The Stories

Jun 17, 2025 — Authors address overt and covert queer cinema, the avant-garde, and AI; plus notes on new collections and entire filmographies.

Dec 16, 2025 — Paul Reubens’s iconic character comes to cinematic life in this collaboration with director Tim Burton, who creates an on-screen world that evokes the unbridled joy and overwhelming terror of childhood.

Feb 11, 2022 — The week wraps with swift thrills from Steven Soderbergh and Dominik Graf and fresh appreciations of Louis Malle and Julien Duvivier.

Jan 4, 2018 — Even as we look ahead to the films we’re hoping to see this year, there’s still some 2017 sorting to do. And let’s begin with Farran Smith Nehme’s refreshing list of some of the older films she caught last year....

Oct 6, 2017 — “In both shape and sensibility, the work of Los Angeles-based filmmaker Ben Russell embodies a fluid yet holistic creative practice,” writes Jordan Cronk, introducing his interview for Film Comment. “A spiritual descendant of cinematic anthropologists Jean Rouch and Robert Gardner,...

Aug 6, 2020 — The renowned documentarian allows prisoners in Iran to tell their own stories.

Mar 3, 2023 — The reconstruction and preservation of history are crucial elements of all of this week’s stories.

Jan 7, 2020 — The filmmaker, theater director, and Actors Studio instructor had a seemingly endless string of stories to tell.

Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...

Oct 30, 2015 — Creating the design that graces our cover of Masaki Kobayashi’s haunting set of ghost stories involved inks, a tank of water, and a fair bit of ingenuity.