The Greatest Thing in Life

Sep 24, 2017 — For the final issue in print of the Village Voice, Bilge Ebiri talks with Jonas Mekas, “the 94-year-old filmmaker, artist, critic, poet, photographer, cinema owner, and all-around underground impresario who transformed film criticism, filmmaking, and exhibition throughout the 1960s and...

Jul 15, 2017 — “The film’s tag line was ‘They share the same body . . . but hate each other’s guts!’ I was told that the timing was a coincidence, but even before the film began it was clear that this was a...

Jan 21, 2014 — Bigger is better in Stanley Kramer’s crazily crammed slapstick epic, a timeless showcase for comedy genius.

May 9, 2012 — The paradox of the biopic is that the need to give fictional characters the kind of messy, defining behavior that makes them ring true—makes them, in the vocabulary of development, “relatable”—is usually overlooked when an actual life is condensed into...

Nov 28, 2010 — “What we need are good old American—and that’s not to be confused with European—Art Films.” So declared the then twenty-nine-year-old beatnik Method actor Dennis Hopper in an unpublished 1965 manifesto. “The whole damn country’s one big real place to utilize...

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

Apr 17, 2019 — Dark Passages The old saying that there are no small parts, only small actors, has surely caused thespians of all sizes to roll their eyes and gnash their teeth. But there are performances that stick in the mind forever with...

Jan 23, 2019 — Checking in on how the nominees are currently faring with critics and awards prognosticators.

Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.

Dec 5, 2023 — While 2023 is sorted, Sight and Sound invites critics and filmmakers to revisit some of their all-time favorites.