After several weeks dominated by franchise spectacles and familiar studio formulas, this weekend’s new releases offer a somewhat stranger mixture of choices for moviegoers. Horror fans are being courted with surreal nightmare imagery, history lovers are getting a tense wartime drama, families have a broad comedy alternative, and Star Wars loyalists still have another chance to revisit a galaxy far, far away on the big screen. Whether audiences are looking for psychological dread, historical suspense, or simple escapism, theaters are offering an eclectic lineup heading into the final weekend of May.

Prior to Hollywood’s broader recognition of Native American performers and their contributions, a Cheyenne and Arapaho actress known as “Indian Minnie” emerged as one of the most prominent figures in silent film. Born Minnie Provost and sometimes credited as Minnie Devereaux or “Minnie Ha-Ha,” she was recognized for her warmth, wit, and charisma, distinguishing herself among Native actresses in the 1910s and early 1920s. Despite her comic roles, her life was characterized by struggle, perseverance, loss, illness, and survival.

The Hollywood in Miniature exhibit officially premiered in Hollywood in early 1946 under the sponsorship of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Civic leaders promoted it as both entertainment and a celebration of the movie capital. Publicity described the attraction as one of the most remarkable exhibits ever shown in the city. Visitors praised the extraordinary craftsmanship and referred to it as “a dream come true” and “an artistic triumph.”

Long before preservationists fought to save Hollywood’s vanished landmarks, before coffee-table books documented lost movie palaces, and before miniature artists became television curiosities, an extraordinary and almost forgotten exhibit attempted something astonishing: to preserve the entire spirit of Hollywood itself in miniature form. Streets, theaters, homes, hillsides, palm trees, neon signs, traffic lights, film studios, and even the rolling surf at Malibu Beach were painstakingly recreated by hand in one of the most ambitious model-city projects ever attempted in Southern California. Known as Hollywood in Miniature, the sprawling exhibit became both a technical marvel and an accidental time capsule of a vanished Los Angeles.

After years of delays, abandoned trilogies, streaming spin-offs, and endless speculation about the future of the franchise, The Mandalorian and Grogu finally arrived as the first theatrical Star Wars feature in years. Directed by Jon Favreau and continuing the storyline launched in Disney+’s enormously successful The Mandalorian series, the film reunites audiences with Din Djarin, played once again by Pedro Pascal, and his tiny green companion Grogu, still affectionately known to much of the world as “Baby Yoda.” The supporting cast includes Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White, Brendan Wayne, and Lateef Crowder, while longtime franchise collaborator Dave Filoni co-wrote the screenplay with Favreau.

Before there was Lassie or Rin Tin Tin gracing movie marquees as Warner Bros.' top box-office star, another intelligent, disciplined and handsome German Shepherd made Hollywood studios take notice. His name was Peter the Great. Peter appeared in several silent film favorites as action melodrama and crime thriller heartthrobs throughout the mid-1920s. He was well received by both audiences and critics alike for his astounding obedience training and ability to emote on camera

Memorial Day weekend arrives with one of the most eclectic groups of new theatrical releases in recent months. Hollywood is offering audiences a little of everything this week: major franchise spectacle, offbeat satire, psychological horror, survival thrillers, romance, and prestige drama. Whether moviegoers are searching for pure escapism, thoughtful independent filmmaking, or something strange and unsettling, theaters are once again providing several intriguing reasons to leave the house and buy a ticket. Here is a look at the major releases opening this weekend and what critics and audiences are already saying about them.

Judy Garland's turbulent personal history features several prominent figures, particularly men who influenced her career, finances, and public image. Among these individuals, Mark Herron, her fourth husband, remains relatively indistinct despite his close association with one of Hollywood’s most scrutinized lives. Herron's brief and volatile relationship with Garland was ultimately overshadowed by her enduring legacy. However, his story offers valuable insight into the complex intersections of celebrity, anonymity, and personal struggle in mid-twentieth-century Hollywood.

Once upon a time in Hollywood, amid orange groves, dusty streets, and the rising fantasy factories of the silent-film era, a cluster of tiny storybook cottages appeared on Formosa Avenue just south of De Longpre. With their crooked roofs, curved chimneys, uneven shingles, leaded windows, and whimsical medieval styling, the homes looked less like Southern California real estate and more like something torn from the pages of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Nearly a century later, the so-called Chaplin Cottages — also known as the Hansel and Gretel Cottages — remain among the most enchanting and mysterious architectural survivals from Hollywood’s earliest golden age.

In the final, fading years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when the old studio system was beginning to crumble and once-mythic stars drifted uneasily toward obsolescence, one last scandal exploded across newspaper headlines with the force of a dying era’s final gasp. At the center stood Beverly Aadland, a blonde California teenager whose dreams of movie stardom became forever entangled with the tragic last chapter of screen swashbuckler Errol Flynn.

I almost skipped The Sheep Detectives entirely. The poster wasn't inviting. Neither was the premise. Animated CGI sheep that talk solve a murder mystery. Sounds like the type of movie that studios unleash upon theaters, complete with ear-shattering trailers, cheap laughs and a screenplay your patience tests while your kids bounce in their seats. The stellar cast didn't even sway me at first. We've all come to learn over the years that a great cast doesn't guarantee quality entertainment. Then something happened that caught my interest.

In the spring of 1922, at the very height of his meteoric rise to international fame, Rudolph Valentino found himself not on a film set but at the center of one of Hollywood’s most sensational legal scandals—a case that revealed both the rigid morality of the era and the volatile intersection of celebrity, law, and public fascination.