Familiar Touch

Sep 19, 2016 — If you consider noir as a global phenomenon, then films like Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le moko (1937), Jean Renoir’s La bête humaine (1938), and Carné’s Port of Shadows (1938) may be the first full harvest of this bitter crop.

Oct 6, 2008 — It is pretty much a convention of the hard-boiled gangster picture that most, if not all, of the principal characters wind up dead by the final shot. So it ought not constitute a “spoiler” to note that Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le...

May 29, 2026 — We’re revisiting work by Tarkovsky, Pelechian, and Portabella as well as two films with the word Dead in the title.

Jan 20, 2026 — This month, leap into a century of cinema’s greatest stunts, feel the ache of thwarted romance and bittersweet yearning, or get into trouble with the Depression-era hustlers of Mervyn LeRoy’s pre-Code films.

Dec 18, 2025 — At year’s end, we’re reading about the partnership and breakup of Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann—and much more.

Aug 26, 2025 — Zeinabu irene Davis’s sole narrative feature is a vision of the past as it might have been, as well as an exploration of how history becomes a part of the everyday rhythms of Black life.

Jul 1, 2025 — Made nearly two decades into Fritz Lang’s Hollywood career, this brutal noir is designed for maximum velocity and impact, eschewing the director’s accustomed flourishes in favor of a stark literalness.

Jun 20, 2025 — Back on screens: Uli Edel, Charles Burnett, Jane Austen, Mikio Naruse, and Hiroshi Shimizu.

Sep 4, 2024 — The festival launched RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys and brought in a slew of critical favorites fresh from their premieres in Venice.

Aug 20, 2024 — In her formally daring debut feature, Martha Coolidge stages a confrontation with the subject of date rape that questions the kind of “closure” required in conventional storytelling.