Life in a Year

Jul 22, 2022 — Entwined with the evolution of American culture, boxing movies have used the microcosm of the ring to tackle issues of race, class, gender, and labor.

May 5, 2021 — Many lucky enough to have worked with her remember the star who broke through in Moonstruck.

May 21, 2019 — Claire Denis’s Let the Sunshine In (2017) is one of the great films about middle-aged loneliness, specifically—though not exclusively—as women feel it. It’s not a dating movie, though there’s dating in it. And it’s not a feeling-sorry-for-oneself movie, though there are...

Mar 7, 2019 — The art of Orson Welles and David Lynch, the marriage of Fay Wray and Robert Riskin, and the criticism of Adrian Martin and David Thomson are among the subjects in this month’s round.

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

Sep 23, 2015 — Bruce Beresford draws on a controversial episode of Australian colonial history from 1901 to create an electrifying drama that questions the moral certitude of war.

Feb 19, 2013 — Elia Kazan’s masterwork is a vivid, tough look at a time and place, and a transcendent human drama.

Jul 25, 2011 — A fearless tragicomedy about hope, dread, longing, and forgiveness, Life During Wartime (2010) is Todd Solondz’s boldest and most haunting movie to date, carrying his exploration of Middle American malaise into new territory. As before, he probes the dreams, dissatisfactions,...

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...

Apr 27, 2009 — The idea of making a film about Japan’s most famous sex crime, with a decent budget and in conditions of complete freedom, reawakened Nagisa Oshima’s desire to direct—and the prospect of circumventing Japanese censorship must have made the decision even...