The Birth of a Nation

Jul 10, 2023 — Writer-archivist-filmmaker Jenni Olson and critic Caden Mark Gardner discuss Masc, a collection of films on the Criterion Channel that explores the many forms of masculinity beyond the realm of cisgender men.

Dec 13, 2022 — A pioneering feminist artist drawn to universal themes, the Swedish director mined the complexity and humor of human behavior in films that courted controversy and cultivated a sense of detachment.

Oct 18, 2021 — Panah Panahi’s debut feature expertly balances “knockabout humor and slowly tightening tension.”

May 9, 2018 — 1. Born Arutin Sayadyan, eighteenth-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova—whose pen name means “King of Songs”—served as the initial inspiration for The Color of Pomegranates. Sayat-Nova was an ashugh, a troubadour whose verses were set to music that he played on a...

May 31, 2017 — Long difficult to see, this transgressive silent masterpiece draws on a wide range of aesthetic influences to push against the boundaries of film form.

May 17, 2017 — With her son, Felix Moeller (Forbidden Films), Margarethe von Trotta (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Hannah Arendt) will direct the documentary Ingmar Bergman – Legacy of a Defining Genius, reports Variety’s John Hopewell: “Exploring Bergman’s work with his closest...

Sep 21, 2015 — Krzysztof Kieślowski’s political and philosophical rumination, which marked an important turning point in the director's career, imagines a young man's life branching off in three possible directions.

Jan 7, 2014 — Satyajit Ray was ailing when he made them, but these three works from the great filmmaker’s final years show an artist at the height of his powers.

Apr 27, 2009 — Stephen Frears’s gangland drama subverts its genre by removing its villains to an alternate mythic universe, that of the western, as its protagonists traverse the roads that snake through Spain’s arid hills and plains.

Jun 25, 2007 — Chris Marker’s masterpiece is a cinematic essay and travel film made up of asides and digressions that form a portrait of late twentieth-century civilization.