The Lift

May 19, 2019 — Critics are finding the young Russian director’s second feature to be bleak yet irresistibly masterful.

Apr 4, 2018 — On what would have been his eighty-sixth birthday, we’re celebrating Andrei Tarkvosky’s legacy with a look back at some of the essays and videos we’ve published on his work.

Apr 27, 2017 — 1. As I began work on The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates, I knew that 1960’s Primary was really the birth of what we think of as the modern documentary: observational photography based on access to an interesting subject, presenting...

Mar 15, 2016 — Set during the height of McCarthy-era paranoia and arriving in 1962, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Frankenheimer’s high-anxiety Communist conspiracy thriller tapped into the darkest fears of Cold War America.

Nov 5, 2014 — A review of the American auteur’s posthumously published novel

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Sep 22, 2009 — Something very heavy happened at Monterey last weekend. Those very odd three days began in Friday’s cool gray air as the first of the crowd began to circle through the booths of the fairground. The only word for it then...

May 1, 2024 — Films by Horace Ové, Menelik Shabazz, John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, and more depict Black lives in a tumultuous era.

Feb 22, 2022 — The fourth feature by the Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui devastatingly lays bare the conditions that spurred hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to flee after the fall of Saigon.

Jul 6, 2021 — Howard Hawks’s madcap battle of the sexes is a reminder of how necessary and sneakily profound silliness can be.