The Current
A magazine of film culture past and present, with new articles, interviews, and videos published every day
Recent Articles
Jeremy Workman’s Top 10
A frequent Criterion collaborator who has edited many of our trailers, the director of The World Before Your Feet charts the evolution of his movie love through multiple formats and new technologies.
L’humanité: Ordinary Human Behavior
In his idiosyncratic, award-winning second film, Bruno Dumont uses the story of an alienated police detective to investigate the most elemental aspects of human experience.
La vie de Jésus: The Sky Above
Bruno Dumont’s remarkable first feature examines the intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the French provinces.
Tears Left to Cry: Jeon Do-yeon in Secret Sunshine
The Cannes-award-winning lead performance in Lee Chang-dong’s masterful melodrama captures both the pain and perverse pleasure of public crying.
A Newly Restored Paris Struts Back into Theaters
Starting this weekend, Janus Films is putting Jennie Livingston’s extraordinary snapshot of Harlem’s drag balls of the 1980s back on the big screen.
Why Swing Time Is the Greatest of All Dance Films
In this excerpt from an interview on our new edition of the Astaire-Rogers classic, dance critic Brian Seibert explains how beautifully and cleverly the film integrates dance into the structure of a romantic-comedy plot.
Dead Neighbors: Jim Jarmusch on George A. Romero
With his eccentric new zombie movie The Dead Don’t Die coming to theaters, Jim Jarmusch talks with us about the inspiration he drew from the late horror maestro’s postmodern, politically tinged approach to genre.
More Is More: Lessons in Excess from Women in Love
The director of the Sundance hit The Last Black Man in San Francisco reflects on what he learned from Ken Russell’s extravagant style and approach to the subject of male relationships.
Swing Time: Heaven Can’t Wait
In their most sublime collaboration, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers perfected a seamless blend of song, dance, and swooning romance.
Queer, There, and Everywhere
Now playing on the Criterion Channel, Christopher Munch’s New Queer Cinema landmark The Hours and Times excavates a gay fantasy from the annals of Fab Four lore.
The Chameleonic Charms of Sir Alec
Alec Guinness carved out a place among the greatest of British actors by mixing his demure persona with dry wit and a taste for the absurd.
The Angriest Cartoon in the World
David Lynch took his obsession with lost American innocence into bizarre new territory in the cartoon series DumbLand, originally made for his website and now available on the Criterion Channel.
Video
Spotlight
Songbook
Some of cinema’s most memorable moments are fueled by one perfectly chosen tune on the soundtrack. In this series, writers explore what happens when music and image meet.
