The Professor

Feb 20, 2015 — In time for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, we wanted to celebrate all the incredible women who have been nominated for best actress Oscars for their roles in Criterion titles. They range from the 1930s to the 2010s, and include...

Nov 25, 2014 — More than just observational, Les Blank’s sensual documentaries are personal and participatory celebrations of American culture.

Dec 7, 2010 — In 1981, it seemed to me that a new era of fantastic cinema was upon us.

May 20, 2019 — Professor David Bordwell unpacks the sophisticated design of Kenji Mizoguchi’s final masterpiece.

Oct 26, 2017 — Professor David Bordwell uses the economically expressive performances of Jules Dassin’s Brute Force as an object lesson for breaking down the fundamentals of screen acting.

May 13, 2010 — Samuel Beam is an American singer-songwriter (and former film studies professor!) better known by the stage name Iron and Wine. His last album was 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog, and a follow-up is in the works. When selecting his top ten...

Apr 6, 2009 — Paris is turning into Tativille starting tomorrow, April 8, until August 2, with the Cinémathèque française’s appropriately large-scale retrospective of the famously ambitious French filmmaking legend’s work, “Jacques Tati, deux temps, trois movements.” Curated by Stéphane Goudet and Macha Makeïeff,...

Robin D. G. Kelley is a professor of history at the University of California Los Angeles. His books include Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination; Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times...

Jacqueline Avila is an associate professor of musicology at the University of Texas, Austin, specializing in film-music studies, sound studies, and the intersections of identity, tradition, and modernity in the musical cultures and new media of Mexico, Latin America, and...

Michael B. Gillespie is author of Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film and coeditor of Black One Shot, an art criticism series on ASAP/J. He is an associate professor of film at the City College of...