Fast Hands

Mar 15, 1989 — When Darling debuted in 1965, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times remarked that director John Schlesinger had “made a film that will set tongues to wagging and moralists wringing their hands.” There was plenty of tongue-wagging over this satirical...

Oct 12, 1987 — Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling Cinemascope epic is set squarely within the traditions of the Japanese film genre known as the “Chambara.”

Mar 20, 2026 — We’re reading up on the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Chantal Akerman—and Liza Minnelli has a new memoir.

Dec 4, 2024 — Before she won acclaim as a pioneering director, the Hollywood icon made her name as a powerfully vivid actor who brought grit and toughness to films by such masters as Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Michael Curtiz.

Mar 8, 2024 — This week calls for notes on some of the best writing on each of the ten nominees for Best Picture.

Jun 28, 2022 — Part rom-com, part existential meditation, the final installment in Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy dignifies the fluctuating desires of a woman on the cusp of thirty.

Aug 10, 2020 — A slyly feminist film by the only woman directing in the Hollywood studio system of her thirties-and-early-forties heyday, Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance stands as one of the era’s most groundbreaking—and entertaining—backstage sagas. And as it turned out, a different...

Jun 15, 2020 — This month we’re looking at books on topics ranging from Japanese animation to Hollywood movie stars to jazz on the big screen.

May 27, 2020 — “A filmmaker shows what his career will be in his first 150 feet of film,” François Truffaut once wrote. He was talking about Jean Vigo at the time, but he might as well have been talking about Martin Scorsese, whose...

Feb 25, 2020 — A philosophical debate running nearly three and a half hours has opened the Berlinale’s new Encounters competition.