Angelina Jolie To Receive Maltin Modern Master Award At Santa Barbara Film Festival
Angelina Jolie, who is getting strong notices for Netflix’s Maria Callas biopic Maria, has been named the recipient of the 2025 Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Maltin Modern Master Award. The honor will be bestowed in a ceremony February 5 as part of the fest’s 40th edition.
The Santa Barbara festival runs February 4-15, smack in the middle of movie-awards season, making it a must-stop for talent. The festival will roll out more of its annual honorees soon.
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The Modern Masters Award honors an “individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry.” Past recipients include Jamie Lee Curtis, Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, Robert Downey Jr., Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood and Peter Jackson.
Jolie will attend the ceremony and sit for a Q&A retrospective moderated by Maltin, the longtime critic and SBIFF attendee who had the award renamed after him in 2015.
“Angelina Jolie makes bold choices, both as an actress and as a director,” Maltin said in a release Wednesday announcing the award. “She sets the bar high in both disciplines and always comes through. I look forward to reviewing her career with her in Santa Barbara.”
Jolie, who won a Supporting Actress Oscar in 2000 for Girl, Interrupted, counts credits including the Maleficent series and Salt, and directed, produced and co-wrote 2017’s First They Killed My Father and the upcoming Without Blood. She also directed 2014’s Unbroken. She won the Oscars’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2014.
Maria, which was directed by Pablo Larraín, world premiered at the Venice Film Festival and stars Jolie as the opera legend in her final days. It hits select theaters November 27 before streaming on Netflix beginning December 11.
The full 2025 SBIFF lineup and schedule will be released in January.
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