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Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

Where to watch.

Watch Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story with a subscription on Netflix, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Gran Turismo 's brisk action and feel-good underdog drama are undermined by its loose telling of the fact-based story, but this is still a generally solid racing movie.

If you're a racing fan or you've had fun playing the Gran Turismo games, then this entertaining underdog story is a must-watch movie.

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Cast & crew.

Neill Blomkamp

David Harbour

Jack Salter

Orlando Bloom

Danny Moore

Archie Madekwe

Jann Mardenborough

Darren Barnet

Matty Davis

Geri Halliwell

Lesley Mardenborough

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Gran turismo.

Gran Turismo is based on the unbelievable true story of a team of unlikely underdogs – a struggling working-class gamer (Archie Madekwe), a failed former racecar driver (David Harbour), and an idealistic motorsport executive (Orlando Bloom). Together, they risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world. Gran Turismo is an inspiring, thrilling, and action-packed story that proves that nothing is impossible when you’re fueled from within.

DIRECTED BY

Neill Blomkamp

SCREENPLAY BY

Jason Hall and Zach Baylin

Jason Hall and Alex Tse

Gran Turismo is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

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© 2024 Sony Pictures Digital Productions Inc.   All rights reserved

Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

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Certain films are so close to being good, so close to achieving a rare level of brilliance, your anger springs from said work not reaching those heights. Director Neill Blomkamp ’s “Gran Turismo,” a crowd-pleasing, genre-bending sports drama, approaches wonder with an odd tepidness; it maneuvers around any modicum of character development by taking all-too simple routes and swerves away from formal experimentation, opting instead for simple enjoyment.  

And yet, I can’t say I wasn’t invested in every race, lap, and turn. Nor can I say the climax didn’t successfully tug my heart toward an emotional response as the intrepid Jann Mardenborough ( Archie Madekwe ), a teenager who rose from gamer to real-life car racer, passed the finish line. 

“Gran Turismo” is an uncommon yet familiar biopic, a video game-inspired narrative with unique strengths and recurrent weaknesses. For one, as Mardenborough likes to say, the property the film takes inspiration from isn’t a game; it’s a simulator. Players can customize vehicles to startling specific details through a seemingly infinite library of parts to imitate a range of makes and models that rival professional drivers (Blomkamp attempts to visualize such realism by having transparent VFX cars envelop Mardenborough whenever he plays). 

Marketing extraordinaire Danny Moore ( Orlando Bloom ) knows the potentiality of such skill: He goes to GT proposing a competition in which the top seven gamers will train to become an actual racer for the Nissan team. He also recruits seasoned veteran crew chief and former driver Jack Salter ( David Harbour ) as a trainer. Moore’s venture brings heavy risk. And yet, when Jack asks Moore what the marketer gets out of this, Moore doesn’t have an answer. Despite Bloom’s inspired take, the wobbly, incomprehensible motivations of Moore only offer frustration.

Mardenborough’s desires are clearer cut: He wants to work on real cars. His father, Steve ( Djimon Hounsou ), a former professional footballer presently relegated to menial jobs, wants his son to be practical, lest he end up like his old man, filled with broken dreams. We don’t get much screen time or interiority from any Mardenborough family member. He has a doting, understanding mother ( Geri Halliwell ) and a partying immature brother ( Daniel Puig ), but they only fulfill the basic duty of filling out morsels of screen time. At a party, Mardenborough meets Audrey ( Maeve Courtier-Lilley ), whom he’ll keep up vicariously via Instagram. It’s disappointing that she never evolves narratively beyond being the dream girl on Mardenborough’s screen.

The young gamers turned drivers in the GT Academy are similarly thinly sketched. They’re inchoate obstacles who, once again, merely round out the biopic’s run time. The Academy's more pressing narrative function is to serve as a site for Mardenborough and Jack’s budding rapport. The latter is skeptical that these keyboard warriors possess the physical and competitive acumen to become professionals. Jason Hall and Zach Baylin ’s script plays an exhausting game of keep-away about Jack’s tragic backstory (are we supposed to believe that Mardenborough, a perpetually online teenager, didn’t Google his trainer?). 

“Gran Turismo” doesn’t really kick into gear until Mardenborough moves past the Academy to real racing, where he competes against teams hostile to simulator racers. It’s difficult not to hear characters say that sim drivers will never replace real drivers without thinking about the real-life struggle SAG-AFTRA and WGA face against AI, even if Mardenborough is a real person. Blomkamp portrays people like Mardenborough as plucky outsiders, not unlike the bobsledders in “ Cool Runnings .” The film’s use of common sports movie tropes unexpectedly aligning with real-world concerns makes for uneasy tension. 

Those tropes keep the viewer engaged even when the on-screen storytelling doesn’t wholly deserve it. While you’d expect editors Colby Parker, Jr. and Austyn Daines , along with cinematographer Jacques Jouffret , to match real gameplay rhythms and virtual visuals, the freeze frames that tell viewers what lap we’re on crush the pace, and the information provided is often repetitive to the dialogue. 

Even so, tropes are tropes because they work. For Mardenborough and Jack, it’s us against the world. A rivalry between Mardenborough and an ultra-rich racing team adds a dash of tension; a tragic crash gives Mardenborough a comeback story; a harrowing speech by the ever-dependable Hounsou puts the finishing touches on this underdog story and fully invests the viewer in the cares of an unassuming teenager. While "Gran Turismo" has greater issues than what’s outlined here, some nitpicky, others larger in scope—Madekwe as a lead is low-key to the point of invisibility—Blomkamp furnishes just enough cautionary thrills.  

In theaters Friday, August 25th. 

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the  New York Times ,  IndieWire , and  Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the  Los Angeles Times , and  Rolling Stone  about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

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Gran Turismo (2023)

Rated PG-13 for intense action and some strong language.

135 minutes

Archie Madekwe as Jann Mardenborough

David Harbour as Jack Salter

Orlando Bloom as Danny Moore

Darren Barnet as Matty Davis

Geri Halliwell as Lesley Mardenborough

Djimon Hounsou as Steve Mardenborough

Josha Stradowski as Nicholas Capa

Daniel Puig

Thomas Kretschmann

Maeve Courtier-Lilley

Emelia Hartford

• Neill Blomkamp

Writer (story by)

• Zach Baylin

Cinematographer

• Jacques Jouffret
• Colby Parker Jr.
• Lorne Balfe
• Andrew Kawczynski

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Where to Watch and Stream ‘Gran Turismo,’ Starring Archie Madekwe

The video game-inspired racing movie also features Orlando Bloom and David Harbour.

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With the release of the new film Gran Turismo , fans get a lot of heart, the rush of racecars and the story of a young man who turned his love of video games into an astounding career.

Now, if that premise intrigues you, then you may be wondering exactly how you can watch and stream Gran Turismo without heading to a theater. Well, it's time to get on the racetrack, because we have the answer for you. Keep on reading to learn where to watch and stream Gran Turismo online.

Where to watch and stream Gran Turismo :

Presently, the only place folks can watch Gran Tursimo is by purchasing a ticket at a local movie theater. But it won't be long until viewers can view the film on an extremely popular streaming site.

'Gran Turismo 7'

The action drama is currently being distributed by Sony Pictures, which also was the studio that put out 2022's Bullet Train . After three months of being in the box office, Bullet Train eventually made its way to Netflix . This coincides with the deal Sony made with the streamer in 2021, which gave Netflix the rights to have the movies live on their site. If this pattern follows similarly, it's likely Gran Turismo will drop on Netflix as well.

As for a specific release date for Gran Turismo , that's currently hard to say. Bullet Train dropped on Netflix roughly three months after its August cinematic debut, leading us to think Gran Turismo will have a similar trajectory. If this is the case, fans can start watching the film on Netflix ahead of Christmas in December 2023.

When the time comes to stream Gran Turismo on Netflix, viewers will need to register with the site first. The site offers a number of plans to opt into, the lowest of which starts at $6.99 per month . Once an account is made, people can click on the movie title on Netflix's website or on the Netflix app .

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“Gran Turismo” Is a Work of Pure Salesmanship

By Anthony Lane

All credit to “ Barbie ” and “ Oppenheimer ,” an odd couple if ever I saw one, for saving the summer box office, but the feast of moviegoing cannot last forever. Famine awaits. Look at the lineup that looms ahead: more “ Trolls ,” more “PAW Patrol,” yet more “ Hunger Games ,” a third shot of “The Equalizer” and of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and a fourth dose of “The Expendables,” who are evidently not. Already in cinemas is “Meg 2: The Trench,” a shark-infested swamp of joylessness. Much of it takes place on the ocean floor, in a confounding murk; the one bright patch is the opening scene, which is set sixty-five million years ago, around the time of Henry Kissinger’s tenth birthday.

Now we have Neill Blomkamp’s “Gran Turismo.” The title refers to the video game, familiar to the bleary eyes of PlayStation devotees, which allows the user to relish all the thrills—and, in painless form, the spills—of high-speed driving without the shame of environmental pollution or the torment of bickering about a parking spot. The movie’s hero is Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a shy youth from Cardiff, the capital of Wales, who pledges himself, with priestly zeal, to the practice of Gran Turismo. When the chance arrives to test his talents in an actual car, on a tangible racetrack, with rivals hurtling around him, he doesn’t hesitate. One moment he’s sitting in his bedroom in Cardiff; the next he’s on a private jet to Vienna. Talk about social mobility.

The cast of the film is an unusually mixed salad of talents, including David Harbour, Djimon Hounsou, Geri Halliwell-Horner, and Orlando Bloom—or, as their fans might prefer to think of them, a Hellboy, a gladiator, a Spice Girl , and an elf. Hounsou and Halliwell-Horner play Jann’s parents, who, not surprisingly, are dismayed by the ludicrous ambition of their son. Bloom, with a drop of oily smugness, plays a marketing whiz who convinces the executives at Nissan, in Tokyo, that by recruiting a gamer to drive their cars, in competition, they will appeal to “an untapped demographic of buyers.”

Notice the nakedness of the plea. Not since “Wayne’s World” (1992), in which Mike Myers found the courage to declare, “I will not bow to any sponsor,” while deftly raising the lid of a Pizza Hut box toward the camera, has a film been so flagrantly unembarrassed by its commercial obligations. Salesmanship is both the subject and the purpose of “Gran Turismo.” (It makes “ Air ” look bashful.) Were there a prize for the least subtle pitch on display, I’d be tempted to nominate the sight of a Nissan with the PlayStation logo plastered over it, but the winner would have to be a gift that Jann bestows upon his mentor, Jack Salter (Harbour), for services rendered: a shiny new Walkman, held just long enough in Jack’s grasp for us to drink in the word “Sony.” This is not a question of a movie selling its soul. The soul is in the selling.

Harbour is an actor of such genial grit that he, alone among the performers, manages to abrade the smooth absurdities of “Gran Turismo.” His character is hired to turn Jann and a bunch of other hopefuls into racing drivers, and he gives it to them straight. “I’m going to prove that you don’t have what it takes,” Jack tells them. The cranky coach is a Hollywood standby—think of Robert Duvall fine-tuning Tom Cruise in “Days of Thunder” (1990)—and it goes without saying that Jack is a “flamed-out has-been,” but Harbour does what he can to rein in the runaway triumphalism of the plot, and I liked the unexcitable shrug with which he reports an inferno on the track. “Cars explode all the time,” he says. “This is normal.”

Blomkamp, who made “District 9” (2009) and “Elysium” (2013), is at his best when everything goes nuts. There are a couple of crashes in “Gran Turismo” that rock you back in your seat; one involves a vehicle cresting a hill at the Nürburgring, in Germany, flipping on its stern, and sailing off the course. The perennial hitch with race-car flicks is how to drive home the roaring craziness of the contest without leaving the audience simply deafened and disoriented, and Blomkamp solves the problem by giving us literal pointers—little lines that indicate Jann’s car as he whips along, plus numbers to inform us where he stands in the running. More helpful still is the marketing guy’s last-minute clarification of the twenty-four-hour race at Le Mans. “Just to go over it again: it’s a twenty-four-hour race,” he says. Thanks.

The strange thing about “Gran Turismo” is that, by and large, it happens to be a true story. There is a Jann Mardenborough, and he is indeed a PlayStation supremo who became a driver. Over and over, we are invited to goggle at such amazingness. “This is not a game. This is a race,” Jann is told, and his father exhorts him to stick to “the realm of reality.” The overarching irony of the tale is that, true though it may be, it never feels quite real; the more that Jann exceeds what is foretold of him, the farther he accelerates into a mere simulation of a plausible narrative. I think Blomkamp is onto something with this movie, at the extremes of fantasy fulfillment, and I half expected him to pull away at the end to reveal that the whole saga, winner’s podium and all, had been engineered by A.I., down to the last virtual nut and bolt. Where we go from here I hate to imagine. Maybe gamers everywhere, following Jann’s lead, will now demand entry to the mortal world. Get ready for films about Mario Kart addicts who leave their consoles, grow mustaches, and train to become small Italianate plumbers. The play’s the thing.

After the hustling pace of “Gran Turismo,” the stillness of “Fremont,” a new film from Babak Jalali, feels not so much restful as haunted. There are long stretches during which the characters—notably the heroine, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada)—hold steady in front of the camera, saying next to nothing. That’s how Donya gets to see a shrink without an appointment: just by staring the receptionist into submission. Later, when she looks us in the eye, it’s hard not to feel scrutinized, as if we were being asked to account for our actions.

Donya needs a psychiatrist because she wants sleeping pills, and she can’t sleep because the thought of her old existence—which we don’t see, and which we hear about only piecemeal—is pressing against her current one. She lives in Fremont, California, and has a job, in San Francisco, at a business that makes fortune cookies. (By way of a promotion, she graduates from wrapping them to writing the mottoes tucked inside. “They shouldn’t be too original,” her boss commands.) But she used to live in Afghanistan, where she was an interpreter, employed by U.S. forces to translate for Afghan troops. Those duties earned her a visa and a chance to evacuate after the Taliban returned to power. If you watched last year’s alarming HBO documentary “Escape from Kabul,” you will have some conception of the chaos from which she, or her real-life counterparts, fled. Her calmness, these days, is that of someone who walked through the storm.

It would be heartening to report that Donya is embraced by the immigrant community of her compatriots, but, as the movie suggests, so benign an ideal doesn’t always work out. One of Donya’s neighbors refuses to speak to her, presumably because of her deeds in Afghanistan; another does little but stand on a balcony and smoke. Could it be that reaching out to others, as we are so often enjoined to do, is beyond the capacity of the stunned? My favorite figure is a waiter who stands idle in the lowly joint where Donya—the only customer, apparently—tends to dine. Gazing at a soap opera on the restaurant TV, he remarks, “I can’t tell if this series is interesting, or if my own life is uninteresting.” Rarely has the fatal attraction of television been so concisely defined.

To treat “Fremont” as some kind of geopolitical case history, though, would be misleading. It’s more of a study in solitude. Donya, rehearsing for a blind date, sets a table and makes conversation to the empty air, like Miss Lonelyhearts in “Rear Window” (1954). Also, a mood of desolation emanates even from those who are not condemned to exile. Donya’s shrink, for instance, is a hapless fellow named Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington), who is obsessed with Jack London’s “ White Fang ” and seems pitifully pleased to have someone to talk to; it’s really not his fault if he bears an unfortunate resemblance to the brute in “Fargo” (1996) who fed one of his victims into a wood chipper. Then, we have the mechanic, played with a halting gentleness by Jeremy Allen White, whom Donya encounters at a garage. “I usually eat my lunch here,” he tells her, “and for dinner I’ll eat here, too.”

The movie, photographed by Laura Valladao, is in black-and-white; add the deadpan dialogue and you may be reminded of, say, early Jim Jarmusch . But there’s not a smack of hipness here, and Jalali is not on a quest for cool. Rather, the story is suffused with an uncommon blend of radiance and resignation, nowhere more rapturously than in the final shot. Donya stands beneath a tree, in a luminous haze of sunlight, beside the busted shell of a car with no wheels and an abandoned armchair. In America, her newfound land, even the things are alone. ♦

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Screen Rant

Gran turismo ending explained.

Gran Turismo tells the incredible true story of Jann Mardenborough’s journey from GT player to motorsport racer; here is the film’s ending explained.

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Gran Turismo.

• Gran Turismo tells the incredible true story of Jann Mardenborough's journey from gamer to professional racer, culminating in his race at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans.
• The film emphasizes Jann's positioning in the race, with his team needing to finish in the top three to prove their worth and overcome the doubters of the GT Academy project.
• Gran Turismo simplifies the details of the Le Mans race for the audience but accurately depicts Jann's podium finish and his team's success within their class.

Gran Turismo is the incredible true story of Jann Mardenborough's journey from a player of the titular game to a professional motorsport racer and here is everything you need to know about the film's ending. The film begins with Orlando Bloom's Danny Moore, a marketing executive at Nissan, pitching an idea to the heads of the company. Moore's idea centered around reinvigorating the love of driving and racing in the general public by appealing to an untapped audience with potential for greatness: the world of gamers.

Moore's idea was to bring the world's best Gran Turismo players and attempt to turn them into professional motorsport racers, something he begins with the help of former racer Jack Salter, played by David Harbor who is another standout member of Gran Turismo 's fantastic cast . One of the entrants into the tournament is Archie Madekew's Jann Mardenborough, with Gran Turismo chronicling his journey from Gran Turismo player to racing in the most prestigious race in the world: 24 Hours of Le Mans. The film ends with Jann's race in Le Mans, in a true feel-good, sports movie from director Neill Blomkamp.

Gran Turismo’s Le Mans Race & Jann’s Placement Explained

Gran Turismo 's plot builds to the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, one of motorsport's most prestigious events. The Le Mans race is different from other motorsport events as the positioning is based on how much ground each car covers. Each car has three drivers who must rotate across 24 hours, with no driver being allowed to race for longer than 14 hours; the team whose car covers the most distance after 24 hours is crowned the winner. Alongside the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500, the Le Mans race makes up the Triple Crown of Motorsport, proving the difficulty Jann had to overcome to race in the event.

As the 24 Hours of Le Mans race makes up the climax of Gran Turismo , much of the opus is placed on Jann's positioning. It is revealed before the race that Jann and his team of other GT Academy drivers must place in the top three in order to be classed as "real" racers by the other teams who are petitioning to have them removed from the sport. The positioning of Le Mans is interesting, in that teams compete within their class - that being against a set group of other cars with the same or similar specifications - while simultaneously competing with every other car outside of their class.

At the end of Gran Turismo , Jann and his team managed to secure third, earning a podium finish and proving all the doubters wrong about the GT Academy project. What G ran Turismo does not reveal is that Jann and his team finished ninth overall, yet the third-placed finish was within their class which explains the podium celebrations. That said, a podium finish of any kind was all Jann and his other races needed to accomplish in order to prove Moore's GT Academy idea a success.

Why The Other GT Academy Drivers Race On Jann’s Le Mans Team

One interesting element of the true story of Gran Turismo that is changed somewhat for the film's ending is the two other members of Jann's Le Mans team consisting of other GT Academy drivers. The reason for this stems from the unconventional project of the GT Academy, with the other racing teams in motorsport petitioning against Jann racing due to his entrance into the sport. Moore is then given an ultimatum: Jann and two other GT Academy racers must drive at Le Mans and secure a podium finish. If they can do so, the rest of the motorsport world will acknowledge the GT Academy drivers as real racers.

How Gran Turismo’s Le Mans Race Compares To Real Life

Gran Turismo 's true story changes the Le Mans race somewhat, in that both other racers besides Jann are GT Academy drivers. In the real Le Mans 2013 race on which the film is based, Jann Mardenborough raced alongside Michael Krumm and Lucas Ordóñez. The former was a professional racer who entered the sport through conventional means before racing in Le Mans 2013, while the latter had a similar background to Jann. To dramatize the events of Gran Turismo 's ending, the decision was made to change both other racers into GT Academy drivers alongside Jann.

In terms of results, Gran Turismo accurately depicts Jann's podium finish alongside his team. While the film neglects to delve into all the details surrounding Le Mans positioning - such as the competition being simultaneous between classes and every other car - Gran Turismo simplifies things for general audiences by simply stating Jann must finish third and showing him doing so. As it turns out, the mention that Jann's team finished ninth in the overall competition is not necessary, as a third-place finish within their class was enough to secure their future in motorsport.

Did Jann Really Break A Le Mans Lap Record?

In Gran Turismo 's ending, Jann is shown as the last interval driver for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. After a few hiccups, Jann is sent back into the race to attempt to secure a podium finish. Jann uses his knowledge of racing the Le Mans track from the titular video game to race somewhat unconventionally, allowing him to make up ground on the cars in front and eventually finish in third. This unconventional racing is highlighted in the film by Jann setting a Le Mans lap record, begging the question of whether this happened in real life.

The true story of the film - which appears to be resonating well with audiences as evidenced by Gran Turismo 's Rotten Tomatoes score - is slightly different. It seems as though there is no evidence to the fact that Jann Mardenborough broke a Le Mans lap record. In reality, Mardenborough is credited with setting a lap record a year after the 2013 Le Mans at the Hockenheimring race with the filmmakers behind Gran Turismo changing this to Le Mans for dramatic effect during the film's finale.

How Gran Turismo 2 Could Happen

While unlikely, there are some ways Gran Turismo 2 could happen. Firstly, Jann's 2013 Le Mans podium finish truly kickstarted his racing career. Since competing at Le Mans in 2013, Jann went on to primarily race in Japanese competitions such as the Super GT and Super Formula championships. These championships could easily see Madekwe return as Jann in a sequel to Gran Turismo alongside Harbor and Bloom as Salter and Moore respectively.

Another possibility for Gran Turismo 2 is sequels focusing on other GT Academy classes. The GT Academy program continued long before and after Jann's success in reality, meaning a sequel to the film could center on Moore and Slater training other successful candidates. Naturally, this all depends on Gran Turismo 's box office success which will likely decide whether a sequel or continuation is produced.

The Real Meaning Of Gran Turismo’s Ending Explained

Finally, when concerning the real meaning of Gran Turismo 's ending, the result is fairly self-explanatory. Much of the film is centered around Jann proving doubters wrong. From members of his own team and pit crew to other racers and even the doubts his family members hold about his ambitions, the meaning of Gran Turismo 's ending lies in Jann proving to everyone that he belongs as a motorsport racer. When concerning whether Gran Turismo accomplished this, the sheer elation, emotional impact, and excitement of Jann's Le Mans race proves the film went above and beyond in delivering the true meaning of its ending.

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Grand Tour: Disaster in Time

Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, Widower (Ben Wilson) and daughter (Hillary) are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travellers. Why t... Read all Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, Widower (Ben Wilson) and daughter (Hillary) are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travellers. Why they won't stay at the hotel in town is just the first of many mysteries surrounding the gr... Read all Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, Widower (Ben Wilson) and daughter (Hillary) are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travellers. Why they won't stay at the hotel in town is just the first of many mysteries surrounding the group that lead Wilson to a startling discovery affecting his family and neighbours.

• David Twohy
• Henry Kuttner
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• Ariana Richards
• Emilia Crow
• 36 User reviews
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• 2 wins & 4 nominations

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• Trivia Based on the novella "Vintage Season" by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore , which originally appeared in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was credited to Lawrence O'Donnell, a pseudonym used a few times by Kuttner and Moore.

Undersecretary : There is a purpose to Time, you know... keeps everything from happening all at once.

• Connections Referenced in Serial Mom (1994)

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• John-Hornby4
• Aug 18, 2006
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• May 9, 1992 (United States)
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Yellowstone tourist kicks bison in its leg before it turns and injures him, rangers say

A Yellowstone National Park visitor was left injured while harassing a bison herd, park rangers said.

The 40-year-old park tourist from Idaho Falls, Idaho, was injured by a bison on April 21, according to an April 29 news release by the National Park Service.

The man had “harassed a herd of bison and kicked a bison in the leg,” officials said.

Park rangers found the man’s car near the park’s west entrance and stopped it in West Yellowstone, Montana, officials said.

The man was arrested and charged with being under the influence to a degree that may endanger oneself, disorderly conduct, approaching wildlife and disturbing wildlife, officials said.

The man suffered minor injuries from the bison encounter and was treated at a hospital before being sent to the Gallatin County Detention Center, rangers said.

The 37-year-old driver of the car was also arrested and charged with driving under the influence and disturbing wildlife, officials said.

Both individuals were scheduled to appear in court on April 22, officials said. Each of the violations may result in fines up to $5,000 and six months in jail.

This marks the first reported injury of a visitor by a bison in 2024, rangers said.

The investigation remains ongoing, rangers said.

In 2023, a bison gored a 47-year-old woman visiting Yellowstone from Arizona, leaving her with severe injuries to her chest and stomach, McClatchy News reported.

“Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal,” park rangers said. “They are unpredictable and can run three times faster than humans.”

Bison are huge animals that can weigh 2,000 pounds and run 30 mph, according to the park. Stay at least 75 feet away from bison at all times.

Elk found devoured on football field near Yellowstone in rare attack, school says

Deer gores woman as she steps out front door of her Colorado home, officials say

Bison side-eyes worker as they leave dorm, video shows. See the moment in Yellowstone

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Animal groups are urging tourists not to visit Wyoming after a man hit a wolf then took it to a bar

FILE - In this April 15, 2008, file photo, a bison makes its way across the historic gate to Yellowstone National Park at Gardiner, Mont. As Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming opens for the busy summer season, wildlife advocates are leading a call for a boycott of the conservative ranching state over laws that give people wide leeway to kill gray wolves with little oversight. (James Woodcock/The Billings Gazette via AP, File)

FILE - A track from a wolf is seen in the mud near the Slough Creek area of Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020. As Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming opens for the busy summer season, wildlife advocates are leading a call for a boycott of the conservative ranching state over laws that give people wide leeway to kill gray wolves with little oversight. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — As Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming opens for the busy summer season, wildlife advocates are leading a call for a boycott of the conservative ranching state over laws that give people wide leeway to kill gray wolves with little oversight.

The social media accounts of Wyoming’s tourism agency are being flooded with comments urging people to steer clear of the Cowboy State amid accusations that a man struck a wolf with a snowmobile, taped its mouth shut and showed off the injured animal at a Sublette County bar before killing it.

While critics contend that Wyoming has enabled such animal cruelty, a leader of the state’s stock growers association said it’s an isolated incident and unrelated to the state’s wolf management laws. The laws that have been in place for more than a decade are designed to prevent the predators from proliferating out of the mountainous Yellowstone region and into other areas where ranchers run cattle and sheep.

“This was an abusive action. None of us condone it. It never should never have been done,” said Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and a Sublette County rancher who has lost sheep to wolves. “It’s gotten a lot of media attention but it’s not exemplary of how we manage wolves to deal with livestock issues or anything.”

Wolves are federally protected as an endangered or threatened species in most of the U.S. but not the Northern Rockies. Wyoming, Idaho and Montana allow wolves to be hunted and trapped , after their numbers rebounded following their reintroduction to Yellowstone and central Idaho almost 30 years ago. Before their reintroduction, wolves had been annihilated in the lower 48 states through government-sponsored poisoning, trapping and bounty hunting into the mid-1900s.

Today, Wyoming has the least restrictive policies for killing wolves. There are limits on hunting and trapping in the northwestern corner of the state and killing them is prohibited in Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park, where they are a major attraction for millions of tourists. But outside the Yellowstone region, in the 85% of the state known as the “predator zone,” they can be freely killed.

The wolf allegedly was run down, shown off and killed within the predator zone.

Wolves roam hundreds of miles and often kill cattle and sheep. Gray wolves attacked livestock hundreds of times in 2022 across 10 states including Wyoming, according to an Associated Press review of depredation data from state and federal agencies, the most recent data available. Other times livestock succumb to other predators, disease or exposure or simply go missing.

Losses to wolves can be devastating to individual ranchers, yet wolves’ industry-wide impact is negligible: The number of cattle killed or injured in documented cases equals 0.002% of herds in the affected states, according to a comparison of depredation data with state livestock inventories.

The predator zone resulted from negotiations between U.S. and Wyoming officials who traded away federal compensation for livestock killed by wolves in exchange for allowing free killing of wolves in that area.

Saharai Salazar is among out-of-staters changing their travel plans based on what allegedly happened Feb. 29 near Daniel, a western Wyoming town of about 150 people.

The Santa Rosa, California, dog trainer posted on the state’s tourism Instagram account that she would not get married in Wyoming next year as planned. The post was among hundreds of similar comments, many with a #boycottwyoming hashtag on social media in recent weeks.

“We have to change the legislation, rewrite the laws so we can offer more protection, so they can’t be interpreted in ways that will allow for such atrocities,” Salazar said in an interview.

Wyoming’s rules have long invited controversy but are unlikely to harm the overall population because most of the animals in the state live in the Yellowstone region, said wolf expert and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf biologist Ed Bangs.

Bangs said the incident of the wolf brought into the bar was a “sideshow” to the species’ successful recovery. The predator zone is made up largely of open landscapes that generally don’t support wolves, he said.

Wyoming’s rules, including the predator zone, have withstood multiple court challenges that have put wolves on and off the endangered species list since they were first delisted in 2008. Wolves haven’t been on the list in the region since a 2017 court order and their current Wyoming population of more than 300 is similar to their number in 2010.

Though state law doesn’t specify how wolves in the predator zone can be killed and doesn’t specifically prohibit running them over, the Humane Society and others argue the state’s animal cruelty law applies in this case.

Widely circulating photos show the man posing with the wolf with its mouth bound. Video clips show the same animal lying on a floor, alive but barely moving.

The Sublette County Sheriff’s Office said it has been investigating the anonymous reports of the man’s actions but has struggled to get witnesses to come forward.

“We’ve had the tip line open for two weeks hoping for witnesses or something helpful,” sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Travis Bingham said. “I know there’s some hesitation for people to come forward.”

The only punishment for the man so far is having to pay a $250 ticket for illegal possession of wildlife.

The suspect has not commented publicly and did not answer calls to his business. Calls to the bar went unanswered.

Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.

A history of the Statue of Liberty getting destroyed or distorted in movie posters

"bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled audiences," say marketers for "civil war" to "cloverfield", by lisa laman.

The marketing campaign for "Civil War" began with one image. Shortly before the film’s trailer premiered, A24 debuted a single poster announcing the production’s imminent arrival. This teaser features none of the movie's notable actors. It also doesn't offer specific glimpses into the plot. Instead, the "Civil War" poster features two snipers poised at opposite ends of the Statue of Liberty 's torch. Sandbags dot the exterior of this torch. Everything on this poster exemplifies that this locale is now a go-to spot for soldiers rather than a tourist attraction. It's a striking image suggesting that no parts of America are off-limits in this national conflict. Everything can become a battleground.

Don’t you want to know what could lead to the chaos that resulted in the State of Liberty’s destruction?

This inaugural piece of "Civil War" marketing continues a long-running promotional trend for movie posters in distorting the Statue of Liberty. Over the years, decimating this iconic American landmark has become a go-to design motif for ominous movies involving cataclysmic circumstances. In the fictional universe of "Civil War," the titular conflict is something unprecedented. While the previous American Civil War had been split across two factions, the one in this film has divided the country into four different sectors, and this time they're duking it out with each other in large-scale battles with refined military firepower. Alex Garland 's dystopian hit is all about thrusting both its characters and the audience into a seemingly impossible American nightmare. The "Civil War" poster hinging on the distortion of the Statue of Liberty, though, is far less idiosyncratic.

Hollywood loves to destroy national monuments for the sake of eye-catching spectacle. Just look at 1950s creature features. These titles informed by the horrors of the Atomic Age featured recognizable American landmarks going up in smoke. A big octopus takes down the Golden Gate Bridge in 1955's "It Came from Beneath the Sea." A year later in "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers," the titular otherworldly invaders attack recognizable locales like the White House. These instances of spectacle tend to play on fears as relevant in 2024 as they were in 1954. Landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and the White House have always been around. They’re seemingly eternal fixtures that only exist in America. If they can get wiped out, nobody or nowhere is safe.

That anxiety underpins the film industry’s love for blowing up and damaging big American landmarks. It also defines the trend of movie posters depicting the Statue of Liberty in disarray. One notable early example of this phenomenon is a pair of posters for 1981's sci-fi actioner "Escape from New York." Set in the distant future of 1997, "Escape from New York" takes place in a world where the America/Russia conflict has resulted in Manhattan becoming a massive unruly prison. When the President (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage in this hideous domain, there's only one solution. To fight fearless criminals, you need one of your own. The unpredictable ex-Special Forces agent and federal prisoner Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is sent in to retrieve the President despite being the last guy anyone would think of as hero.

All of that mythology and story could be potentially difficult to communicate to moviegoers in a single image. Thus, the "Escape from New York" marketers leaned on skewing the Statue of Liberty to convey the movie's distinctive tone. One of these posters features a pair of handcuffs dangling from the arm of Lady Liberty . The other more famous poster shows the decapitated head of the statue looming in the background of a trio of humans (including Plissken) fleeing the city. Alternate posters for the film continued that theme.

Immediately, "Escape from New York's" posters suggest just how dire the world of this movie truly is. These striking visuals establish an ominous vibe that grabs your eye. However, they're also not throwing everything and the kitchen sink on the poster. Enough is left to the imagination to compel people to buy a ticket. Don’t you want to know what could lead to the chaos that resulted in the State of Liberty’s destruction?

In hindsight, these posters also suggest the cheeky anti-authority vibes of the film. "Escape from New York" is about rescuing the POTUS from the clutches of evil foes. However, neither protagonist Snake Plissken nor the movie has much respect for the President or any authority figures. Having the Statue of Liberty in shambles on the "New York" posters quietly revealed the feature's non-hagiographic approach to America. Nothing is sacred here. Not its leaders nor its monuments urging other countries to “give me your tired, your poor.”

A renaissance for disaster movies in the 1990s gave renewed urgency to posters depicting the Statue of Liberty or any American monument in tatters, with advancements in visual effects now making that possible. That included the White House getting blown up by alien invaders in "Independence Day" or Paris, France going up in smoke thanks to fragments of a massive asteroid in "Armageddon." The former movie even dedicated most of the back of its VHS case to an image of the State of Liberty in ruins. "Escape from New York's" poster lingered on the decapitated Statue of Liberty head to suggest a subversive ominous atmosphere. Now posters in that vein were decimating landmarks in the name of a blockbuster arms race. You couldn’t just promise spectacle to the viewer. You had to promise bigger spectacle than the last disaster movie. 

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This reasoning for this marketing fixation on the damaged Statue of Liberty endured into the 21st century. However, this is when it got amplified by unspeakably devastating real-world circumstances. The horrors of 9/11 made the destruction of seemingly indestructible New York City landmarks a very tangible prospect. Initially, Hollywood responded to this new status quo by removing reminders of 9/11 from their motion pictures. A "Spider-Man" teaser hinging on the Twin Towers was pulled from theaters. Fellow Sony/Columbia summer 2002 blockbuster "Men in Black II" reshot an entire climax that initially took place in this now-decimated location. However, eventually, Hollywood marketers returned to their old tricks. Not even a modern-day equivalent to Pearl Harbor could stop major studios from returning to the Statue of Liberty in ruins. In fact, posters for disaster movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" lingered on this monument's destruction. Now the promised ruin of the Statue of Liberty didn't signal a dystopian future; it grounded even the corniest disaster movies in something resembling reality. 

Here, viewers see the aftermath of the Statue of Liberty getting its head torn off.

This was especially true with Matt Reeves' 2008 monster flick "Cloverfield." That movie's entire marketing campaign oriented around the Statue of Liberty's decimation by the beastie Clover. With the entire movie captured via found-footage, "Cloverfield" especially evoked the terror of experiencing a 9/11-adjacent event in real time. There is no explanation for what’s going on. Tidy exposition to clarify the horrors is absent. All that’s clear is massive landmarks are perishing and that you need to run. This realistic tone rooted in ambiguity and the destruction of New York City infiltrates "Cloverfield’s" poster .

Here, viewers see the aftermath of the Statue of Liberty getting its head torn off. It's a striking and haunting image instilling a pit in your stomach on how ordinary people can navigate such grand chaos. This also makes the "Cloverfield" poster a visual inverse of the "Escape from New York" poster. How fitting since that earlier piece of marketing actually inspired this "Cloverfield" image in the first place!  

The ubiquity of these posters has continued into the post-2010 world. Subsequent Roland Emmerich movie "Independence Day: Resurgence" followed the practice. One of the many posters for this blockbuster features the Statue’s torch crumbling thanks to a lowering alien spacecraft. Meanwhile, even prestige TV got in on the act. "The Man in the High Castle's" debut poster, for example, features the Statue of Liberty performing the  Sieg Heil salute . This creepy alteration instantly explains how this show occupies an alternate history in which the Nazis won World War II.

The enduring ubiquity of these kinds of posters isn’t just because of distinctly American post-9/11 anxieties. Global moviegoers also factor into these posters being so prominent decades after "Escape from New York’s" poster dropped. Mainstream big-budget movies and TV shows are often designed to be digestible to any viewer on the planet. Part of that is setting them in locations anyone can recognize, such as Los Angeles and New York City. There’s a similar rampant cognizance of big American landmarks.

However, the Statue of Liberty is particularly special in this regard. On paper, it’s supposed to symbolize the best attributes of America. A gift from the French, the sculpture holds a tablet inscribed with the date July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals, representing independence. A broken chain and shackle represents freedom from slavery. The lines, "Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," are inscribed on a plaque in the statue's museum. Here is a gigantic monument to the idea that anyone can come into this land of opportunity and find possibilities denied to them in their homeland.

That’s the kind of visual that promises something provocative and possibly in touch with the complexities of America as a country.

Of course, the reality of America is much more complex. It’s not a haven paradise , but, like many other superpower countries, susceptible to corruption, systemic rot and enacting colonial horrors on Indigenous people. The dissonance between the State of Liberty’s intent and the realities of America has always fascinated artists. A couple of the most striking shots of the original two "Godfather" movies, for instance, juxtaposes the brutalities of America in the foreground while the Statue of Liberty stands tall in the distant background. In these images, the realities and dreams of America inhabit the same frame. 

Posters distorting the Statue of Liberty are a continuation of this tradition while also trodding on visuals that everyone around the world are conscious of. What better way to convey the ominous ambiance of your production than an image like the Statue of Liberty emitting a slithery tongue ? A promo for "The Strain's" third season takes it one step further:

That’s the kind of visual that promises something provocative and possibly in touch with the complexities of America as a country. Sure, such image build on a landmark that can be identified anywhere and everywhere. But they also speak to larger anxieties propelling the American public in different eras. 

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The Atomic Horror of the 1950s, the Cold War of the '80s, post-9/11 anxiety in the 2000s, the countless issues plagung America today . . . all of these woes have made Americans feel anxious about the very continued existence of this country. Movie marketing showing the Statue of Liberty getting distorted, including that  " Civil War" poster, don’t just build on these fears. They also entice potential moviegoers with the promise of exploring those overwhelming anxieties in the relatively safe confines of a closed-off movie theater. Here, all the mayhem and political turmoil is confined to the silver screen. 

about dystopian media

• "The Expanse" shows the dangers of treating extremism as a joke
• HBO Max's must-watch "Station Eleven" brings comfort and joy after the eerily familiar apocalypse
• The Reagan era and "Us": Sins of the '80s still haunt America in Jordan Peele's horror tale
• Michel Franco's dystopian drama "New Order" is an electrifying cattle prod to the nether regions

Located on the autism spectrum and in Texas, Lisa Laman is a film critic, freelance writer, and lover of all kinds of movies. Her writing has been featured on sites ranging from AutoStraddle to the Dallas Observer to Fangoria, among many others. She is fiercely passionate about karaoke, queso, and pugs.

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Trump’s trial is the latest chapter in the rich history of Lower Manhattan’s courts.

A cluster of downtown buildings has served as the borough’s “epicenter of criminal justice in New York since the 1830s,” said a lawyer who has led walking tours of Manhattan courthouses.

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

• April 26, 2024

For a decade, Robert Pigott, a lawyer, has led walking tours of the courthouses of Manhattan, guiding visitors around landmarks where the city’s rich legal history has played out. Now the trial of Donald J. Trump has added a chapter to the story he gets to tell.

Mr. Pigott’s tours, which he runs in his spare time, revolve around a cluster of downtown buildings that are the borough’s judicial hub. For now, 100 Centre Street — the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where the former president’s case is being heard — is the focus.

But just down the street on Foley Square sits Manhattan’s most elegant courthouse building, New York’s Supreme Court, with its sweeping flight of 32 stone steps leading up to a series of imposing Corinthian columns. Other court buildings are dotted around nearby.

“The eyes of the nation and the world are trained on criminal court cases in New York County, whether it’s organized crime, Wall Street cases or federal cases,” Mr. Pigott said.

Mr. Trump’s trial is remarkable because it is the first time that a former American president has been criminally prosecuted. The defendant’s status as this year’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee adds a contemporary political dimension.

For Mr. Pigott, 64, who has written a book about the history of the city’s courthouses, the real significance is what it says about the status of a few blocks of Manhattan as a nexus. He pointed out that Mr. Trump’s civil fraud case and defamation case also both played out this year in courthouses within spitting distance of the criminal trial.

“Now, when I arrive at the expanse of Foley Square midway through the walk, I can point to something truly remarkable — three different courthouses where the same former U.S. president has been on trial,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s trial shows how politics, celebrity and the location of the court itself can reinforce one another to make a big story bigger. New York’s status as a media hub increases the spotlight during high-profile cases and the high-profile cases held over the decades have, in turn, made the city’s courts an attractive setting for fictional courtroom dramas.

In these buildings, a jury convicted Anna Sorokin for grand larceny in 2019 for posing as a German heiress to swindle wealthy New Yorkers — a case that almost by definition blurred fact and fiction. Naturally, the tale has since been turned into a series on Netflix.

The cluster is also where a group of Black and Latino teenagers, then known as the Central Park Five, were wrongly convicted in 1990 of raping a jogger — a case also rendered as a Netflix series — and where Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty in 1981 to murdering the musician John Lennon.

The New York Supreme Court building, a trial-level court, often serves as a symbol of the court complex. It featured prominently in the television show “Law and Order" and the 1957 courtroom film classic “12 Angry Men,” to cite just two examples.

Mr. Pigott, however, is drawn to the history of the legal system before the 20th century and how it evolved through its buildings. The first stop on the tours he runs is a sidewalk nearby with glass blocks embedded in it, through which it is possible to see the excavations of a courthouse built by the Dutch in the colonial era.

The authorities in New York built a judicial infrastructure in this part of Lower Manhattan starting mainly in the 19th century, when the area experienced significant gang violence, he said.

“This one-block radius has been the epicenter of criminal justice in New York since the 1830s,” said Mr. Pigott.

For all the drama associated with the Trump trial, the streets outside the criminal courthouse have generally been calm this week. Reporters and members of the public have lined up for entry to the courthouse. And on Thursday morning, Collect Pond Park across the street, which has been designated for protests, was empty. Its only occupants were some police officers and a few pigeons.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a London-based reporter on the Live team at The Times, which covers breaking and developing news. More about Matthew Mpoke Bigg

The Flourishing World of Central Park

This verdant tourist destination is a pleasure ground for locals, too..

36 Hours in Central Park:  With its endless trails, hidden nooks, museums and nearby night spots, the park is a hub for both thriving activities and where one can find  a more tranquil, timeless Manhattan .

Flaco’s Kingdom : Before his demise earlier in February , the Eurasian eagle-owl’s escape from the Central Park Zoo  and subsequent life on the loose  captured the public’s attention and hearts .

Shakespeare Hits the Road: To many people, Central Park in the summer equals Shakespeare in the Park. But this year, because of renovations at the theater traditionally hosting the productions, the show will step outside  the confines of the park.

Regreening in the Park: A construction project next to the North Woods, involves remaking a part of the park  that serves as a backyard for nearby blocks in East Harlem, where green spaces are sorely missing.

A Reporter’s Design: Ever wondered who designed one of Central Park? Read about the life of Frederick Law Olmsted , who helped create one of New York’s shining jewels.