This Is the Army

May 23, 2017 — “Of all of the documentaries made about North Korea by Westerners in recent years, Claude Lanzmann’s Napalm, which premiered Sunday out of competition at Cannes, is by far the most peculiar, not to mention the most brazenly narcissistic,” writes Cineaste...

Apr 12, 2016 — Howard Hawks’s 1939 aviation classic Only Angels Have Wings is an exemplar of the auteurist Hollywood entertainer’s capability to fuse “a personal existential statement and a delightful piece of showmanship.”

Feb 18, 2008 — At the climax of Alex Cox’s Walker (1987), a helicopter descends from the night sky onto a plaza where the colonial buildings are ablaze and an army of mercenaries is disintegrating . . .

Sep 9, 2002 — With her debut feature, Lynne Ramsay confirmed herself as one of the most distinct and important voices to emerge from the United Kingdom in recent years.

Feb 11, 2002 — Miloš Forman’s film is an amazing balancing act of subtle social satire and adolescent romantic longing, of blank despair and irrepressible hope.

May 9, 1994 — The importance of Two English Girls lies in its sheer vitality. The film is an extraordinary cinematic conjuring trick in which Truffaut draws the viewer both physically and visually into his own personal pleasures. He does this on a multitude...

Apr 11, 1988 — Over the years countless films have been made about war, its horrors and its devastations—few, however, have been as moving and heartfelt as René Clément’s.

May 29, 2019 — In Anna Biller’s vibrantly colored fantasias, there’s not a glimmer of a sequin that hasn’t been envisioned by the artist herself. A writer, director, actor, producer, editor, composer, costume and production designer, and set decorator, she’s a one-woman studio, building...

Jan 25, 2019 — Deep into Cristian Mungiu’s 2007 drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, we sit in on a leisurely dinner-table chat that appears to be unrelated to the film’s main event, an illegal abortion conducted in a seedy hotel. After...

Jul 20, 2016 — In his staggeringly ambitious masterwork A Touch of Zen, Chinese filmmaker King Hu imbues dynamic scenes of combat with balletic grace and audacious stylistic experimentation.