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First Click: Hateful Eight, System Shock 3, and a preview of the week ahead

December 21st, 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has obliterated box office records since opening Thursday night. In fact, half of all Verge readers might have already seen the Disney film if our Friday poll was any indication. Fortunately, Christmas Day still has a few treats for the movie-going public with several blockbuster premieres yet to open.

The Hateful Eight western, Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, premieres on December 25th with Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell in starring roles. Christmas is also the opening day for The Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in front of the camera and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) in the director’s chair. David O’ Russell’s “joyless” Joy with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro also opens on Christmas day, as does the Point Break remake and Concussion starring Will Smith.

And be sure to check out our Holiday Gift Guide for some last-minutes gift ideas spanning home essentials, gadgets and gear, media, and games. Or treat yourself — it’s been a tragic year and you deserve to be pampered.

  1. The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino at his most sophisticated and sloppy

    A feature-length battle between the filmmaker and his most self-indulgent instincts.

  2. The iPhone's camera is so good because 800 people are working on it

    Apple was the subject of a wide ranging but not very hard hitting 60 Minutes segment on Sunday night. Charlie Rose steered the conversation through topics that Apple and its CEO Tim Cook have...

  3. The time I tried to make System Shock 3

    After I graduated from college, I lost all sense of purpose and decided to make System Shock 3. I was in a career-focused program at a school full of ambitious people, and I’d aligned my life...

  4. Take a closer look inside DJI’s flagship drone store

    DJI, the world's best-known drone maker, has opened its first store. The 800-square-meter flagship, located in the Chinese city of Shenzen, boasts a theater, a lounge, a repair counter, and a...

  5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens — The Verge's deep-dive roundtable discussion

    Note: Major Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoilers are in this video. It’s been a long and mysterious road on the way to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but with the movie now out in theaters it’s...

  6. The 10 best video games of 2015

    You can tell 2015 was a great year for new video games by the titles that didn’t make this list. It was a year that saw inventive new mobile games like Prune and Alto’s Adventure, and...

  7. Here are Science Magazine's picks for the coolest things that happened in science this year

    Science Magazine announced its top pick for "breakthrough of the year" this week — and it's a great choice! CRISPR, the gene-editing technique, definitely dominated the news in 2015. For the...

  8. The physics of Star Wars' Starkiller Base: could that really happen?

    Star Wars — with actual stars.

  9. Trim seeks out and destroys awful monthly subscriptions

    In the age of Netflix, Spotify, and unwanted LinkedIn Premium subscriptions, it can be difficult to keep track of where your money is going on a monthly basis. Trim, a San Francisco startup from...

  10. I tried a bunch of coloring apps, and they all miss the point

    The first time I saw evidence of the fad firsthand, I had to stifle a giggle -— the sight of two grown women in a coffee shop, clutching colored pencils and shading in mandala patterns, struck me...

Star of the day