Never Back Down

Jun 15, 2016 — Although afflicted by on-set drama and offscreen tragedy, Jean Renoir’s La Chienne shows the director’s early mastery of sound cinema and features the trademarks that would come to define his style.

Apr 29, 2015 — Peter Yates's crime drama is a haunting, singular experience, brutal and minutely observed, with a remarkably authentic sense of place.

Jul 25, 2014 — Erik Skjoldbjærg’s sun-drenched noir follows a detective trying to conceal his amoral actions amid unforgiving daylight.

Aug 21, 2012 — Andrew Haigh’s boy-meets-boy story reminds us that the biggest pleasures of falling in love come from the little moments of connection.

Sep 16, 2010 — I didn’t know quite what to say to Allan King when I met him for the first time in the fall of 2003 at his home offices in downtown Toronto. This was partly out of deference to his reputation as...

Jul 19, 2010 — “Why do you want to dance?” “Why do you want to live?” A question followed by another question stands at the beating heart of The Red Shoes. It’s an entirely rhetorical exchange, but it underscores the power and the mystery...

Oct 18, 2009 —  So many worlds stream in from every direction in Monsoon Wedding that it comes to seem as if the whole globe is converging on a single family home in New Delhi: relatives from Houston, from Australia, from Dubai (“Muscat, actually”);...

Nov 16, 2008 — Chungking Express (1994) was the Masculin féminin of the 1990s, a pop-art movie about cool twentysomethings looking for love in the city that has replaced Paris as the center of the world-cinema imagination. What Jean-Luc Godard did for “the children...

Jun 16, 2008 — Claude Sautet occupies a unique place in French cinema. Although he directed some of the biggest hits of the seventies and worked with some of the biggest stars, few critics considered him an “auteur” in his lifetime. Paradoxically, it was...

Feb 14, 2025 — The director of Down with Love talks about his favorite romantic comedies set in the great metropolis and looks back on the making of his own foray into the genre.