From the Heart

Feb 12, 2019 — In a stark, forbidding prison, a nun ascends a staircase, framed by vertical bars, and walks down a corridor, unlocking cell doors. Women start coming out; two of them quarrel. Smoking on her bunk, one inmate sighs when told she...

Dec 3, 2018 — True Stories, David Byrne’s 1986 paean to American eccentricity and ordinariness, called to me from the shelves of a video store in Austin, Texas. Subtitled “A Film About a Bunch of People in Virgil, Texas,” True Stories is not “true”...

Jun 19, 2018 — It keeps happening. At the time of this writing, students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are mourning the deaths of fourteen of their classmates and three faculty members, all of whom a nineteen-year-old is accused of...

Dec 1, 2017 — Press NotesOne of the great masters of melancholy comedy, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, returns to theaters today with The Other Side of Hope, his first film since 2011’s Le Havre. Continuing his empathetic exploration of global migration, Kaurismäki’s latest is...

Oct 24, 2017 — In this intimate psychological thriller, Olivier Assayas interrogates contemporary society’s near-religious reliance on technology and its mediation of reality.

Aug 15, 2017 — Walter Matthau solidified his reputation as a formidable comedic force in this delightful Cold War espionage romp.

Jun 14, 2017 — A tireless explorer of cinema’s discarded past, Bill Morrison brings his unique approach to found-footage filmmaking to his latest project, a documentary about lost reels of nitrate film found in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

Apr 12, 2017 — With a comprehensive retrospective of her work opening at New York’s Quad Cinema, Lina Wertmüller chats with us about her early days as a moviegoer and her collaborative process.

Feb 23, 2017 — An elder statesman of independent filmmaking, Samuel Fuller spun his newsroom and frontline experiences into his movies, developing a unique cinematic voice that was always raw and personal.

May 24, 2016 — “I always thought of musicians as being the saints of our time,” says documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker in a recent interview for the New York Times on the subject of his 1967 vérité portrait of Bob Dylan Dont Look...