Spotlight
Under the Influence
In this ongoing series of videos, contemporary filmmakers talk to us about the movies that have had a lasting impact on their work.
The Current
An online magazine covering film culture past and present
Keaton at the Crossroads: Buster’s Last Silent Comedy, Spite Marriage
Despite the studio system’s stifling conditions, Buster Keaton’s follow-up to The Cameraman remains a testament to the funnyman’s singular style.
La piscine: Savage Water
Dismissed as gossip-column fodder in its time, Jacques Deray’s cooly enigmatic villa thriller is an exploration of masculine vanity and feminine disillusion.
The Same Old Song: A Guide to Neonoir
Since its classic-Hollywood heyday, noir has remained a vibrant mode in both studio and independent filmmaking, taking on nostalgic resonances in the highly referential work of Robert Altman, Arthur Penn, Brian De Palma, and the Coen brothers.
Joanna Hogg’s Closet Picks
The acclaimed director of The Souvenir gushes over her favorite musicals and stocks up on films by Federico Fellini.
Deep Cover: Who’ll Pay Reparations on My Soul?
Set against the backdrop of the war on drugs, Bill Duke’s boldly stylized thriller stages a meeting between the idea of noir and the idea of Black film.
Working Girls: Have You Ever Heard of Surplus Value?
Lizzie Borden’s groundbreaking drama scrutinizes the gender and labor relations that structure brothel-based sex work.
Carole Lombard’s Divine Lunacy
A raucous, fast-talking diva, the actor had a remarkable ability to convey both glamour and silliness, a gift that made her the queen of screwball comedy before her untimely death in 1942.
The Stars in Wong Kar Wai’s Universe
Nine writers with roots in the Chinese-speaking world pay tribute to the Hong Kong auteur’s most beloved actors.
Mirror: “All Is Immortal”
The fourth of Andrei Tarkovsky’s seven features is his most oneiric and resistant to interpretation, drawing from the director’s own childhood memories to create a fluid sense of history.
Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls, and Butterflies
Howard Hawks’s madcap battle of the sexes is a reminder of how necessary and sneakily profound silliness can be.
Prisoners of Second Avenue
For reasons this veteran editor and best-selling author can’t fully explain, an unsung film adaptation of a Neil Simon play has become an abiding domestic comfort many years after he first encountered it.
Pariah: Song of the Self
In Dee Rees’s ambitious and lyrical debut, the inner life of a queer Black teenager and poet is summoned in all its nuances and contradictions.
