My First Film

Mar 18, 2022 — With a collection of her films now available on the Criterion Channel, the director behind Still Processing discusses the radically personal nature of her work.

Oct 1, 2020 — Few directors capture bodies in motion with the sensuous intensity that Claire Denis brings to her work. In some of the most memorable scenes in her filmography, she invites viewers to linger in moments where her characters lose themselves in...

Jul 5, 2020 — Among today’s most revered jazz musicians, pianist and composer Jason Moran stands out for how seamlessly he blends tradition and innovation. Throughout his now two-decade career, he has honored the complex history of one of America’s most storied art forms...

Sep 4, 2017 — Alfred Hitchcock achieved Oscar-winning success with this psychological thriller, a tumultuous collaboration with producer David O. Selznick.

Jun 17, 2013 — The author introduces a new Current series that will feature his reminiscences about his encounters in international cinema circles over the past five-plus decades.

Nov 10, 2020 — In the half-light of the opening shot of Girlfriends, a woman asks, “What are you doing?” and another responds, “Go back to sleep.” You could dismiss this as a bit of passing dialogue—or you could see in it a larger...

Dec 20, 2016 — With only three features under her belt, German director Maren Ade has become one of contemporary cinema’s keenest observers of human behavior.

Jan 31, 2023 — In this shape-shifting exploration of creativity, couplehood, and artistic influence, Mia Hansen-Løve offers a glimpse at the existential heavy lift required by her deceptively simple autofictions.

May 8, 2020 — The opening and closing credits in a film are a form of housekeeping, fulfilling a legal obligation to compile the names of cast and crew who made the final product possible. Visionary designer Saul Bass saw the aesthetic potential in...

Sep 2, 2021 — Translated into English for the first time, this afterword to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s novelization of his film explores the director’s attraction to fiction writing and how the art form differs from narrative cinema.