War of Likes

Jul 26, 2011 — To a secular eye, Jean-Pierre Melville’s sixth feature film, Léon Morin, Priest (1961), is about almost anything except religion: the deleterious effects of sexual repression, the moral bleariness of wartime and life under occupation, the harsh inflections of history in...

Jun 21, 2011 — Chains: Bound for Glory Film history is replete with artists embraced by critics but misunderstood by the public. For Italian filmmaker Raffaello Matarazzo, it was the opposite. After working for almost two decades as a midlevel studio director of pictures...

Apr 18, 2011 — An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King;   a Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight, a Merlin for a Lady;   a Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest,   a Musket...

Apr 16, 2007 — Jules Dassin’s noir is arguably the meatiest and most resonant prison film ever made in Hollywood, drawing explicit parallels to the Nazi encampment experience.

Aug 20, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s generous-hearted satire achieves a synthesis that is both terribly funny and deeply moving.

Jan 17, 2023 — One of contemporary cinema’s most provocative filmmakers launched his career with three deeply unnerving, deliriously genre-blending portraits of Europe.

Jun 29, 2021 — 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.

Sep 29, 2003 — Fassbinder had long dreamed of a “German Hollywood film.” He sought not only success with the audience, but also professionalism. The auteur film in its purest form is an attempt to abolish the division of labor: the filmmaker represents in...

Jul 19, 2022 — Centered on a grieving theater director and his driver, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning drama is a quiet meditation on the mysteries of communication, the flexibility of truth, and the search for honesty.

Feb 4, 2019 — All four of this year’s top prizewinners have been directed or codirected by women.