Life Is Life

Aug 14, 2019 — There is a scene in Henry King’s State Fair (1933) that ranks among the most poetic moments in all of 1930s American cinema. There is not much to it, just a family driving through the dusk in their rattling pickup...

Jul 19, 2019 — In 1983, filmmaker Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall undertook to make a documentary about the lives of homeless and runaway teenagers in Seattle, expanding on the work that Mark and McCall had done for a...

Jun 27, 2019 — Sergei Bondarchuk pulled out all the stops to bring Tolstoy’s sprawling vision to the screen, and the result remains one of the most extravagant epic films of all time.

Jun 18, 2019 — In his idiosyncratic, award-winning second film, Bruno Dumont uses the story of an alienated police detective to investigate the most elemental aspects of human experience.

Jun 11, 2019 — The problem with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, everyone agrees, is that there is never enough dancing. You have to wait through often silly plots and hit-or-miss comedy for the musical numbers that are the whole point. But the dances...

May 27, 2019 — The awards have been presented, the red carpet rolled up, and now we can gather a little perspective on this year’s competition.

May 19, 2019 — Critics are finding the young Russian director’s second feature to be bleak yet irresistibly masterful.

Mar 26, 2019 — As BAM prepares to present the largest U.S. retrospective yet, we look back on the singular oeuvre.

Oct 18, 2018 — An autumnal round of reviews, excerpts, interviews, and news.

Aug 26, 2018 — Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought cinema to the center of Cuban society with this richly ambiguous portrait of postrevolutionary Havana.