Eight

The playwright and actor praises Do the Right Thing as the best film of the eighties, talks about the comfort of watching his favorite westerns, and selects Chicago cinema classics like Hoop Dreams and love jones.

The award-winning writer, director, producer, and critic shouts out a Marlon Riggs retrospective he programmed in Brazil, recalls watching Albert Brooks’s Lost in America on VHS in the eighties, and shares how Agnès Varda became an “imaginary friend” to him...

Apr 17, 2025 — At eighty-two, the director has made his most deeply personal film yet.

Mar 3, 2025 — Sean Baker’s eighth feature wins five top Academy Awards.

Oct 3, 2023 — Echoes of the eighty-three-year-old director’s life and career are heard throughout his fourth feature.

Nov 22, 2018 — Celebrate Thanksgiving with one of the grimmest and grimiest comedies of the eighties, Bruce Robinson’s beloved Withnail and I.

Nov 13, 2018 — Turning to theater for inspiration, Kenji Mizoguchi transformed a popular eighteenth-century play into a spiritually charged meditation on forbidden love and societal oppression.

Gene Seymour worked for eighteen years as a film critic and jazz reviewer for Newsday in New York. He has contributed articles on politics, culture, science fiction, and (even) baseball to such publications as the New Republic, the Baffler, the...

Li Cheuk-to is General Manager of the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the author of Notes on Hong Kong Cinema of the Eighties and Gallery of Vivid Images.

Jul 27, 2026 — Some read Thomson’s new book as an attack on cinema; others argue that they’re missing the point.