Room at the Top

Nov 23, 2021 — The End In the end, it should not have come as any kind of surprise. When Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo dethroned Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) as the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound magazine’s international poll of...

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.

May 27, 2025 — Suffused with slapstick humor and slightly surreal wit, Richard Lester’s beloved take on a frequently adapted adventure epic embodies a style of extravagant filmmaking that didn’t survive long past the 1970s.

Oct 28, 2022 — The role of the vampire has given talented actors throughout film history—from Bela Lugosi to Catherine Deneuve—the chance to embody physical and moral extremity.

Apr 18, 2019 — This year promises a healthy mix of renowned auteurs and younger talents—and there’s more to come.

Sep 19, 2011 — Jean-Luc Godard, lover of paradox, once characterized Claude Chabrol’s Les cousins (1959) as “a deeply hollow and therefore profound film,” a pronouncement, like so many of the pithy mots Godard used to reel off in the pages of Cahiers du...

Nov 25, 2025 — Having broken through in over-the-top horror movies, Kier turned in arresting performances in films by Fassbinder, Lars von Trier, and Gus Van Sant.

Jun 28, 2022 — Part rom-com, part existential meditation, the final installment in Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy dignifies the fluctuating desires of a woman on the cusp of thirty.

Nov 19, 2008 — My first trip to Paris took place inside the darkened cafeteria of Warnsdorfer Elementary School in East Brunswick, New Jersey. A few times each year, the entire student body was brought together to watch movies cast from a rickety 16...

Aug 14, 2026 — Fine writing on Powell and Pressburger, James Gray, Catherine Breillat, and Richard Linklater—plus: Isabelle Huppert on Claude Chabrol.