The Best of Times

Jul 25, 2023 — A master class in dramatic tension and pacing, Carl Franklin’s neonoir masterpiece explores the desperate energy and desperate deeds that fuel real crime.

Mar 21, 2023 — Fiction by Lee Chang-dong, a spotlight on Cary Grant, and essays on Stan Brakhage are among this month’s highlights.

Feb 28, 2023 — In his directorial debut, Robert Townsend channeled his frustrations with the typecasting of Black actors, resulting in a satire whose hilarious critique of Hollywood still resonates today.

Sep 28, 2022 — Cameroonian director Dikongué-Pipa’s debut feature is both a manifesto on cinema’s capacity to bring about social change and a celebration of love and its possibilities.

Apr 6, 2022 — A playfully philosophical drama, My American Uncle has been largely forgotten, yet it is the most down-to-earth of the French master’s exhilarating engagements with modernist aesthetics.

Mar 15, 2022 — The story of queerness in American cinema isn’t complete without the unusual case of These Three (1936) and The Children’s Hour (1961). Both films are based on Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play The Children’s Hour, inspired by an incident in which...

Jul 20, 2021 — Pedro Almodóvar will open Venice, and Toronto will bring several Cannes favorites to North America.

Jun 17, 2021 — On our minds this week: Lizzie Borden, Jenni Olson, Dorothy Arzner, Marguerite Duras, Jacques Rivette, and female detectives on television.

Dec 11, 2019 — One Scene “Who can prove the genuineness of our feelings?” a character asks at one point in the Cannes-award-winning sci-fi drama Little Joe, the first English-language film by Austrian director Jessica Hausner. The question is as good a summation as...

Sep 4, 2019 — The late actor became an icon of his generation with this moody, brilliant non-performance, informed by his intimate knowledge of chaos and death.