Out of the Past

Sep 22, 2008 — With their rotating casts of sourpuss Finns and their stringent compositions, Aki Kaurismäki’s films would seem the least likely candidates for laughs, yet his black-comic precision has made him one of the most warmly embraced filmmakers on the international art-house...

Jan 3, 2008 — We’ve received a number of letters recently inquiring about the various versions of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. I’ve been immersed in the film for several months now and wanted to clarify a few misconceptions. When I started working on...

Feb 12, 2007 — The trailblazing career of the extraordinary singer, actor, and activist was pivotal to the emergence of a black film aesthetic and, by extension, an African-American cultural identity.

Jan 5, 2006 — Akira Kurosawa appreciated Shake­speare’s knack for linking the private and the political, threading a tale of corruption and revenge through a tangle of blood ties.

Nov 21, 2005 — Why would ambitious filmmakers simply film an opera? Many admirers of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have assumed that their decision to make The Tales of Hoffmann, in 1950, was in some way an admission by the...

Oct 15, 2001 — The French director’s crime film conveys both the flow and the form of the prison experience.

Apr 3, 2026 — This week: Mani Haghighi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sophy Romvari and Martha Coolidge, and Ken and Flo Jacobs.

Jun 14, 2023 — In her deeply empathetic documentaries, the British filmmaker illuminates the lives of ordinary people who have quietly created new identities and possibilities for themselves.

Jan 14, 2022 — This week we’re watching and reading about Tom Noonan, Jean Vigo, Marie-Claude Treilhou, and Miklós Jancsó.

Sep 28, 2021 — Melvin Van Peebles takes aim at Hollywood’s way of representing race in this blistering satire about a white man who wakes up one morning to discover that he has turned Black overnight.