The Current
A magazine of film culture past and present, with new articles, interviews, and videos published every day
Recent Articles
Morgan Neville Goes Through the Looking Glass with F for Fake
The Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker unpacks the wild inventiveness of Orson Welles and the late-career masterpiece that inspired his own approach to his new movie They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.
Mikey and Nicky: Difficult Men
In her long-unsung masterpiece, Elaine May takes an unflinching, darkly comic look at the forces of toxic masculinity that play out in an eroding friendship between two mobsters.
How Hitchcock Pulled off a Shot for the Ages
Award-winning cinematographer John Bailey discusses the complications that Alfred Hitchcock faced trying to execute one of the most ambitious shots in his filmography.
Least Wanted—Film Noir’s Character Actors: Wallace Ford
A haven for aging Hollywood actors, film noir had plenty of room for performers like Wallace Ford, who brought a hard-scrabble energy to the roles of has-beens and losers.
Get into the Groove in Augusta
Travel back to the dawn of the eighties with The Last Days of Disco, playing today at Augusta University in a series of screenings celebrating its writer-director.
Notorious: The Same Hunger
In this pitch-perfect noir romance, Alfred Hitchcock explores what happens when the masks we wear in the world clash with our innermost desires.
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” Captures the Ache of Fleeting Friendships
The Scottish band Simple Minds took the Breakfast Club theme song to the top of the charts. But its success—and its plea for loyalty—couldn’t save the group from its ultimate demise.
A World-Cinema Master Gives the World One Last Look
After his father’s death in 2016, Ahmad Kiarostami helped complete the conceptually daring meditation on image-making the great Iranian director had been working on for the last five years of his life.
The Wealthy Gone Wild in Indiana
Luis Buñuel skewers high society in his audaciously experimental late-career satire The Exterminating Angel, playing at the Indiana University Cinema this week.
Wild Child: A Conversation with Sandi Tan
The award-winning director of Shirkers looks back on her memories of growing up as a rebellious teenage cinephile and the movie-besotted culture of her native Singapore.
24 Frames: The World Made Visible
After years of paring his filmmaking down to the bare essentials, Abbas Kiarostami delivered this gorgeous and boldly minimalist meditation on time, movement, and image-making.
The Key Moment: Drawing a New Look for Notorious
The artist behind our new cover for Hitchcock’s spy-noir masterwork remembers falling in love with the film as a child and walks through the process of illustrating one of its most iconic scenes.
Video
Spotlight
Dark Passages
Critic Imogen Sara Smith delves into the shadows of film noir in this ongoing series of articles about the genre’s most fascinating figures and abiding themes.
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