted to do,” she told the Yahoo Style (via The Daily Mail). “It was something that just started happening naturally.”

The Hawn-Hudsons

Brigitte Bardot might have popularized curtain bangs, but Goldie Hawn perfected them. The blonde beauty broke into Hollywood in the late ’60s and became known for her signature blonde hair and gorgeous smile. She won an Oscar in 1970 for Cactus Flower and was nominated for 9 Golden Globes throughout her career, but her crowning achievement might just be giving birth to Fabletics guru and actress Kate Hudson. The pair pretty much look like sisters — and they’re just as close.

“I’ve always had a really super open relationship with her,” Kate told E! News in 2016. “I talk about everything. I’m like the person who comes home and can’t hide anything.”

Though Hudson might be the spitting image of her mother, it’s actually a lot of work being that darn gorgeous. When the starlet graduated from her 20s, she started getting serious about her skincare. Previously, her skincare routine consisted of a very relatable nothing (she told The Telegraph she let her skin “take care of itself”). Today, the La Mer brand ambassador follows no less than five daily steps including applying a moisturizing cream, an anti-oxidant serum and an SPF.

The Johnsons

Melanie Griffith has been making the rounds in Hollywood since the ’70s. The Working Girl actress was nominated for an Oscar in 1989, and though she’s a time-tested star and undeniable beauty, her daughter Dakota Johnson is slowly stealing the family spotlight.

Let’s be real: anyone who’s seen any single film in the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy knows its popularity didn’t come from the franchise’s gripping plotlines. It was Johnson’s incredible beauty and steamy scenes with co-star Jamie Dornan that led the franchise to gross more than $1.3 billion worldwide. Johnson’s part was so revealing that Griffith and father Don Johnson never made it to the theater.

“It’s inappropriate for them. But they’re OK about it,” Johnson told Hello! (via The Evening Standard). “They don’t judge me on what projects I decide to do in my work. They judge me on what kind of human I am to other humans.”

The Combses

Diddy has always been a fashion icon. The rap mogul first dabbled in the world of luxury clothing with Sean John in 1998. According to Racked, his runway shows were frequented by celebs like Paris Hilton and Anna Wintour. He even purchased “a 50% partnership” in Zac Posen’s line. That kind of talent didn’t stray far from the family tree. The bad boy has an equally as stylish son who made waves after walking two Dolce & Gabbana fashion shows in Milan, according to W Magazine. Christian Combs is the spitting image of his father, who happened to teach him the modeling ropes when he first starred in a Sean John campaign.

“He was teaching me how to pose, how to look into the camera and have my swag on… that was definitely a memorable moment,” he told Essence. “He said, ‘give ’em the eye of the tiger and stay in your zone!'”

Christian isn’t the only Combs sibling making waves. Diddy’s twin daughters D’Lila and Jessie, along with sister Chance, made their break into the world of modeling in 2014. People reports the trio starred in a spring/summer campaign for Ruum American Kid’s Wear.

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Entertainment

Summer box office heats up as weekend ticket sales top $160M

The summer box office is off to a sizzling start — and it’s only getting started.

Over the weekend, domestic ticket sales topped $161 million, a nearly 88% improvement over the same three-day frame in 2025. Disney and 20th Century Studio’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2” led the pack, adding $41.6 million during its second week, followed by Warner Bros.′ “Mortal Kombat II,” which snared $38.5 million during its opening. Lionsgate’s “Michael” brought in another $37.9 million in its third week in theaters.

The weekend was bolstered by new releases like Amazon MGM’s “The Sheep Detectives” and Paramount’s “Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour” as well as holdovers from Universal’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which is in its sixth week, and Amazon’s “Project Hail Mary,” which is in its eighth week.

Together, they made for a standout weekend at the movies as the industry chases a $10 billion annual U.S. box office.

“The second weekend in May often provides solid returns from newcomers that bridge the gap between the opening weekend of the summer and the important Memorial Weekend coming up in about 2 weeks,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore. “But the impressive long-term playability of ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ and ‘Project Hail Mary’ serve as a reminder of the vital importance of holdover strength to the overall health of the industry.”

Of the top 10 performers of the weekend, seven were returning titles. Five of those films reported a drop in ticket sales of less than 50% from the prior weekend, according to data from Comscore.

For box office analysts this is an important metric. Typically, movies will see a 50% to 70% drop each weekend. When ticket sales post smaller declines week after week, it means a film is generating strong word-of-mouth buzz and new moviegoers are buying tickets — or that audiences are returning to see the film again.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” saw a 46% drop in second-week ticket sales, “Michael” declined just 30% between its second and third week in theaters, and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” saw a 45% dip from its fifth to sixth weekend. Most impressive is “Project Hail Mary,” which fell just 23% in its eighth week. Ticket sales for Neon’s “Hokum” were down 49% in its second week.

These trends bode well for the domestic box office. Through Sunday, the 2026 calendar has generated $3.02 billion, a 16% jump from the same period last year, Comscore data shows.

“From a high-level view, it’s fair to suggest escapism and ease of access may be important factors,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “Historically, while ticket prices have also increased over time, going to the theater remains one of the more affordable out-of-house entertainment options for individuals, couples, and families who may or may not have spring and summer vacation plans in flux due to other economic uncertainties and hardships.”

Ticket sales still lag from 2019 levels, the last true benchmark before the pandemic stymied moviegoing. At this point in the year in 2019, the box office had secured $3.8 billion domestically. However, more than $720 million of that was from the record-breaking release of Disney and Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame.”

The summer movies season, which runs from the first weekend in May through Labor Day in September, is also about to get a boost from several blockbuster titles.

Disney’s first new Star Wars theatrical release in seven years arrives in late May with “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” It will be followed by Pixar’s “Toy Story 5″ in June alongside Warner Bros. “Supergirl.” Then in July, Disney has the live-action “Moana,” Universal is set to release Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

“Ebbs and flows will naturally occur within the full year’s box office narrative as they always have,” Robbins said. “Momentum is as good as the most recent hit or misfire, but the bottom line right now is that the industry is enjoying something near a best-case realistic scenario with so much success on the books before the heart of a high-potential summer movie season fully arrives”

CNBC

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Johnny Depp’s gray hair transformation was far from his signature look

When preparing to make his return to the silver screen, Johnny Depp donned new silver locks to go with it. Before the 2025 announcement that he’d been cast in a Lionsgate project, Depp had been out of the limelight for some time, with his last major motion picture being 2018’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Afterward, Depp shifted toward smaller projects, while the public shifted its focus to his public trial with his ex-wife Amber Heard, which occurred in 2022. But a few years later, he landed lead roles in two larger films, both of which would require major physical transformations.

The actor isn’t unfamiliar with switching up his look entirely for a role in a film. Depp has been able to shift his way through various roles, from Edward Scissorhands to the Mad Hatter, taking his audience by surprise every time. But in 2025, he swapped out his typical dark brown hair for silver for the film “Day Drinker,” directed by Marc Webb. In it, Depp plays a mysterious blue-eyed, gray-haired guest onboard a private yacht who forms an unlikely connection with a bartender, played by Madelyn Cline. Depp’s look for the film is quite striking and is completed by a dyed gray beard to match his altered features. It seems that fans love Depp’s silver fox look. One took to X, writing, “Personally, I think Johnny Depp looks much better with the gray hair. He definitely should stop dying it and go au naturel.”

Ghosts of defamation trials past might always haunt Johnny Depp after his return to Hollywood

This isn’t the only major transformation Johnny Depp has signed up for. Also in 2025, it was announced that he would be starring in Ti West’s “Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol” as the titular Ebenezer Scrooge. With horror guru West directing, Depp had to be prepared to take the classic Charles Dickens tale to some dark places. He also looks unrecognizable as Scrooge, donning gray hair in a completely different way than his handsome character in “Day Drinker.” With old age makeup and gray mutton chops, Depp’s transformation is certainly shocking.

Upon the release of the first-look photos of Depp on set, there were some mixed feelings about his return to the big screen. On one hand, people seemed happy that he was working again, with one commenting on an Instagram post, “Love the way Johnny can transform so incredibly.” On the other hand, it seems that many haven’t moved on from his 2022 defamation trial, with one person commenting, “Men can really abuse women without any accountability or punishment and just get right back to work.” As a reminder, the jury found that Amber Heard had defamed her ex-husband, resulting in a legal victory for Depp. It appears that the highly publicized case will continue to haunt Depp throughout his return to Hollywood, despite his win.

Nicki Swift

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Entertainment

The Wizard of the Kremlin’ Review: The New Rasputin

History is littered with stories of the man behind the man — the one who was pulling the strings, orchestrating the movements, watching it all happen. Though text at the start of “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” directed by Olivier Assayas, informs us that this film is a “work of fiction with artistic intent,” it is based, in part, on the story of such a man: Vladislav Surkov, a Russian politician and businessman who was a close aide to the Russian president Vladimir Putin until being abruptly dismissed in 2020. Surkov was considered by some to be both an éminence grise in the Kremlin and a spin doctor, manipulating the media to maintain control.

His avatar in this movie is Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a man with a gentle demeanor and sophisticated taste in art and literature. The screenplay, which Assayas wrote with Emmanuel Carrère based on Giuliano da Empoli’s 2022 novel, introduces us to Baranov via an American journalist and scholar of Russia named Lawrence Rowland (Jeffrey Wright). Rowland has written an article about Baranov in Foreign Affairs magazine — “Vadim Baranov and the

Invention of Fake Democracy” — and it seems to have attracted the attention of Baranov himself. While in Moscow in 2019, Rowland exchanges messages over social media regarding the 1924 proto-Orwellian novel “We,” by the Bolshevik writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, with a person he does not know. Accepting his correspondent’s invitation to talk in person, he travels to their country home, and discovers that it is Baranov himself.

From there, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” largely takes the form of a story within a story. Baranov walks Rowland through his life, explaining what Rowland got right and what he got wrong in his article, though it feels as if Baranov is rummaging back over his life looking for the answer to a question he can’t quite articulate to himself.

It begins with Baranov’s student days in the early 1990s, in the heady “new Russia,” just after Soviet communism had collapsed. Everything felt possible and money flowed freely. As Baranov recalls it, those days felt like a never-ending bash, or maybe an orgy, where you might watch a naked man on a leash follow a punk rock singer around at a house party. As an avant-garde theater student and then director, Baranov lived a life of art and poetry with his girlfriend, Ksenia (Alicia Vikander). When the vulgar but fun Dmitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge), the inventor of Russia’s first commercial bank, enters their lives, things grow brighter, then more sour.

But Baranov moves on, taking a job in trashy reality television production, and this is where the historical tale begins to take shape. “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is really a movie about how Russia went from those heady post-Soviet days to the rise of the oligarchy to, eventually, the establishment of Vladimir Putin (a mostly chilling Jude Law) as president, a former K.G.B. officer who valued power over money. The oligarchs who choose Putin as Boris Yeltsin’s successor realize too late that this man will not be their pawn. “What interests me is restoring integrity to the Russian Federation,” he tells Baranov. And that means consolidating power — in himself.

Baranov, with his talent for weaving a story, is useful to Putin, and at this point he has little idealism left. As he grows nihilistic, believing that truth is whatever he wishes to make of it, so does his country. A background in theater and reality TV proves useful: He turns out to be a communications genius, figuring out how to manipulate political theater to not just represent reality, but invent it. They call him “the new Rasputin.”

As you may already have surmised from the casting, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is not in Russian; the actors speak in English, which suggests this is an account of Russian history intended for non-Russian audiences. Even with its 136-minute running time, that’s a lot of ground to cover, so it moves at a good clip. This has an interesting dramatizing effect: We see history progress through Baranov’s eyes in broad arcs, and figures like Putin, who often occupy daily headlines, become more like characters in a play.

And while that can result in the oversimplification of a person, it can also be useful when trying to figure out why a person does the things they do. In a play or a movie, people have roles, psychological traits and motivations that drive their character arcs. Here, the lightly fictionalized version of an authoritarian is driven not by the desire for something like money, like the oligarchs, but by the desire for power. Projecting an image of strength is part of that desire; propaganda is the means by which one does this.

It’s a useful framework for understanding leaders around the world, and Baranov is the ideal cipher, someone who intimately understands how easily people’s minds are swayed and molded. That peek behind the curtain is the greatest strength of “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” and also its scariest element: The notion that in an age where truth can be manufactured, the people doing the manufacturing hold so much of reality in their hands. But even they can also be tossed aside when they stop being useful to the powerful. And then what was the point of all that wizardry?

The New York times

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