The Thing

Jul 6, 2023 — The accomplished actor excelled at playing ordinary men facing down life’s most outrageous absurdities.

May 31, 2023 — It’s not every year that so many critics are pleased with the juries’ choices.

Aug 12, 2022 — The sublime comedies of Ernst Lubitsch, a state-of-the-doc address, and the spectacular work of three graphic designers.

Aug 17, 2021 — This month we’re reading about Hollywood memoirs, cultural histories, and the revived debate over the screenplay for Last Year at Marienbad.

Jan 12, 2021 — In the course of selling or promoting a film, a director will invariably be asked, “What’s this movie really about?” The desired answer is usually predetermined—marketers want a concise, two-sentence hook; reporters want a sound bite; critics want a thesis...

Sep 11, 2020 — On our minds this week: New Taiwan Cinema of the 1980s, Black cinema’s “paradoxical role in American cultural history,” the new Brooklyn Rail, and more.

Sep 17, 2019 — Also this month: Hollywood stars writing and reading and a novel that reimagines the intertwined lives of Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl.

Jun 11, 2019 — In the mid-1970s, a poet’s circus rolled through the northeast, manifesting the spirit and confusion of the era.

Aug 13, 2018 — From Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers to Kazuo Hasegawa in An Actor’s Revenge, performers who multitask as several characters in a single film tap into the essential uncanniness of cinema itself.

May 14, 2018 — In the singular world of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, auteurist homage and social consciousness are joined by some of the most lovingly filmed dogs in contemporary cinema.