Actual People

Dec 3, 2021 — What do amphetamines, intellectual property, and Sour Belts have in common? They all correspond to a letter of the alphabet that structures the world of Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma, the short-film companion to musician and filmmaker Topaz Jones’s funk-infused...

Nov 23, 2021 — Written and directed by the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, as a vehicle for two icons, funnyman Adam Sandler and basketball great Kevin Garnett, Uncut Gems (2019) is breathtakingly profane, alarming, and comic. Most simply described, the movie is one...

Nov 17, 2021 — Decades after Peter Lorre’s knife-toting creep Hans Beckert prowled the Berlin streets in search of little girls in Fritz Lang’s M (1931); after Robert Mitchum’s silver-tongued Harry Powell cut down all the “smooth and curly-haired things” he could get his...

Nov 17, 2021 — Having won major prizes in Berlin and Cannes, the director has been talking openly about his background, influences, and working methods.

Nov 5, 2021 — A teenage girl looks on with both envy and disapproval as her mother shimmies on the dance floor in the arms of a lover. “Beautiful,” observes a friend. “I know,” says the daughter, bitterly, before falling asleep in her nanny’s...

Oct 15, 2021 — There is a gloriously unaffected vibe about Gina Prince-Bythewood. Cerebral and sublime, casually beautiful and laser-focused, she has written and directed impressive television and film for the past twenty-plus years with equal parts rigor and joy. And she has achieved...

Sep 28, 2021 — Melvin Van Peebles’s feature debut riffs on the French New Wave to tell a love story that portrays interracial intimacy and unflinchingly confronts the distortions of racism.

Aug 30, 2021 — Next month, we’re headed to the Big Apple with a century-spanning survey of New York on-screen.

Aug 20, 2021 — This week we’re appreciating performances from Elliott Gould and Elaine Stritch and delving into the work of Lav Diaz and Kevin Jerome Everson.

Aug 16, 2021 — Here’s what critics have been saying about the winners of the top awards.