The Base

Michael Brooke is a freelance writer and multimedia producer specializing in British and central/eastern European cinema. A regular contributor to Sight & Sound, he has also produced acclaimed DVD and Blu-ray editions of the work of Walerian Borowczyk, the Quay...

Mar 24, 2025 — At the turn of the millennium, a loose collective of filmmakers—including Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg—made a splash with a provocative manifesto and a wave of audacious movies shot on digital video.

Feb 26, 2024 — The Berlinale’s top award went to Dahomey on an evening that has sparked heated debate.

Feb 3, 2021 — The lauded star of film, television, and theater was “determined to do all I could to alter the narrative about Black people.”

Dec 8, 2020 — Frederick Wiseman’s documentary ranks high in the latest round of lists of the best films and television of 2020.

May 22, 2020 — This week’s round features the story behind John Cassavetes’s debut feature and conversations with Dan Sallitt and Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Aug 27, 2019 — In the run-up to Venice, Telluride, and Toronto, New York announces its retrospective and revivals.

Jul 31, 2018 — The award-winning director of The Rider explores the deep respect for nature and subjective human experience in Terrence Malick’s masterful vision of early seventeenth-century America.

Jun 6, 2017 — The veteran documentary filmmaker behind Hoop Dreams and the recently released Abacus: Small Enough to Jail discusses the ways in which Robert Altman’s masterpiece combines epic scope with intimate detail.

Jul 15, 1991 — For only his second studio film, Peter Bogdanovich chanced directing an adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s elegiac novel about teenagers who come of age in a dying Texas town in the early fifties.