Nature

Oct 2, 2014 — People struggle to escape their socially dictated roles in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s moving, Douglas Sirk–inspired melodrama.

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?

Sep 10, 2013 — Martin Ritt’s 1965 movie of John le Carré’s first great novel (and first best seller), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, declares “a plague on all your houses” to capitalists, Communists, and ruthless intelligence operatives. It’s one espionage...

Jun 11, 2013 — Ingmar Bergman’s classic character study is a moving depiction of aging and regret but also joy and forgiveness.

May 28, 2013 — Mike Leigh’s breakthrough is a funny film about serious things, and an emotional and slyly political take on consumer culture.

Apr 17, 2013 — Four of the great Japanese director’s lesser-known, early films show the coming into being of a political artist.

Oct 18, 2012 — Every ten years since 1952, the world-renowned film magazine Sight & Sound has polled a wide international selection of film critics and directors on what they consider to be the ten greatest works of cinema ever made, and then compiled the results. The top fifty movies in the 2012 critics’ list, unveiled August 1, include...

Feb 2, 2011 — In a monster profile in this week’s New Yorker, Daniel Zalewski delves into the good-naturedly grotesque universe of Mexican horror auteur Guillermo del Toro (Cronos). Painting del Toro  as a descendant of both such beast-obsessed fanboys as Famous Monsters of...

Oct 19, 2010 — Clock­ing in at three hours and twenty-seven minutes, Seven Samurai’s lengthy runtime underscores the endurance of the samurai lifestyle, its toils and struggles.

Apr 26, 2010 — In the late 1940s, driven by the opening-night ovations for A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams embarked on more than a decade of immense success. During this period, he wrote at a furious pace: Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo,...