The Stories

Mar 31, 2021 — It has seemed to me for a long time that there is far too little screaming about Albert Brooks. It has seemed that way to all of his staunchest fans, who secretly relish being among the evolved few who know...

Nov 11, 2019 — Dark Passages I. Vacancy All the rooms are the same. There is always a skeletal bedstead with an uninviting mattress; a scuffed chest of drawers; a grimy little sink; a naked light bulb; bare walls on which the memory of...

Jul 20, 2018 — American audiences weren’t ready for Barbara Loden’s Wanda when it premiered in 1970. A stark portrait of a working-class woman (played with raw conviction by Loden herself) who breaks free of a miserable marriage, only to find herself on the...

Dec 14, 2016 — Pseudodocumentary collides with pure fantasy in Federico Fellini’s intricately layered portrait of his adopted home.

Sep 14, 2015 — In his latest column, Peter Cowie reflects on his friendship with our beloved cofounder.

Mar 18, 2013 — Using a 1958 murder spree as a narrative springboard, Terrence Malick fashioned a fractured fairy tale about American innocence lost.

Oct 18, 2009 —  So many worlds stream in from every direction in Monsoon Wedding that it comes to seem as if the whole globe is converging on a single family home in New Delhi: relatives from Houston, from Australia, from Dubai (“Muscat, actually”);...

Jul 7, 2008 — Every decade since 1984 the Toronto International Film Festival has conducted a poll of film scholars, critics, and directors to determine the ten best movies in the history of Canadian cinema. This top-ten list has changed somewhat over the years,...

These stories of discovery and disillusionment capture lives transformed by the open road.

Oct 28, 2008 — Winner of a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program genius grant, Jonathan Lethem is one of America's premier contemporary writers. His works include the novels The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, as well as a vast array of short stories...