Technology

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things is almost here, with trailers and featurettes giving us a worrying glimpse at what fate awaits the town of Hawkins.

And now, Netflix is just straight up giving you the first five minutes — and it connects all the way to Season 1.

We're back in Castle Byers, when a young Will (Noah Schnapp) was pulled into the Upside Down in Stranger Things' very first season. He's hiding in his DIY fort from the dreaded Demogorgon, quietly singing The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" (the track that saved him), before he's attacked, pursued, gives the Demogorgon a right royal smacking, then is hauled into none other than Vecna's (Jamie Campbell Bower) lair in the Creel House. There, he endures Vecna's soul sucking wrath — a fate he was saved from by his mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) in the first season.

But from the prickling sensation on the back of our necks (and the trailer), we know it ain't over.

From the glimpses we've had so far, we know we'll probably head back to the show's present after this, to fall 1987, a year after the Season 4 finale, where Hawkins has been ripped apart by the Upside Down rifts. WE'RE NOT READY (but we very much are).

Volume 1 of Stranger Things Season 5 premieres Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix. Volume 2 premieres Dec. 26, and the series finale premieres Dec. 31.

I love my old and beat-up Toyota Tacoma truck, but the upgraded stereo still doesn't support wireless Android Auto. Unless you have a newer vehicle, yours probably doesn't, either. After trying multiple different dongles to convert it into a wireless experience, I can confidently say the AAWireless TWO is the only one worth buying.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: How to play Pips, the newest NYT game

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Friday, Nov. 7, 2025:

AcrossToddler's go-to question

• The answer is Why.

Sound heard during cold season

• The answer is Achoo.

Move stealthily, like a cat

• The answer is Slink.

Breadcrumb coating in Japanese cuisine

• The answer is Panko.

Conduct surveillance

• The answer is Spy.

DownProne to complaining

• The answer is Whiny.

Sound heard during cold season

• The answer is Honk.

Artist/musician Ono

• The answer is Yoko.

Egyptian vipers

• The answer is Asps.

Show appreciation for a performance

• The answer is Clap.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to the latest Mini Crossword.

A space rock slammed into the moon just days ago, lighting up at the surface so brightly, it was briefly visible from Earth through telescopes. 

Daichi Fujii, curator at Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan, recorded the impact. Fujii, who started looking for lunar impact flashes in 2011, keeps an eye fixed on the moon through several 8-inch aperture telescopes, mostly based in Hiratsuka, about midway between Tokyo and Mount Fuji. What makes this new sighting astounding is that it was the second flash he had captured hitting the moon since last Thursday. 

The latest impact happened Nov. 1 near Oceanus Procellarum, a large, dark lava plain whose name means Ocean of Storms. The event followed a bright burst just two days earlier near the Gassendi Crater. Each blink of light lasted a mere fraction of a second, but they punctuated strikes from rocks whizzing at about 60,000 mph, according to Fujii, who posted videos of the flashes on X. 

These events, which can be watched below, serve as a reminder that though the moon may seem immutable from a 240,000-mile distance, its surface is frequently changing, pocked by countless craters. 

"In the near future, the lunar environment will change significantly due to private space business, including an increase in space debris and artificial impact flashes in cislunar space," Fujii told Mashable. "I wish to document the current, natural lunar environment before these changes occur."

SEE ALSO: NASA's prospective boss posts 2,000 words on X. It's damage control. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

On Earth, about 73,000 pounds of space dust and rock rain down on the planet every day. Almost all of that debris burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere. But the moon, with a barely there exosphere, has no such protection. Even pebbles hit its surface at ultra-high speeds, from 45,000 to 160,000 mph. At that speed, a 10-pound rock, about the weight of a light bowling ball, could blast out a crater 30 feet wide and lift more than 80 tons of moondust.

Even chunks just a few feet wide can cause immense damage when they fall to Earth. NASA has previously estimated that a 100 to 170-foot-wide asteroid could level a small city. In 2013, a 60-foot meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring 1,600 people.

Astronomers watch these lunar impacts to learn how often — and how hard — space rocks hit. This helps scientists predict risks to spacecraft because large meteors could destroy satellites or, perhaps in the future, lunar outposts. Though Earth's atmosphere lets researchers measure small meteors with radar, they need a giant target area, like the moon's surface, to study the bigger ones. Fujii calls the moon an efficient "meteoroid detector." 

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The Earth and moon are both subject to comet debris, which result in meteor showers, but how these events affect the two bodies differs.

"On Earth these showers are capable of producing spectacular celestial fireworks displays, delighting the public," according to NASA. "On the airless moon, however, these showers are swarms of high energy projectiles, producing fireworks only when they strike the surface with tremendous force." 

Other telescopes in Japan observed the same bursts as Fujii from different angles, which supports that these were indeed meteoroid impacts rather than other occurrences, such as optical artifacts or cosmic ray interference, that also can cause quick flashes. 

Daichi Fujii's observation setup includes several 8-inch aperture telescopes, mostly based in Hiratsuka, Japan. Credit: Daichi Fujii

The origins of these two space rocks are unknown, but their timing coincides with the annual Northern and Southern Taurids meteor showers, which both peak in November. The Taurids, a group of pebble-sized fragments from the Comet Encke, are having a so-called "swarm year," meaning Earth is passing through a region of space with a particularly high volume of comet debris. 

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Even with continuous monitoring, which Fujii began doing five years ago, he still only records one lunar impact flash every few dozen hours of observations. The thin crescent moon, which provides the large dark area needed for these observations, is only visible during dusk or dawn, he said. 

To date, he's only seen about 60, so, even after all this time, he still gets a thrill out of finding one — or, in this case, two. 

"Capturing a bright flash always brings a huge sense of excitement," he said.

After Hours. Do the Right Thing. In the Heights. When Harry Met Sally. They're movies with very different plots and vibes, and yet all are definitively New York. Now the canon of exceptionally New York movies has grown, thanks to Bunny. 

The directorial debut of Ben Jacobson, Bunny centers on an East Village tenement resident whose very bad birthday is a tapestry of chaos, community, and characters that are undeniably the fabric of New York City. Like the iconic cinema listed above, Bunny channels the energy of this great city, while also embracing its funkier elements. This fantastic, funny, and surprising indie is also an unapologetic and unsentimental love letter to New York. 

But what's it about? 

Bunny is a story of a hustler and the motley community that loves him. 

Co-writer Mo Stark stars a Bunny, an East Village resident whose life — and tenement apartment — is very, very hectic. "Today I fucked up," Bunny explains in a voiceover over home movies of his wife Bobbie (a sizzling Liza Colby), his best friend Dino (co-writer/director Ben Jacobson), and their maternal landlady Linda (Linda Rong Mei Chen). "I upended the lives of the people I love most, my family." 

At the start of the day, this eponymous protagonist is racing down the street. His long, dirty-blond hair whips behind him as blood dribbles from his chin and goatee, down his neck, and onto a cream-colored knitted top. We won't learn what he's running from until later. But it relates to his job, being a "gigolo, like Richard Gere, but not that fancy." 

Bunny won't slow down to explain what's going on. Instead, no sooner has he washed the blood from his body than Bobbie — wearing translucent lingerie and a big smile — introduces him to his birthday present, a threesome with her friend Daphne (Eleonore Hendricks) and "the best Molly that can be found in the tri-state area." But Bunny's in no mood to party. There's business to attend to. 

For starters, an Airbnb guest named Happy Chana — never just "Chana" — is coming to rent their spare room. As an Orthodox Jew, she (Genevieve Hudson-Price) has specific needs that Bunny must meet or else lose the needed rental fee. Then, while Bobbie's out, her estranged father (Tony Drazan) drops by, only to be swept up by Dino's influence — and his edibles. Before Bunny can catch his breath, there are a couple of corpses to deal with and a murder to cover up. It's a real bad birthday, but at least he has his family to help him through. 

Chaotic comedy makes Bunny brilliant. 

This East Village tenement is stocked floor to ceiling with colorful characters who have little in common but their love for each other. Bunny and Bobbie are adored by real-talking Linda, impulsive but protective Dino, an elderly neighbor with moxie named Ian (Richard Price), and a trio of twentysomething party girls, all of whom will have a part to play in helping Bunny through the worst birthday of his life. Far from hiding a homicide from them, Bunny drops a corpse of a "bad man" on the linoleum floor for a brainstorming session. How do they dump a body in this bustling neighborhood — especially when there's a pair of chummy cops (Liz Caribel Sierra and Ajay Naidu) hanging around outside? 

Stark, Jacobson, and co-writer Stefan Marolachakis create a script that is joltingly alive. Cultures collide from scene to scene with the enthralling melting pot energy of hundreds of NYC neighborhoods. As a character-driven film, there's a panoply of minor conflicts, about birthday plans, roommate etiquette, and the best way to fold a corpse into a rolling suitcase. But when it comes to helping one of their own, these free spirits, neurotics, and weirdos all come together as the family they are, bound by years of shared space and energy. 

The superb casting of this film lends authenticity, avoiding famous faces and leaning into an effusive and even volatile chemistry amid the ensemble. Watching Bunny, New Yorkers might not only recognize figures from their own neighborhoods, but will also feel a part of this tenement, tangled in the intoxicating energy of excitement, gossip, and community. New York is a city of strangers who form families, and Bunny explores those bonds through a funny and unpredictable family drama. Because what's a corpse between friends?

Mo Stark is a star in Bunny. 

Too often, when filmmakers write and star in their movies, the result can be a bloated vanity project (Belfast) or a treacly bit of fluff that paints their character as an underappreciated genius (Cha Cha Real Smooth). Bunny avoids these pitfalls as Stark and Jacobson firmly commit to the goofball core of their characters. 

Bunny is a himbo with a heart of gold but a much messier past than Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Dino is ride-or-die, but also dangerously impulsive. Together, they are a duo I'd watch go on a bodega run, just because they are so vivid and fun. Every moment together vibrates with their deep love for each other, and a broader, radiant interest in those around them. This is the New York I know and love, and it's a pleasure to see it captured, warts and all. Because yeah, for every hot baddie stomping down the sidewalk to the beat of her own drum, there's a mercurial oddball looking to fart into a cop car window or otherwise quirk up your day. 

Don’t miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google.

Yet within this swirl of eccentrics, Stark keeps his head above water, maintaining a focus and direction as Bunny forges ahead. Far from taking control of a situation like some stodgy suit or cop might, Bunny is more wrangling alley cats as he leaps from problems personal, professional, and criminal with the agility of an Alvin Ailey dancer. He's a rock to his tenement mates. And the joyful reveal of this crime-comedy is that when he needs a rock, they will be that for him, too. Stark so beautifully grounds the film in its unconventional opening of voiceover and unexplained blood that for the whole film, whatever wild shit goes down, we are bound to Bunny, rooting for him just like the rest of his circle does. We truly feel like one of them, caught up in the warmth and ferocity of their bond. 

Simply put, Bunny is a quirky, gritty indie crime-comedy/New York family drama that achieves a lot with a little. Primarily set in one location, with no major stars in its charismatic ensemble, it's an underdog story both on and off screen. You feel the hustle of Bunny in every frame. Alive, exciting, funny, and original, Bunny is gem not to be overlooked. 

Bunny opens in select theaters and on VOD on Nov. 14. However, early access screenings in New York begin on Nov. 7.

TL;DR: Live stream Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors in the NBA Cup for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

There are a number of really interesting NBA Cup games taking place this week, including Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors. Both teams will have their sight's set on greater success this season, so it'll be fascinating to see how they approach this competition. Will we see veteran stars giver everything to progress?

If you want to watch Nuggets vs. Warriors in the NBA Cup for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Nuggets vs. Warriors?

Nuggets vs. Warriors in the NBA Cup starts at 10 p.m. ET on Nov. 7. This game takes place at the Ball Arena.

How to watch Nuggets vs. Warriors for free

Nuggets vs. Warriors in the NBA Cup is available to live stream for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.

This free live stream is geo-restricted to the UK and U.S., but anyone can secure access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK or U.S., meaning you can access free live streams of the NBA from anywhere in the world.

Stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime (if you're not already a member)

2. Subscribe to a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

3. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

4. Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK or U.S.

5. Watch the NBA from anywhere in the world on Prime Video

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Learn More

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA Cup before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for the NBA?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing free live streams on platforms like Prime Video, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream the NBA Cup for free with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: Live stream San Antonio Spurs vs. Houston Rockets in the NBA Cup for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The NBA Cup has started with a number of really interesting group stage matchups, and we're expecting big things from San Antonio Spurs vs. Houston Rockets. Winning the NBA is really difficult, especially for young teams like the Spurs. So could this tournament represent the best opportunity for Victor Wembanyama to earn some silverware?

If you want to watch Spurs vs. Rockets in the NBA Cup for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Spurs vs. Rockets?

Spurs vs. Rockets in the NBA Cup starts at 7:30 p.m. ET on Nov. 7. This game takes place at the Frost Bank Center.

How to watch Spurs vs. Rockets for free

Spurs vs. Rockets in the NBA Cup is available to live stream for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.

This free live stream is geo-restricted to the UK and U.S., but anyone can secure access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK or U.S., meaning you can access free live streams of the NBA from anywhere in the world.

Stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime (if you're not already a member)

2. Subscribe to a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

3. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

4. Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK or U.S.

5. Watch the NBA from anywhere in the world on Prime Video

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Learn More

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA Cup before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for the NBA?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing free live streams on platforms like Prime Video, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream the NBA Cup for free with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: Enjoy online security and freedom anywhere with this Deeper Connect Air Portable Decentralized VPN Travel Router, on sale now for just $169 (reg. $219).

Opens in a new window Credit: Deeper Connect Deeper Connect Air Portable Decentralized VPN Travel Router $169
$219 Save $50   Get Deal

Whether you’re a frequent traveler or simply want to browse the web securely at home, it’s good to have a reliable VPN at your disposal. This Deeper Connect Air Portable Decentralized VPN Travel Router takes things one step further, offering next-level privacy and no geographical restrictions, wherever you go.

Right now, before the holiday travel season commences, you can secure one for just $169 (reg. $219) — no monthly subscriptions required.

SEE ALSO: Should you pay for a VPN?

Be prepared for that trip to the in-laws or your exotic New Year’s getaway with the Deeper Connect Air Portable Decentralized VPN Travel Router. It provides military-grade encryption on the go, so your data stays safe anywhere — even on public WiFi around the world.

If you want to watch your favorite Netflix series from Bora Bora, it’s no problem with the Deeper Connect Air. It bypasses geographical restrictions, allowing you to access your favorite streaming services from anywhere. And you’ll be streaming seamlessly thanks to the powerful 300 Mbps connection.

Have kids in the house? You can use this on up to five devices simultaneously, and there are also parental controls to keep your kids safer online with just one click. It also includes an ad blocker, so you’ll all enjoy a more peaceful internet experience.

While many VPNs require hefty monthly subscription fees, you pay once for the Deeper Connect Air and enjoy the security for life. It offers a super-easy setup — just plug and play, with no configuration needed — and is pocket-sized, so it’s ready to tag along anywhere.

Browse the web with peace of mind thanks to this Deeper Connect Air Portable Decentralized VPN Travel Router, on sale now for just $169.00 (reg. $219).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to the latest Connections.

Seeing Stephen King references pop up in Joe Hill's latest horror novel, King Sorrow, is a fun surprise for the reader — but in another sense it's not that surprising at all.

Hill, a successful horror writer and King's son, started out his career under a different surname from his father in order to remain anonymous.

"I didn't want to get published because I had a famous parent, and I was very insecure," he told Mashable. "I needed to know for my self worth, that when I sold something, I sold for the right reasons."

Hill's identity became public knowledge after the publication of his first book, and in the decades since he's become increasingly comfortable with the association. He's spoken about his father in author's notes and co-wrote two stories with him for his 2019 collection Full Throttle. Now, in his latest novel, there are references to at least three of his dad's most famous works.

"In a way, we are all the children of Stephen King."

"King Sorrow, even more than any of my other books, is in conversation with the work of Stephen King," Hill explained. "I love my dad's work, and I kind of love celebrating my dad. I'm a huge Stephen King fan, too. The other thing though that I realized, you know, I had a thought a while back, which is, I write horror fiction, and me and every other person who writes horror fiction, in a way, are all the children of Stephen King. We're all Stephen King's kids. But I might be the only one who can get away with actually sticking some of his stuff into my book."

We asked Hill to break down the different Stephen King references in King Sorrow, and why he decided to include them.

SEE ALSO: 10 of the best Stephen King book endings The Dead Zone Credit: Mashable / Hodder Paperback

Early on in the novel, the six main friends have a conversation that directly references Johnny Smith and Greg Stillson, two of the main characters in King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone — an exchange Hill described as "amusing but also highly functional."

"It's more than an Easter egg," said Hill, explaining that he wanted his novel to be about a cross-section of America and was looking for a way to position each of his characters on a different point on the political spectrum. A reference to Greg Stillson — a populist right wing politician in King's The Dead Zone who has been compared to Donald Trump — was the perfect vehicle for this.

"I saw in talking about the acts of John Smith from The Dead Zone an amusing opportunity to position them each very clearly for the reader about what are their views," Hill said. "And I feel like in a page, by the time that page is over, you're like, oh, I get where every single one of these characters is coming from."

The Dark Tower Credit: Mashable / Hodder Paperback

During the chapter of King Sorrow where the main characters first summon the novel's titular dragon, they each take part in their own ritual that forms part of a larger ceremony. Arthur Oakes, the driving character in this part of the book, pursues a ghost through the snow outside, and Hill's description — "The dark man fled across the snow and Arthur Oakes followed" — is a subtle altering of one of King's most famous lines of fiction from The Dark Tower series.

"I think the rhythms of the original line, 'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,' is the great opening line of any genre story," Hill said. "And there's some kind of music in it. There's some kind of thumpity-thumpity-thumpity-thumpity. I wouldn't be surprised if you studied it and it turned out to be iambic pentameter. [...] So I think it was just, oh, I like the music of that. I'm going to use that here. I'm going to borrow the music of that."

View this post on Instagram Pet Sematary Credit: Mashable / Hodder Paperback

Hill went on to say that later on in King Sorrow, during a section where two of the main characters are led into the lair of a troll, there's a callback to King's 1983 novel Pet Sematary that some readers don't catch — a line that echoes something Jud Crandall says to Louis Creed as he's leading him to the infamous cemetery.

"When Stuart Finger, the troll, leads Colin and Arthur down to Arthur's cave, he says something very similar," said Hill.

Ultimately, Hill views all of these references less as Easter eggs, and more as a conversation between stories.

"One of the great things about literature, as I understand it, is the way stories can respond to other stories," he said. "One of the powerful things stories can do is have conversations with other stories. And I feel like everything I've ever written has, in one way or another, been continuing a conversation that I had with some other writer when I was reading their book."

King Sorrow is available now in bookstores and online retailers.

Featured Video For You Cooper Hoffman and 'The Long Walk' cast compete for ultimate Stephen King film knowledge

TL;DR: Give an old Mac a new set of tools with this Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac license, now just $39.97 (reg. $229).

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac $39.97
$229 Save $189.03   Get Deal

Don’t miss out on some Microsoft classics just because you’re an Apple user. You can take advantage of a suite of Microsoft Office apps with this Microsoft Office 2019 Home and Business license for Mac. And right now, you can outfit your computer with these six powerful apps for only $39.97 (reg. $229).

Add some tools to your beloved Mac with this Microsoft Office 2019 Home and Business for Mac license. It gives your device a leg up with access to six go-to apps that can help you tackle both personal and professional tasks — no monthly subscription required.

SEE ALSO: 10 Apple deals that prove Black Friday 2025 is starting earlier than ever

You can finally finalize your family’s budget with some help from a spreadsheet in Excel, draft that document with Word, or manage your emails more easily with Outlook. Then take some digital notes with OneNote, create a fabulous presentation with PowerPoint, or stay connected to coworkers with Teams.

Don’t be deceived by the year of this edition — it’s been completely redesigned to take advantage of Mac features like Retina display, full-screen view support, and scroll bounce. It also includes new features and updates.

This is an instant delivery and download, so you can get started right away. And you have access to free customer service if you run into any issues. Just make sure you’re running macOS 13 or newer.

Save big on a Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac license for only $39.97 (reg. $229).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

It's day 17 of the lunar cycle, and we're currently heading towards the New Moon. Until then, the moon will appear smaller and smaller each night.

What is today’s moon phase?

As of Friday, Nov. 7, the moon phase is Waning Gibbous. This means 94% of the moon is lit up tonight, according to NASA's Daily Moon Observation.

The moon is getting smaller each night, but we've still got a while until the New Moon takes it away completely. For now, there is still plenty to see on its surface, if you look hard enough.

If you don't have any visual aids, not to worry, there's still things to spot, including the Aristarchus Plateau, Mare Serenitatis, and the Mare Vaporum. Binoculars will make things even more visible and you'll have a chance to see the Posidonius Crater, Alphonsus Crater, and the Apennine Mountains. If you have a telescope hanging about, pull it out to see the Reiner Gamma, Apollo 14 landing spot, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next full moon?

The next full moon will be on Dec. 4.

What are moon phases?

NASA notes that as the Moon orbits Earth over about 29.5 days, it goes through a series of phases. These phases occur because of the changing angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Depending on its position, the Moon can appear fully illuminated, partly illuminated, or completely hidden, even though we always see the same side. What changes is how much sunlight reflects off its surface, creating a repeating sequence known as the lunar cycle.

The eight main moon phases are:

New Moon - The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

From Ira Sachs — director of the striking contemporary queer drama Passages — the 1970s New York-set Peter Hujar's Day is a confined, two-character experiment that's far more about mood than plot. Set almost entirely in one apartment over the course of a single day, its mere 76 minutes are languidly paced, though that's a major part of its success. Few filmmakers have so distinctly evoked an era without so much as pointing their camera out through a window to capture the street below.

The film is reconstructed from a transcript, once thought to be lost, of an interview with gay New York photographer Peter Hujar (Passages star Ben Whishaw) conducted by writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall). The recording resurfaced in 2019 — Rosenkrantz has since published it as a book under the same title as the movie — but Sachs doesn't merely restage the interview as written. Rather, he extrapolates what feels like an entire lifetime from words alone.

What is Peter Hujar's Day about? Credit: Courtesy of Janus Films

Describing Peter Hujar's Day runs the risk of oversimplifying it, but the film's simplicity is its charm. Beginning on a random December morning in 1974, the curious Rosenkrantz — who ran in the same circles as Hujar, creating a sense of intimacy — asks him to recall all the things he did the previous day. As her two-spool tape recorder spins (resembling a film projector in both appearance and sound), Hujar goes about his day and the duo move about his East Village apartment as he narrates, in flowery detail, events that might have seemed unremarkable at the time but take on a greater significance in retrospect.

This is not unlike the way Hujar's photography would come to be perceived. His black-and-white portraits made few waves at the time — certainly not compared to contemporaries like Andy Warhol — but they have since been canonized as having brought a subtle texture and depth to his subjects, physically and psychologically. As Nan Goldin once wrote of Hujar's personal artistry: "His pictures are exotic but not in a shallow, sensational way. Looking at his photographs of nude men, even of a naked baby boy, is the closest I ever came to experience what it is to inhabit male flesh."

Although the film doesn't take its cues from Hujar's images (except for a few dreamlike interludes), Sachs attempts to unearth a similarly lifelike dimensionality. His shots — mostly still, though sometimes moving gradually across space — help craft a sense of intrigue. This goes hand-in-hand with Whishaw's thoroughly considered performance, which feels free and uninhibited in its motions, whether Hujar moves from room to room or simply fidgets on his couch.

Sachs generally excels at creating this sense of life between the creases, and Peter Hujar's Day is among his finest aesthetic achievements. Not only does its form evoke a specific time and place, but it creates a distinct relationship between its mid-'70s setting and the present right from the word go.

Peter Hujar's Day is an artistic bridge between eras. Credit: Courtesy of Janus Films

The New York of today would be alien to Hujar's New York, and vice versa. The city was certainly grimier in the 1970s, with more danger and more edge — think Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver — but it was also the cradle of a burgeoning American arts' scene that has since been priced out for several decades.

Throughout the film, Hujar makes mention of his East Village address and that of other artists he travelled to photograph the previous morning, noting the rough-and-tumble neighborhoods that have long since been gentrified. Granted, to pick up on the significance of these details requires foreknowledge of the city's modern topography, which certainly shrinks the movie's intended audience (or at least, those that might pick up everything it's putting down), but this specificity is an extension of its experimentation.

On the surface, it's a film of "telling" rather than "showing," but the inherent obliqueness (and the obfuscating nature) of its dialogue limits how much of it can be considered exposition. If anything, it is in fact a film of "showing" in a macro sense — of depicting Hujar's thoughts and feelings towards each description — with Rosenkrantz as his mostly silent foil, whose input on his recollections becomes known without words.

The film's 16mm cinematography by Alex Ashe evokes that place and time's No Wave cinema scene, led by the likes of John Cassavetes, with its distinct celluloid textures and ever-so-slightly blown-out highlights, as though it were cheaply produced. The acoustic qualities add to this DIY feeling, which includes flaws and faded noises in the audio recordings, as though the movie's entire soundtrack (rather than the interview transcript) were the thing that had been rediscovered, and the film were merely adding physical dimensions to something heard.

Alongside the ambient noises of New York, from ambulance sirens to noisy streets, each physical element on screen stands out in the soundtrack: glasses, dishware, even chairs being dragged so Hujar and Rosenkrantz can sit. Sachs' repeated shots of the tape recorder serve to remind us that what we're watching is a recreation or restaging of the past. The movie even opens with a clapper board, and features frequent jump-cuts despite its at-length scenes. We even catch occasional glimpses of modern crew members putting boom mics in place. However, this Brechtian quality never detracts from the movie's lived-in, realistic feel.

The characters never wink at the camera, or even acknowledge it, despite Sachs drawing our attention to the artifice. We're never watching actors play a part. Rather, we're watching historical figures through a modern lens, a self-reflexive exercise in which the present and the past exist simultaneously, creating a contrast between life and artistry as it once was, and now is — made all the more apparent by Hujar casually invoking the names of famous figures.

Peter Hujar's Day brings a human quality to figures of the past. Credit: Courtesy of Janus Films

What exactly was "Peter Hujar's day"? As narrated by Hujar in the film, the preceding 24 hours were mildly annoying, given how many people he had to chase for money and other scheduling confirmations — such is the life of a freelance artist — but they were also eventful, in the sense that they made for a fun recounting. Rosenkrantz barely interjects, in part because she's a good reporter, letting her subject speak for himself, but in part because she, like the audience, is familiar with the specific people Hujar refers to in his story: the likes of critic Susan Sontag, poet Allen Ginsberg, and author William S. Burroughs.

The difference between the characters' relationship to these figures and the audience's is that to the former, they're acquaintances, whereas to us, they're pillars of modern Western culture, which makes for a fascinating disconnect. Peter Hujar's Day practically lives within this dissonant space, wherein everything that's mundane for Hujar and Rosenkrantz is destined to have a historic quality some five decades later.

That these artistic legends are only mentioned and not seen adds, on one hand, a mythic quality to them — one of whispers and rumors — but what's actually said about them grounds them through a surprisingly cheeky approach. Hujar's personality, wants, likes, and annoyances all come to the fore through his anecdotes, which exist somewhere between gossip and name-dropping. Each time he narrates his interactions with someone the audience might've heard about, he does so quite casually (which makes sense — Hujar doesn't have the perspective the audience does), adding a humane quality to an often mythologized era, bringing us closer to it in the process.

A film that recalls recollections, and Peter Hujar's Day is, by its very nature, a film of reflections and refractions. However, it makes its various Xerox copies of the past feel thoroughly original and lifelike, transforming a contained interview into what may as well be a moody, sprawling biopic.

Peter Hujar’s Day was reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It opens in NY/LA on Nov. 7, 2025.

UPDATE: Nov. 5, 2025, 2:53 p.m. This review was first published on Feb. 1, 2025, as part of Mashable's Sundance coverage. It has been updated to reflect theatrical options.

In retrospect, the collision of Lynne Ramsay and Jennifer Lawrence seems fated. The Scottish filmmaker forged her reputation with character-driven dramas like Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and You Were Never Really Here. Her films — often led by critically heralded performers — push audiences to uncomfortable emotional spaces of desire, rage, and grief. Meanwhile, the American actress broke through with such a drama, Debra Granik's riveting Winter's Bone, which earned Lawrence her first Oscar nod. Then, she rose to stardom by embracing roles of women on the edge in The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Mother! 

Through this lens, Die My Love seems inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less remarkable. Ramsay and Lawrence's powers combine to create a ruthlessly savage portrait of female desire and wrath. The result is something feral and bloody fantastic. 

Die My Love is a stirring drama in the vein of Hedda Gabler.  Jennifer Lawrence as Grace in "Die My Love." Credit: Kimberley French / MUBI

Adapted from Ariana Harwicz's novel of the same name, Die My Love focuses on a young mother named Grace (Lawrence), who struggles within the confines of her seemingly settled life. (Hedda, can you hear her?) In the screenplay by Ramsay, Alice Birch, and Enda Walsh, the film begins with Grace and her partner, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), pulling his pick-up truck up to the family home that has been passed down to them, ahead of the birth of their first child. 

Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey resolutely sets the camera statically inside the house, which is littered with leaves as if it's been nearly forgotten. From this wide shot, we can see the couple arrive through an open door. We hear their excited chatter and finally see them come into the building, bringing life with them. Grace, in a silky red skirt, practically blooms as she enters a room. And before they even sweep the floors, she's pinned Jackson to them, naked and christening the place as theirs. 

Their lovemaking isn't the standard stuff of Hollywood movies, all soft lighting and carefully revealed flesh. Instead, Die My Love delivers a frank and carnal sex scene. Grace claws at Jackson like a predatory cat. It's with this same intensity she will later crawl on all four through their sprawling wilderness of a lawn or paw into her own panties as their fever for each other cools.

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Swiftly through physicality, Lawrence and Ramsay establish the intensity of Grace, which will not be shrunk by her role as wife or mother. So, when work pulls Jackson away from the house, leaving Grace to their baby and herself, she begins to spiral in search of who she has become in this circumstance. And her rage, even at its most extreme, is achingly relatable. 

Having recently seen Hedda, it was easy to see a line of shared vexation between these two anti-heroines. Where their families, lovers, and society would happily shove them into placid roles of feminine domesticity, their spirits rage against such flattening of their lives. In response, both react wildly — though Grace is less strategic than Hedda. 

Jennifer Lawrence is on fire in Die My Love. Jennifer Lawrence and Nick Nolte dance in "Die My Love." Credit: Kimberley French / MUBI

Grace's passions push her to explode, sometimes in outbursts of joyful dancing or spirited song, sometimes in vicious words or violence. Within the film, characters sympathetically diagnose Grace with postpartum depression. But even this feels like a box to confine her. 

Lawrence throws herself fearlessly into Grace's mental breakdown. She laughs, screams, flails, and fights with an electrifying abandon. She's so achingly alive onscreen that Pattinson, renowned for his onscreen intensity, withers beside her, which suits their characters' dynamic. Jackson seems intoxicated by Grace's free spirit, but also infuriated he can't pin her down as she might him. From their increasing animosity, tension churns this domestic drama into a thriller, because something has got to give. 

And yet, as fiery as Lawrence gets — bearing her body, yearning, and rage with equal bravado — the scenes that hit me the hardest in Die My Love are when Grace shares a sharp softness. There's a beautiful and humane paradox built in this protagonist. Her snarls and anti-social behaviors, like plunging into a pool in her underwear at a family party, might startle the neighbors and embarrass Jackson, but they don't mean she doesn't care about others or know how to. 

Jennifer Lawrence lies on the ground in "Die My Love." Credit: Kimberley French / MUBI

While motherhood might feel like a shackle, she loves her baby boy and expresses gentle, ardent affection for him. But before he even arrives, she does the same for her father-in-law, Harry (Nick Nolte), who is addled by dementia. Where others treat Harry like a child, with lilting pleads for obedience, Grace talks to him like they're sharing a secret, like they understand each other. And perhaps they do better than any other because of how everyone else infantilizes them, instead of meeting them where they are.

While Grace is soft with her son and father-in-law, Lawrence performs that gentleness with an intellectual sharpness that complicates even these moments of warm love. She and Ramsay build a woman who so resolutely rejects archetypes like mother and wife that Grace practically vibrates on screen, so fully formed that she can barely be contained in a 2D medium. 

 Die My Love is a radical and riveting melodrama that rejects sentimentality.  Robert Pattinson washes a bloody vehicle in "Die My Love." Credit: Kimberley French / MUBI

In this role, Lawrence will writhe on the floor, prowl on all fours through tall grass, and claw at the floral walls of a battered bathroom. She sinks her teeth into every moment so that Die My Love bleeds. Its premise might seem the stuff of Lifetime movies about failing marriages or maternal frustrations. But under Ramsay's direction, the story is more slippery and surreal, dangerously dedicated to psychological and emotional truth over a comforting narrative. There's a frankness to everything from sex and breastfeeding to the comfort and casualness Grace has with her own body. And perhaps especially now, when the U.S. government is pushing an agenda to reduce a woman's control over her reproductive rights and gender-affirming care, this feels audacious and radical.

Grace's journey will make you squirm, perhaps cackle. But in her messy quest for something beyond being boxed in, she offers a radical freedom to her audience. In the discomfort of watching her bicker, battle, and act out, an excitement of possibility burns. Where could this lead, not just for her — but for us? Will you walk away from Die My Love rattled? Feeling recognized? Or dared to be reborn? 

Die My Love opens in theaters on Nov. 7.

By no means a fast-paced film but one rich with detail and strong performances, Train Dreams weaves one man's life through a rapidly changing American West in the early 20th century.

Based on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name, it's a steady, meditative, and at times devastating journey with many a conversation around the fire. Train Dreams sees Sing Sing collaborators Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley reunite — this time with Bentley in the director's chair — to explore delicate themes of love and loss amid this fading frontier, sitting on the cusp of industrialisation. It's a slow-going, sombre film at times, an historical essay at others, and it won't be everyone's cup of sarsaparilla.

SEE ALSO: 'Hamnet' review: Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley burn in William Shakespeare tragedy

However, the true heart of this moving film is a subtle, sensitive performance by Joel Edgerton, one immersed in Bryce Dessner's meticulous score and Adolpho Veloso's lush cinematography, and concluded with the unmistakable spirit of Nick Cave.

What is Train Dreams about? Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones in "Train Dreams." Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Beginning in 1917 and running through to 1968, Train Dreams follows a man's search for meaning as the 20th century arrives. The Wild West days are over. The American frontier is transforming. And Edgerton leads as devoted family man and stoic railroad worker Robert Grainier, who works for the Spokane International Railway in Idaho. He builds transient bonds with his fellow lumberjacks and pines for home. He's also a man riddled by guilt for his complicity watching the racist murder of Chinese immigrant worker Fu Sheng (Alfred Hsing) during a railroad job, perpetually haunted by the memory. Here, the script diverges from the novella: In the latter, Robert physically helps in hauling the worker to a tall bridge, but in the film, Robert simply doesn't intervene.

Despite this shockingly casual event, the film spends most of its time tracing Robert's life. After a brief courtship with his soon-to-be wife Gladys Olding (Felicity Jones), in the small village of Meadow Creek, Robert builds a simple, idyllic home with her among fields of wildflowers and beside a babbling brook. The pair map out their single-room cabin with river boulders and soon welcome the arrival of their daughter Kate. It's an almost overwhelmingly romantic existence, hammered home in near-saccharine montages and Dessner's tender score, and one Robert yearns for when torn away for months on dangerous railroad-building projects. The job's perils are emphasised in both Johnson's novella and Bentley's film, with injury or death from the felling of colossal trees a common workplace risk for 20th-century lumberjacks. Veloso's POV shots of these ancient giants falling prove the point, and several scenes show how risky this business of pillaging the natural landscape was.

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At one tragic point, in a devastatingly shot and enacted sequence, Robert's world is upturned forever. He's left desperately searching for meaning in it all, feeling obsolete and expecting "a great revelation to arrive about his life." Edgerton delivers a solemn, raw performance — and with everything that happens, we're not mad that he's surrounded by fluffy stray puppies for a large chunk of the film. Giving Edgerton's character room for deep conversation and reflection, Bentley and Kwedar expand characters from Johnson's book, including Robert's friend Ignatius Jack (a wonderful Nathaniel Arcand), a Kootenai store owner who helps him rebuild, and forest service worker Claire (Kerry Condon), who bonds with Robert down the track.

Train Dreams is a journey of solitude and American history. Joel Edgerton in "Train Dreams." Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Though it's not necessarily a history lesson, Train Dreams subtly meanders through stories of the American West and where these unsung railroad workers fit within it. Through an omniscient narrator (voiced by Will Patton) and conversations between characters, the script pieces together fragments of the past. As in Johnson's novella, mentions of the American Civil War, American Indian Wars, and World War I arise organically. In particular here, William H. Macy is a highlight as Arn Peeples, a harmonica-playing explosives expert and "gadabout of unknown origin" who befriends Robert. As in the novella, Arn's the character most reflective on American history, lamenting his younger peers' disconnection to it.

Like Arn, Patton's narration lends a certain grandfatherly energy, describing locomotive mechanics, the construction of the Robinson Gorge Bridge, and "the cost of progress" in the same tone as he describes Robert's existential crisis. Nonetheless, it gives the film a steadfast emotional consistency. Additionally, his narration gives the film's present an awareness of the future, as we learn what will become of things.

William H. Macy in "Train Dreams." Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Train Dreams also takes pains to capture a specific tension between tradition and modernity through the work of production designer Alexandra Schaller. From the handcrafted elements of the Graniers' cabin to the changing technology of the logging sites from rudimentary tools to machinery, Schaller's team craft a detailed picture of life in the American West from early to mid century. But there's one crucial element that pulls all the elements of Train Dreams together.

The simmering engine of Train Dreams is Bryce Dessner's score. Joel Edgerton and Kerry Condon in "Train Dreams." Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Adding to his lauded catalogue of modern film scores from The Revenant to We Live In Time, The National's Bryce Dessner once again flexes his atmospheric composer skills in Train Dreams. At once a whimsical, romantic ode to potential and a hypnotic, reflective accompaniment to loss, Dessner's score drives the emotional engine of Train Dreams. Edgerton's Robert is characteristically stoic and interior in his emotions, allowing Dessner to draw out the brilliant subtleties of his performance. Meanwhile, it's the perfect partner to Veloso's gorgeous shots of Robert engulfed by the Idaho landscape, immersed in the beauty and history of the American wilderness.

Worth staying through the film's end credits for, Dessner teams up with the ever-iconic Nick Cave (no stranger to a lyrical exploration of love and loss) for the haunting original song "Train Dreams." This brooding ballad essentially encapsulates the film's narrative and emotional tone in a few minutes, marking a sublime conclusion to the film.

Train Dreams takes its time, relishing in conversations about grief, loss, feeling obsolete and overwhelmed by both nature and modernity. This slower pace can feel a little engulfing at times, but Edgerton's performance, Dessner's score, and Veloso's balance of handheld and static photography kept me hitched on the ride.

Train Dreams was reviewed out of BFI London Film Festival. The film will hit select U.S. cinemas on Nov. 7 before streaming on Netflix worldwide on Nov. 21.

UPDATE: Nov. 5, 2025, 2:40 p.m. This review was first published on Oct. 25, 2025, as part of Mashable's BFI coverage. It has been updated to reflect screening options.

It's a love story as only Guillermo del Toro can tell it. For ages, the Mexican filmmaker, who has awed audiences with wondrous films like The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, and the Academy Award–winning The Shape of Water, has dreamed of turning Mary Shelley's Frankenstein into a movie of his own. And what he has accomplished here — notably with some of Hollywood's most beautiful men in the lead roles — is absolutely astonishing. 

Ahead of the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, del Toro explained to the audience how for him, Frankenstein is a story of fathers and sons, exploring his relationship to his own father and his own children. But audiences won't need a curtain speech to understand this inspiration point, as del Toro's script is unabashedly about the ties that bind and sometimes suffocate. 

With the help of a star-studded cast that includes Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, and Christoph Waltz, this rightly heralded writer/director resurrects a classic horror story with a romantic flair that makes it gruesome, beautiful, and deeply poignant all at once. 

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein focuses on cycles of behavior and abuse. Charles Dance as Leopold Frankenstein and Christian Convery as young Victor in "Frankenstein." Credit: Ken Woroner / Netflix

This version of Frankenstein begins with a framework that recalls Shelley's 1818 novel. In 1857, in "farthest north," a crew of freezing sailors chips away at their ice-seized ship as their captain hollers about reaching the North Pole. Then, they find a man, bleeding and broken, barely alive on the icy terrain. 

They pull him aboard only to discover he's being pursued by a mighty, bellowing "thing." The man is Victor Frankenstein (Isaac), the thing is his monster (Elordi). After a swarm of sailors beats the latter back in a dynamic and fiery action sequence — taking heavy, grisly losses — they sail on, but Victor warns the Creature will return, and so begins his story to the captain. 

Through this framework, the film flashes back to Victor's youth, where he was in a bitter battle with his cruel father (Dance) over his beautiful mother (Goth). As a boy, Victor sought the love of his mother but the approval of his father, if only to avoid the lashings the latter considered parenting. When Victor's mother dies in childbirth, he blames his surgeon father for failing, and seeks to best them both, though he only articulates his wish to outmatch his father. 

Years later, as a fanatical scientist, Victor experiments with electricity on corpses, seeking to resurrect them into a new living thing. Like James Whale's iconic Frankenstein, there's the fantastical element of a man creating life without the intervention of a woman. Here, because of Victor's pronounced love of his mother, his experiment feels like a backwards way to prove she need not have died. But in a bigger way, it is to defeat death as his father never could. 

His victory comes when he successfully stitches together and electrocutes to life a son. But Victor's failing is falling into the same cycle of abuse his father modeled. At first, Victor is in awe of his towering creation as it toddles in awkward steps and begins to explore its dungeon containment, splashing in puddles of water and reaching curiously for the fire that lights the space. But when his monster's intellectual development doesn't meet Victor's standards, it will be the lash, just as Victor experienced when he flunked his father's lessons. 

Oscar Isaac is great in Frankenstein.  Oscar Issac as Victor Frankenstein in "Frankenstein." Credit: Ken Woroner / Netflix

Isaac brings a frightening fire to the role of Victor Frankenstein. He is not the raving mad scientist of the Universal Monster movies. He is not the egotistical showman of Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Isaac makes the part his own by digging into the paternal determination to mold his "creation" in his own image. 

Furthering the Oedipal thread that began in his childhood, this Victor is given a softer side through a romance subplot and a clever bit of casting. Victor becomes instantly besotted with Elizabeth, a young maiden who loves sciences and insects, and who is also played by Mia Goth.

Her girlish beauty gives an impression of innocence and gentleness, but del Toro's script bolsters Elizabeth with a sharp scientific intelligence, something she shares with Victor though their morals differ intensely. When she sees the monster, she sees someone impressive and pure, despite his scars and lack of academic accomplishment. She sees a soul that Victor cannot grasp. She becomes the foil to Victor's drive, echoing the warmth and joy of his mother. Thereby, the monster becomes a reflection of both his "father" and "mother," an accomplishment the cold, violent Victor failed to achieve.

Jacob Elordi is iconic as Frankenstein's monster.  Jacob Elordi as the Creature in "Frankenstein." Credit: Ken Woroner / Netflix

At six feet, five inches tall, Elordi easily towers over his co-stars. But rather than sporting bolts in his neck or gnarly lumps of sullied flesh, del Toro's monster is lean and muscular, pale to the point of nearly being blue, and precisely constructed. There's a slight resemblance to the Engineers, the tall, robust, alien race from Prometheus. However, the scars along his wrists, limbs, torso, and face will never let us forget his origins. 

Elordi has a difficult role because the Creature's arc is one of pain that often has no voice. Much of the performance is doggedly physical. After his birth, he is a child, though his father cannot see that. Elordi reflects this with a portrait of exploratory physicality so much like a toddler's that it's both wondrous and wretched, as we know what horrors will come next for this innocent.

At Victor's hands, the Creature experiences physical, emotional, and psychological abuse; he's chained, beaten, and insulted. Meeting Elizabeth, however, gives the Creature a greater understanding of the possibilities of the world and people. The second half of the film focuses on the monster telling his own story to the ship's captain, the framework device switching perspectives. While sound effects are employed to give Elordi's voice a harrowing, monstrous echo in these scenes, the delivery of the Creature's words as he finds his voice is bedecked with pain and earnest wonder. 

The Creature's story, where he is cast out by one family and so chooses another, is one that will speak to many, especially as Elordi's crackling voice explains the heartbreaking realization that the world may try to destroy you just for being yourself. This misfit monster becomes a radiant analogy for self-love, as he is both horrid and beautiful, misunderstood and full of potential and love. For this monster, del Toro carves out a different ending from Shelley's — one that is bittersweet and glorious.

None of these risky deviations or romantic embrace of the monster would work were it not for Elordi's performance. He wears a full body of prosthetic scars and putridly pale skin, but he suffuses every movement, every glance with purpose and emotion. Escaping his well-recognized handsomeness and the expectations that come with being a dashing leading man, Elordi is del Toro's perfect monster, wretched and wondrous. 

Del Toro's Frankenstein is a romantic fairy tale and a horror movie.  Mia Goth as Claire Frankenstein and Christian Convery as young Victor in "Frankenstein." Credit: Ken Woroner / Netflix

Like Crimson Peak, perhaps Del Toro's most misunderstood film, Frankenstein embraces a romantic fairy tale tone that urges audiences to indulge in its impressions and emotions. Because the film is told from one perspective then another, there's a suggestion that what we're shown is not what happened but how it felt. 

So, a preposterous tower shoots into the sky like a dark, threatening blade, its insides riddled with rot, overrun with vines, and yet glistening with top-of-the-line tech, funded by an eccentric arms dealer (Waltz). And here, a young woman is both Victor's dream girl in intellect but also wears the face of his mother. Could that be real? Or is Elizabeth as Victor dreams her? Likewise, the violence the monster inflicts on others feels impossibly powerful, as he chucks wolves away with the slash of a forearm and rocks an ice-bound ship loose of its frigid bonds. At times, del Toro's story feels impossible, and that's precisely the point. 

Every element of this film is like a fairy tale, not the kind we tell to children to help them fall asleep but the kind used in dark forests and evil-plagued eras to warn them of a world that won't see them as beautiful but as meat. So, the design of the monster follows this idea, being both splendid and scarred. The experiments of Victor's process are gruesome, but also reveal the natural beauty of human's internal design.

The costumes by Kate Hawley (Crimson Peak) are extraordinary, ranging from dark shrouds, so charred and befouled you can practically smell them, to gossamer gowns and veils that float almost impossibly, draping Goth in vibrant colors. And details along the spine of both the Creature's crusty trench coat and Elizabeth's corseted gowns remind us of the bones that lie beneath, a connection between them and their fortitude against the abuses of the world. 

The score by Alexandre Desplat is sumptuous in its agony. Stringed instruments call out in longing and loss, enveloping the audience and the monster with the same, overwhelming surge of hurt and awe. The sound design as a whole embraces del Toro's signature blend of horror and romance. Sounds of violence snap and squelch, but in a symphony all their own. Across the production design, a vicious, brilliant red ties everything together, from Victor's mother (who drapes herself head to toe in the color) to his leather gloves as he operates, a book here, a funeral wreath there, and of course, in the end, blood. Yet the juxtaposition this sharp color serves against so much high-contrast blacks and whites of cloaks and dead flesh doesn't seem threatening; instead, it's a reminder of life — vibrant, pulsing, and unstoppable. 

As a whole, del Toro's Frankenstein is a marvel. His vision is clear and mesmerizing. His ensemble is electrifying. His adaptation is unique, soulful, and unforgettable. The man who loves monsters has just made his masterpiece: It's rich, rapturous, and ruthlessly interrogates what it means to be human, with all of our glory and our flaws.

Frankenstein was reviewed out of its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will open in select theaters in Oct. 17 (and this critic suggests you go see it big!). A Netflix release will follow on Nov. 7. 

UPDATE: Nov. 5, 2025, 2:48 p.m. This review was first published on Sept. 9, 2025, as part of Mashable's TIFF coverage. It has been updated to reflect theatrical and streaming availability.

Ahead of its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sydney Sweeney's turn in Christy earned press for the reportedly incredible physical transformation she took on for the role: 30 pounds and a brunette wig. This suggested the Euphoria star was willfully pushing away from her bombshell persona to stretch in her latest, the David Michôd-directed biopic, where she plays brash boxer Christy Martin. But Sweeney's range doesn't reach where Christy needs her to go.

Yes, some critics are cheering Sweeney's performance as the best of her career, and it certainly plays to the sweet spot of Oscar. Like Nicole Kidman in The Hours or Christian Bale in basically every movie he does, Sweeney has a physical transformation that rejects the Hollywood ideal. Plus, she plays a literal fighter, like Oscar winner Hillary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) or Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. But Sweeney does not have the screen presence or intensity of either, and Christy suffers for it. However, the film on its own is beleaguered with problems. 

Christy is a mixed-up melodrama about American boxer Christy Martin.

In the 1980s, Martin began a boxing career that would lead to groundbreaking moments like becoming the first woman that boxing promoter Don King ever signed, and the first female boxer to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. However, Christy is less interested in Martin's accomplishments and more in the agony she suffered behind the scenes. Her pain came less from the punches she took in the ring, and more from her homophobic mother's ruthless intolerance and the domestic violence delivered at the hands of her abusive husband.

SEE ALSO: TIFF 2025 preview: 20 films you'll want to see for yourself (and how)

In the first act, Christy is established as a butch lesbian, whose relationship with her "friend" Rosie (Jess Gabor) has offended her mother Joyce (Merritt Wever). While Wever is a terrific actor who brings emotional weight to every line here, the archetypal role of unaccepting mom is so doggedly one-note that it's flat-out comical. The screenplay by Mirrah Foulkes and Michôd makes this mother so consistently horrific that she feels like a parody, plucked from actual comedies like Walk Hard or the more restrained TIFF offering Maddie's Secret. In Christy, Joyce exists purely to say hateful things to her daughter. While Michôd aims for seriousness, all of Wever's dialogue basically boils down to campy proclamations like: Christy, why do you have to be so lesbian and break my heart?

When it comes to the marriage of Christy to Jim Martin, her trainer and abuser for decades, Michôd's approach is also confounding. Ben Foster plays Jim, wearing a hairy fat suit and a comb-over wig that just gets more aggressively ugly as the years pass by. Their marriage has many of the red flags of an abusive relationship (and a slew of Lifetime movies), including Jim's recurring promise that if she were to leave him, he'd kill her. The contrast between Christy being a fighter in the ring but assaulted in her own home is the film's central focus, with her queer repression taking a backseat until the third act. Within this abuse storyline, Foster's chewing scenery (and his lower lip) and Sweeney is out of her depth.

Sydney Sweeney is not an Oscar contender in Christy. 

Don't buy into the hype. This movie is a mess, and Sweeney is a contributor to that, not its highlights. For one thing, she uses Martin's West Virginia background as an excuse to slap on a thick Southern accent that comes and goes. For another, while her look is different in Christy, it doesn't read "athlete," as she lacks tone and physicality. 

With all the personal melodrama, the actual boxing gets lost in Christy. Sweeney can't throw a convincing punch, so Christy's knockouts don't hit like those in the Rocky movies, the Creed movies, or even Girlfight, which used white frames to suggest contact of the boxing gloves to powerful effect. Michôd's boxing scenes lack punch in choreography and execution. However, the director shows a much more deft hand at recreating the violence happening at home.

Featured Video For You Sydney Sweeney on finding a church that would let them film 'Immaculate'

A pivotal sequence late in the film finally clicks into a tone that feels consistent with Michôd's work in the acclaimed Animal Kingdom. Perhaps because true crime is his comfort zone? Abruptly, the details of movement and dialogue become sharply specific, with Christy having a short phone conversation unlike the rest of her dialogue, and slipping into a pair of sneakers before acknowledging her scowling husband. What follows is gripping and horrifying, as the actors deliver the kind of reenactment that briefly elevates this floundering melodrama to something scarier and more real.

Yet, it's unnerving to me that the strongest sequence in this movie, the one that feels most like this is why Michôd, Sweeney, and Foster made it, is one where the heroine is savagely attacked. Why is that the part they seem most determined to get right? And yet, while this is Christy's most powerful scene, it's not its best bit. That's all Katy O'Brian. 

Katy O'Brian is Christy's blessing and curse. 

The Love Lies Bleeding actor has been stealing scenes in big Hollywood movies like Twisters and Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning. And in Christy, she effortlessly shows up Sweeney, playing the eponymous boxer's professional adversary Lisa Holewyne. Let's be clear: Katy O'Brian should be a big damn star. 

In Christy's bid to be rich and famous, she didn't just fight in the ring, but talked smack about her opponents outside of it. So it goes in this industry. But in the film, the focus of this promotional persona is Christy leaning into a femme look — floral dresses, pink boxing shorts — and wielding slurs at her peers. Lisa bears the brunt of these comments, yet becomes an unlikely ally to Christy in the film's final act. This is good news for audiences, because O'Brian has the kind of star power this movie needs.

Her stature, muscles, and carriage are all more in line with what audiences expect of an athlete onscreen: confident, sturdy, and strong. Sure, Martin's real look was softer than some of her opponents. But in any sequence that pits Sweeney and O'Brian in competition, be it boxing or jogging while training, the latter's ease in these spaces makes the headliner's lack thereof stand out all the more. Beyond the physical, in appearance and performance, O'Brian delivers an alertness in every scene that dazzles, while Sweeney just does not. O'Brian is alive in every moment, even when she's second banana. It came to the point where I became infuriated that she wasn't the lead of this movie, resemblance to the real Martin be damned! 

Despite the premiere buzz, Christy is not the Oscar contender that Sweeney, who also produced the film, seems to have swung for. Its script is a mess, creating clumsy archetypes and hitting on Lifetime movie cliches with no self-awareness. Its ensemble cast, while committed, cannot agree on a common tone. For instance, Chad L. Coleman, who pops up as a flashy and fun Don King, brings laughs and much-needed energy to the movie, but also ends up further muddying what this even is. Michôd has no grace in the tonal shifts, and so Christy is more confusing than moving.

Michôd seems most riveted by the criminal violence than any other aspect of Martin's story. So even what this film has to say about being a woman in sports, or a lesbian in America, or a person at all, is perplexing. In the end, Christy doesn't hit hard. It just blows.

Christy was reviewed out of the World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will release in theaters on Nov. 7.

UPDATE: Nov. 5, 2025, 2:33 p.m. This review was first published on Sept. 8, 2025, as part of Mashable's TIFF coverage. It has been updated to reflect screening options.

Black Friday is fast approaching, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Major retailers already dropping their Black Friday ads and early-access deals, so it's time to check out everything that's on offer, make a list of your top priorities, investigate price history, and hope for the best.

Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and a bunch of other popular retailers have already announced their Black Friday plans. The Target early Black Friday sale runs from Nov. 6-8, three weeks before the main event. Want to make the most out of Target's Black Friday campaign? We've checked out the pre-Black Friday ad to provide you with a snapshot of what's on offer from the big-box retailer.

SEE ALSO: 60+ of the absolute best stocking stuffers for 2025

The great news for shoppers is that Target’s three-day early Black Friday sale is offering a large portion of deals at 40% off or more. And that includes popular categories like gifts and holiday décor, toys including Lego, clothing, and kitchen essentials. We're seeing great deals on some of the best Ninja appliances, cordless vacuums, and headphones. Some of these will make great holiday gifts while others are a gift to get you through holiday travel, like noise-cancelling headphones.

Keep in mind some of these deals are exclusive to Target Circle members but don't fret because it's free to to sign up.

Here are some of the best Target deals you can shop on sale between Nov. 6-8:

Best early Black Friday toy deals

• 30% off Disney princesses with Target Circle

• Up to 50% off art and writing sets

• Up to 50% off toy vehicle and play sets

• Up to 50% off select toys, including Barbie, Nerf, FAO Schwarz, and Hot Wheels

• Up to 40% off select ride-on toys and scooters

Best early Black Friday Kitchen deals

• Instant Pot 6-quart Pressure Cooker Bundle — $69.99 $139.99 (save $70 + get a free $10 Target gift card)

• Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster Oven — $99.99 $299.99 (save $130)

• Ninja NeverClog Cold Press Juicer — $119.99 $149.99 (save $30)

• Ninja Kitchen System Blender — $129.99 $189.99 (save $60)

• Nespresso VertuoPlus Coffee Maker and Espresso Machine — $139.99 $199.99 (save $60)

• Ninja Crispi Glass Air Fryer Cooking System — $159.99 $179.99 (save $20 + get a $10 Target gift card)

• KitchenAid 3-piece Pasta Roller & Cutter Set — $179.99 $249.99 (save $70)

• KitchenAid Ultra Power Plus 4.5-quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer — $279.99 $449.99 (save $170)

• DeLonghi Magnifica Start Automatic Coffee Espresso Machine — $499.99 $799.95 (save $299.96)

• Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine — $549.99 $699.99 (save $150)

Best early Black Friday Lego deals

• Lego City Advent Calendar 2025 — $17.99 $29.99 (save $12)

• Lego Christmas Tree Building Set — $26.99 $44.99 (save $18)

• Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar 2025 — $26.99 $44.99 (save $18)

• Lego City Space Science Lab — $27.59 $45.99 (save $18.40)

• Lego Wicked Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory — $31.79 $52.99 (save $21.20)

• Lego Botanicals Evergreen Collector’s Set — $35.99 $59.99 (save $24)

• Lego Minecraft The Crafting Table — $53.99 $89.99 (save $36)

• Lego Icons Wreath-Making Kit and Holiday Garland — $59.99 $99.99 (save $40)

• Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station — $65.99 $109.99 (save $44)

• Lego Star Wars Wicket the Ewok — $77.99 $129.99 (save $52)

Best early Black Friday floor care deals

• Bissell Little Green Max Carpet Cleaner — $109.99 $139.99 (save $30)

• Shark Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe Upright Vacuum — $119.99 $199.99 (save $80)

• Tineco GO Flex Cordless Stick Vacuum — $129.99 $179.99 (save $50)

• Shark Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum — $149.99 $299.99 (save $150)

• Tineco GO Pet Pro Cordless Stick Vacuum — $169.99 $319.99 (save $150)

• Dreame K20 Pro Wet and Dry Vacuum — $179.99 $229.99 (save $50)

• Dyson V9 Motorbar Vacuum Cleaner — $269.99 $599.99 (save $330)

• Tineco GO HammerHead MessDetect Cordless Wet/Dry Mop and Vacuum — $279.99 $379.99 (save $100)

• Dyson V11 Cordless Stick Vacuum — $399.99 $629.99 (save $230)

• Eecovacs Deebot T30S PRO Robot Vacuum and Mop — $545.99 $839.99 (save $294)

Best early Black Friday headphone and earbud deals

• Beats Solo Buds Earbuds — $69.99 $79.99 (save $10)

• Beats Solo 4 Headphones — $129.99 $199.99 (save $70)

• Beats Studio Pro Headphones — $199.99 $349.99 (save $150)

• Bose QuietComfort Headphones — $199.99 $359.99 (save $160)

• Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones — $329.99 $399.99 (save $70)

• Sony WH-1000XM6 Headphones — $429.99 $459.99 (save $30)

Best early Black Friday speaker deals

• Amazon Kids Echo Dot — $34.99 $59.99 (save $25)

• Amazon Echo Spot — $54.99 $79.99 (save $25)

• Beats Pill — $99.99 $149.99 (save $50)

Best early Black Friday holiday prep deals

• 40% off holiday sheets

• 40% off potted Christmas trees and planters

• 40% off stocking, wreaths, and garland

• 40% off select holiday décor and lights

Best early Black Friday clothing deals

• 40% off select clothing for men, women, and kids

• 40% off pajamas for all

• Up to 40% off slippers and socks

We know you might not want to hear it, but Black Friday is very much upon us. The beast of a shopping holiday has been looming menacingly on the horizon for some time, but it will not be contained any longer.

Leading retailers are already dropping their Black Friday ads and early-access deals. We know that shopping fatigue is a real thing at this time of year, so why not beat the rush and all the associated stress and get your shopping done early this year? You know it makes sense.

SEE ALSO: Target Black Friday ad: The best deals you can buy online early

Best Buy is one of the premier shopping destinations over the Black Friday period, and its savings-packed ad suggests that this year could be its biggest ever.

Best Buy was the first leading retailer to announce its 2025 holiday plans, with early Black Friday deals dropping as early as Halloween (Oct. 31). Best Buy will drop early Black Friday deals throughout November before its official Black Friday sale officially kicks off on Nov. 20. This 10-day sale is live through Nov. 29, followed immediately by its Cyber Monday event on Nov. 30 that runs for 48 hours through Dec. 1. Mark these dates in your diary.

Want to make the most out of Best Buy's Black Friday campaign? We've checked out all the best Black Friday deals and doorbusters from the Best Buy Black Friday ad that you can already buy online.

Best early Black Friday TV deals50- and 55-inch TVs

• Samsung 50-inch U7900 Series 4K TV — $229.99 $299.99 (save $70)

• Insignia 55-inch F50 Series 4K Fire TV — $189.99 $349.99 (save $160)

65-inch TVs

• Insignia 65-inch F50 Series 4K Fire TV — $279.99 $449.99 (save $170)

• Samsung 65-inch QN90F Series Neo QLED Mini LED 4K TV — $1,499.99 $2,499.99 (save $1,000)

70- to 77-inch TVs

• Samsung 70-inch U7900 Series 4K TV — $399.99 $569.99 (save $170)

• Insignia 75-inch F50 Series 4K Fire TV — $379.99 $599.99 (save $220)

• Toshiba 75-inch M550 Series QLED 4K Fire TV — $449.99 $779.99 (save $330)

• Samsung 75-inch Q6F Series QLED 4K TV — $599.99 $899.99 (save $300)

• TCL 75-inch QM5K Series 4K QD-Mini LED TV — $599.99 $1,199.99 (save $600)

• Samsung 75-inch QN90F Series Neo QLED Mini LED 4K TV — $1,799.99 $2,999.99 (save $1,200)

• LG 77-inch Class G5 Series OLED 4K TV — $3,499.99 $4,499.99 (save $1,000)

85-inch TVs

• Samsung 85-inch QN90F Series Neo QLED Mini LED 4K TV — $2,299.99 $4,499.99 (save $2,200)

Best early Black Friday soundbar deals

• Insignia 2.0 Channel Soundbar — $34.99 $59.99 (save $25)

• Insignia 5.1.2 Channel Home Theater Soundbar — $149.99 $229.99 (save $80)

• Samsung B-series 3.1 Channel Soundbar HW-B650 — $199.99 $399.99 (save $200)

• Samsung Q-Series 5.1.2 Channel Soundbar HW-QS750F — $699.99 $899.99 (save $200)

• Samsung Q-series 11.1.4 Channel Soundbar HW-Q990D — $999.99 $1,999.99 (save $1,000)

Best early Black Friday headphone and earbud deals

• Anker Soundcore P30i — $24.99 $49.99 (save $25)

• Bose Ultra Open Earbuds — $199 $299 (save $100)

• Bose QuietComfort Headphones — $199 $359 (save $150)

Best early Black Friday laptop deals

• Acer Chromebook 315 (Intel Celeron N4500, 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC) — $119 $229 (save $180)

• Asus Chromebook Plus CX14 (Intel Core 3 N355, 8GB RAM, 128GB eMMC) — $249 $429 (save $180)

• HP OmniBook X Flip 16 (Intel Core Ultra 9 288V, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) — $999.99 $1,529.99 (save $530)

Best early Black Friday gaming dealsGaming headsets

• Logitech Astro A10 Wired Gaming Headset (Xbox, PC) — $49.99 $69.99 (save $20)

• Logitech G535 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Headset (PS5, PC) — $59.99 $99.99 (save $40)

• Razer BlackShark V2 Pro Wireless Gaming Headset (Xbox) — $129.99 $199.99 (save $70)

• JBL Quantum 910X Wireless Gaming Headset (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC) — $229.99 $329.99 (save $100)

Gaming mice

• Logitech Pro X Superlight 2 SE Wireless Gaming Mouse — $89.99 $139.99 (save $50)

Best early Black Friday smartwatch and fitness tracker deals

• Fitbit Inspire 3 — $69.95 $99.95 (save $30)

• Fitbit Charge 6 — $99.95 $159.95 (save $60)

• Fitbit Versa 4 — $119.95 $199.95 (save $80)

• Fitbit Sense 2 — $179.95 $249.95 (save $70)

• Google Pixel Watch 3 (Bluetooth/WiFi, 45mm) — $199.99 $299.99 (save $100)

Best early Black Friday vacuum dealsRobot vacuums

• eufy C10 — $199.99 $479.99 (save $280)

• eufy L60 — $249.99 $559.99 (save $310)

• eufy Omni C20 — $349.99 $749.99 (save $400)

Stick vacuums

• Dyson V9 Motorbar — $269.99 $599.99 (save $330)

Best early Black Friday kitchen deals

• KitchenAid 5.5-quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer — $299.99 $499.99 (save $200)

Best early Black Friday unlocked phone deals

• Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold (256GB) — $1,499 $1,799 (save $300)

• Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold (512GB) — $1,619 $1,919 (save $300)

SAVE $510: As of Nov. 7, the eero Max 7 mesh WiFi system is on sale for $1,189.99 at Amazon. That's a 30% discount on the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: eero eero Max 7 $1,189.99 at Amazon
$1,699.99 Save $510   Get Deal

The eero Max 7 is back on sale at Amazon, but this time you can get it for its lowest-ever price.

As of Nov. 7, the impressive WiFi setup is down to $1,189.99, saving you over $500 on list price. With this router system, you can say goodbye to poor connections, laggy calls, and endless buffering.

SEE ALSO: The best WiFi routers for every home

But what is a mesh WiFi system? It is essentially a booster system that includes a main router and three (or more, this deal is for three) nodes placed around your home. The router works with these to cancel out dead zones in your space, making sure that you get reliable WiFi coverage all over your home.

This router will give you ultra-fast WiFi 7 performance with speeds up to 9.4 Gbps wired and 4.3 Gbps wireless, and it uses TrueMesh, TrueRoam, and TrueChannel software to keep your connection stable. And if you're a gamer or have a smart home, then this router was built for you, with its support for AR, VR, and connects Thread, Matter, and Zigbee devices. This means you can connect devices like a robot vacuum.

Worried you'll still have dead spots? This router system covers up to 7,500 sq. ft. and supports 750+ devices, so it’s ideal for large spaces. And the best part? Setup takes just minutes with the eero app.

Get this router deal from Amazon now.

How do you become the world's first trillionaire? If you thought it's by working hard, saving every penny and making your own lattes instead of buying them at Starbucks, we have news that may disappoint you.

On Thursday, during the company's Annual Shareholder Meeting, Tesla shareholders have voted to approve CEO Elon Musk's ridiculously hefty pay package that could net him $1 trillion dollars worth of Tesla shares. That, on top of the roughly $473 billion he already owns, would make him by far the wealthiest person on Earth and the world's first trillionaire.

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Musk already is the wealthiest person in the world, but he's got Oracle's Larry Ellison breathing down his neck with a $303 billion net worth.

Getting that trillion won't be easy. According to the terms of the 2025 CEO Performance Award, as the agreement is innocently called, Musk will have to stay at Tesla for seven and a half years, and bring the company's market share to $8.5 trillion in order to earn the full award, as well as hit a number of other goals such as deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles, 1 million "bots," and have 1 million Robotaxis in commercial operation.

For comparison, the largest company by market cap is currently Nvidia with a "mere" $4.6 trillion capitalization, followed by Apple with $4 billion. Yes, Tesla would have to be roughly the market cap of both Apple and Nvidia combined for Musk to achieve this goal.

This sounds very much in tune with Musk's typical lofty promises which often get revised or extended far into the future, but at least now there's a fixed agreement on when all of this must happen: by Nov. 6, 2035.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk uses paid feature to boost his anti-Zohran Mamdani views on X before NYC election

Notably, during the shareholders meeting, Musk said the new Tesla Roadster's unveiling is scheduled for April 1, 2026 — literally days after he'd said he hopes the unveiling would happen "before the end of the year." Good luck with that trillion.