Features
Under the Sign of Sadness: Zbigniew Preisner’s Three Colors Scores
One of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s closest collaborators, the Polish composer suffuses the quotidian images that appear throughout Blue, White, and Red with deep poetry and sacred meaning.
Bright Lights, Dark Dreams: Alejandro Galindo in Morelia
This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.
Their Sounds Were Watching God
The films in the Criterion Channel collection Free Jazz chronicle the development of a deeply experimental music that has baffled and enthralled listeners in equal measure.
A Year of Essential Reading on the Current
From deeply researched surveys of great filmmakers’ careers to idiosyncratic takes on under-examined corners of cinema history, the writing we published this year offered an array of entry points into the art form we all love.
Room Tone 2022
With 2022 coming to a close, one of our editors lovingly compiled this montage of the magical moments of silence our crews and collaborators share at the end of every interview.
Irene Goes Wild
The great but underrated Hollywood star Irene Dunne made her transition to screwball comedy by playing the scandal-courting author at the heart of Theodora Goes Wild.
Making a Scene: Reflections on My Note-Card Method
The director of Amores perros breaks down his creative process with a selection of the note cards he used to construct the film’s character, mood, and rhythm.
Lost in the City with the Feelies
In Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens, the odyssey of a New Jersey transplant trying to survive in Manhattan is accompanied by the music of one of the Garden State’s most iconic punk bands.
The Daughter of Dawn’s Vanished World
After glimpsing his great-great-grandfather on-screen, a writer searches for the history of a landmark silent film.
Playing the Vampire: Six Performances That Draw Blood
The role of the vampire has given talented actors throughout film history—from Bela Lugosi to Catherine Deneuve—the chance to embody physical and moral extremity.
Slash Americana: Strange Behavior’s Eerie Charm
With an inscrutable aesthetic that feels stumbled upon as much as developed, Michael Laughlin’s cult B movie is a delirious mix of science fiction, horror, and American pastoral archetypes.
Blood, Guts, and Videotape: ’80s Horror and the Rise of Home Video
The emergence of VHS was a major turning point in the genre’s evolution, inspiring a veritable arms race among filmmakers looking to conjure the most extravagant and terrifying visions imaginable.
All Aboard the Ghost Ship: Hiroshi Matsuno’s Folk Phantasmagoria The Living Skeleton
This underappreciated 1968 film is a feast of dark delights, filled with vengeful ghosts, psychically linked identical twins, obsessed mad scientists, creepy priests, and seemingly sentient skeletons.
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and the Birth of African Cinema
Deeply influenced by his French education but primarily interested in the representation of African realities on-screen, this long-overlooked visionary approached a variety of subjects with a style both investigative and declarative.
James Wong Howe’s Way with Light
Throughout his prolific career, the Oscar-winning cinematographer mixed technical ingenuity with the vulnerability and longing of an outsider.
Double Seduction in Bull Durham
In a pivotal early scene in this baseball classic, director Ron Shelton mischievously uses two contrasting rock tunes to comment on disparate versions of masculinity.
The Mancini Touch
The music of the legendary, multiple-Oscar-winning composer brought the freedom and anxiety of postwar America to life.
Eagle Pennell, the Last Cowboy
An indie pioneer whose life was cut tragically short, the Texas filmmaker found grace in the tedium of repressive small-town existence.
The Cosmos According to Ulrike Ottinger
A seductive brew of decadence, dada, and drag, the German director’s fantastical films embrace the possibilities of female visual pleasure.
Cinema Pugilistica: A Century of Boxing on Film
Entwined with the evolution of American culture, boxing movies have used the microcosm of the ring to tackle issues of race, class, gender, and labor.
An Enigma Made Flesh: Delphine Seyrig in Golden Eighties
In her last significant film role, the art-house icon reveals an emotional vulnerability previously hidden by her ethereal persona.
The Unabashedly Queer Musical That Turned the Genre on Its Head
Both crowd-pleasing and gleefully subversive, Blake Edwards’s 1982 hit Victor/Victoria remains one of the few Hollywood musicals that explicitly depicts queer life.
At the End of Love’s Road with Michelangelo Antonioni
The long, quietly tense opening minutes of L’eclisse offer a blueprint for filmmakers looking to craft a devastating breakup scene.
The Melancholic, Joyous Soul of Guru Dutt
The Indian director, actor, and producer’s early death has enshrined him as a tragic icon in public memory. But there is more to his art than misery.