How to Be a Detective

May 20, 2009 — Early in Shohei Imamura’s Intentions of Murder, the librarian Riichi distractedly peruses Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization while conversing with his clinging mistress, Yoshiko. One can read the reference in many ways: as a glancing jest, as an (uncharacteristic) Imamurian...

Sep 18, 2025 — This month’s programs offer a feast of horror, including a John Carpenter retrospective and a collection of the most terrifying films of the 2000s.

Aug 13, 2024 — This month brings riveting courtroom dramas, New American Cinema classics, giallo shockers, pre-Code gems by women screenwriters, and a new episode of Adventures in Moviegoing.

Jul 17, 2024 — With a deep dive under the hood of Ferrari, Mann aims to explain how he goes about making a movie.

Feb 1, 2022 — Douglas Sirk’s 1956 masterpiece is a visceral tragedy that lays bare the spiritual malaise of the ruling class.

May 15, 2018 — It’s the true story of a black detective who infiltrated the KKK—and Lee just might have a hit on his hands.

Mar 20, 2018 — For the London Review of Books, Gaby Wood writes about Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) and the 1947 novel it’s based on by Dorothy B. Hughes. “When filming began, Ray was married to its female lead, Gloria Grahame;...

Feb 19, 2018 — Jonathan Demme put an uncompromisingly feminist spin on the law-enforcement procedural with this wildly successful, Oscar-winning drama.

Oct 26, 2022 — The ’80s Horror collection now playing on the Criterion Channel brings together some of my favorite films from a time when the horror genre took on strange and thrilling new forms. When I began programming it, my thoughts drifted back...

Mar 1, 2022 — The first film I saw at last year’s Morelia International Film Festival opens on the image of a freshly dug grave. Shovelfuls of earth fall into the open pit as two doctors stand above it, lamenting the loss of yet...