This is Not a French Film

Oct 6, 2008 — It is pretty much a convention of the hard-boiled gangster picture that most, if not all, of the principal characters wind up dead by the final shot. So it ought not constitute a “spoiler” to note that Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le...

Jul 21, 2008 — A dreamy alternative to the standard notion of horror, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s phantasmal film reimagined the figure of the vampire.

Apr 24, 2006 — This influential crime thriller, designed purely as a genre exercise, is the first in the long series of anomalies that was Louis Malle’s career.

Dec 6, 2004 — In his first freestanding biblical epic, Cecil B. DeMille recognized and revered a profound quality in the American soul—its ability to leap over every contradiction through an invincible sense of its own righteousness.

Sep 9, 2024 — Venice award-winners also include Brady Corbet, Nicole Kidman, Maura Delpero, and Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Feb 26, 2024 — The Berlinale’s top award went to Dahomey on an evening that has sparked heated debate.

Feb 22, 2022 — The fourth feature by the Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui devastatingly lays bare the conditions that spurred hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to flee after the fall of Saigon.

Jan 27, 2022 — We’re celebrating Black History Month with tributes to trailblazing artists like Harry Belafonte, Melvin Van Peebles, and documentary master Stanley Nelson.

Oct 13, 2021 — Several of the season’s best-reviewed films arrive in the Windy City.

Sep 22, 2021 — Writer-director John Huston blasted the fusty pieties that pervaded big-studio filmmaking in the post-Code era, whether as the progenitor of film noir with The Maltese Falcon (1941) or the brainy daredevil who threaded critiques of frontier capitalism, gold lust, and...