South by Southwest, the annual media festival in Austin, Texas, gathers artists and artisans from the film, television, music, and tech landscapes for several days of in-person events and informative panels. Launched in 1987, SXSW has become a can’t-miss experience for those in the media world.
Every year in mid-March, festival-goers experience a diverse schedule of new movie premieres, TV show debuts, panels, performances, and more cutting-edge innovation. In 2021, Penske Media Corporation (which owns Gold Derby) acquired a 50 percent stake in SXSW, signaling a new chapter for the long-running event.
Scroll through our gallery below to see all of the best moments from the 2025 SXSW Film and Television festival, from Another Simple Favor star Blake Lively speaking publicly for the first time since the Justin Baldoni scandal erupted, to The Studio auteur Seth Rogen saying Martin Scorsese scolded him for saying “f–k too much,” to the trailer for The Last of Us Season 2 breaking the internet.
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Blake Lively breaks her silence
Image Credit: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images Another Simple Favor
All eyes were on Blake Lively on March 7 as she made her first public comments since her legal battle with It Ends With Us star and director Justin Baldoni became tabloid fodder. Appearing under heavy security, Lively kept her remarks regarding Another Simple Favor strictly business. “I love this character so much. It’s probably my favorite character I’ve ever been fortunate enough to play,” she said after the screening. “So when Paul asked us to come back, I was so excited.”
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Bashir Salahuddin, Anna Kendrick on the red carpet
Image Credit: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images Another Simple Favor
The cast of Another Simple Favor, which takes place on the beautiful island of Capri, Italy, kicked off SXSW on March 7 with a screening and meet-and-greet. Kendrick went viral on the red carpet for brushing off a question about the controversies surrounding her costar, Blake Lively. “What happened?” she asked innocently. “I did ayahuasca and the last year of my life has just gone, but I’ve heard the movie is amazing!”
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Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, James Weaver on swearing ‘too much’
Image Credit: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images The Studio
On March 7, co-creator, writer, director, and star Seth Rogen revealed that Oscar winner Martin Scorsese told Rogen and co-creator, director, and writer Evan Goldberg that they all have potty-mouths. “We told Martin Scorsese to say, like, ‘See, I should have sold this to f–king Apple,’” Rogen said after the two-episode world premiere of The Studio. “He’s like, ‘You guys say, f–k too much.’”
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Matt Damon, Ben Affleck on their friendship
Image Credit: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images The Accountant 2
Best buddies and Oscar winners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (Good Will Hunting) hit Austin on March 8 to celebrate the premiere of Amazon MGM Studios’ The Accountant 2. “None of us really have very many friends. You don’t need a million friends. You need a few good ones. And I’m really lucky to have had a friend in Matt,” Affleck said on the red carpet. “I’m lucky to have friends like that in my life.”
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Jenna Ortega on first meeting Paul Rudd
Image Credit: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images Death Of A Unicorn
Jenna Ortega takes on the role of Ridley, the daugher of Elliot (Paul Rudd), in this fantasy film from A24. “[Rudd and I] started shooting the movie a day or two after we met,” she explained at SXSW, which surprised the crowd as their relationship is central to the film’s plot and themes.
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Paul Rudd on having the right ‘experience’
Image Credit: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images Death Of A Unicorn
The quirky movie from A24 follows the father and daughter team of Elliot (Paul Rudd) and Ridley (Jenna Ortega), who accidentally run over a unicorn while visiting Elliot’s billionaire boss Odell (Richard E. Grant). Rudd joked at SXSW that he’s glad they “had the experience” to personally play these characters: “Jenna is a daughter in real life, and I’m actually a dad.”
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Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, Kaitlyn Dever tease Season 2
Image Credit: Travis P. Ball/Penske The Last of Us
Co-showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann joined cast members Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, and Young Mazino for a panel on March 8 that introduced the new trailer for Season 2 ahead of its April 13 debut. Pascal and Ramsey were Emmy nominees for Season 1 of The Last of Us, which won eight trophies out of 24 nominations. The trailer instantly broke the internet, garnering tens of millions of views.
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Eddy Cue, Ben Stiller on figuring out the end game
Image Credit: Renee Dominguez/Penske Severance
Ben Stiller, the Apple TV+ show’s executive producer and primary director, admits the brain-bending series’ brain trust isn’t 100 percent certain about how all the pieces fit together. “I would be lying if I said we had it all figured out,” Stiller admitted to Apple executive Eddy Cue during a Severance-themed presentation on March 9. Their wide-ranging conversation, which included sneak peeks at future episodes, touched on the origin of Severance, the show’s rabid fandom and out-there online theories, and how they pulled off this season’s wild goat scene.
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Nicole Kidman on taking a ‘twisty, crazy, wild ride’
Image Credit: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images Holland
Mimi Cave’s thriller movie Holland (which is titled after the Dutch-influenced city of Holland, Mich.) stars Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, and Gael García Bernal. Kidman spoke on March 9 about the film’s setting, saying, “[Cave] wanted to be able to create another world, and the backdrop of the windmill and the clogs and all of that gave her such a cinematic basis to create what she does. We were able to create characters in this slightly heightened reality, and then take you on a twisty, crazy, wild ride.”