The Great Ambition

Sep 30, 2017 — Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? premiered at Sundance in January as a live presentation, with, as Vadim Rizov notes at Filmmaker, director Travis Wilkerson “narrating a complex mixture of slides and video onstage.” Wilkerson will be on hand...

May 22, 2017 — The intersection of cinema and the performing arts has been a source of inspiration for many of the world’s greatest auteurs. Over on the Criterion Channel, we’re raising the curtain on our latest series, All the Screen’s a Stage, which...

Jul 21, 2025 — Summer offers new biographies and memoirs, expansively big ideas, and more than a few curious fictions.

May 20, 2024 — Every rave and every pan salutes Coppola’s determination to realize his grandest vision.

Jan 23, 2018 — Mandy, screening in the Midnight program at Sundance, “is a midnight-movie festival unto itself,” declares A. A. Dowd at the A.V. Club: “over two gonzo hours, it combines giallo, Clive Barker, Death Wish, prog rock, heavy metal, Heavy Metal, Guy...

Dec 12, 2017 — Alexander Payne skewers the absurdities of American politics in this tale of a high-school presidential campaign gone ugly.

Sep 2, 2017 — “The names Joel and Ethan Coen pop up on a lot of screenplays these days (Bridge of Spies, Unbroken), now that they’re getting credit for the kind of script-polishing they used to do anonymously,” begins Variety’s Owen Gleiberman. “But Suburbicon...

Jul 17, 2017 — “Steven Spielberg laid claim to the Normandy beach landing,” begins Variety’s Peter Debruge, “Clint Eastwood owns Iwo Jima, and now, Christopher Nolan has authored the definitive cinematic version of Dunkirk. Unlike those other battles, however, this last was not a...

Sep 24, 2014 — Roman Polanski’s dark vision is the perfect fit for Shakespeare’s grim tale of treachery and ambition.

Apr 27, 2014 — A leading light of commedia all’italiana, Dino Risi specialized in fleet, satirical takes on contemporary Italian culture, and this road-trip smash was his most trenchant.