City Lights

Oct 25, 2019 — This week we’re reading about Kira Muratova, The Uninvited, and The Wizard of Oz, and we’re listening in on Martin Scorsese and Kevin Jerome Everson.

Aug 14, 2019 — There is a scene in Henry King’s State Fair (1933) that ranks among the most poetic moments in all of 1930s American cinema. There is not much to it, just a family driving through the dusk in their rattling pickup...

Apr 24, 2019 — When It Rains Charles Burnett has long been recognized by historians as one of the greatest American film directors, and he’s won numerous important awards, including an honorary Oscar in 2017. Nevertheless, he is still relatively unknown beyond the world...

Apr 12, 2019 — This week sees further remembrances of Agnès Varda, reflections on Godard then and now, and appreciations of a vital but too often overlooked filmmaker, Nelly Kaplan.

Mar 29, 2019 — When Carlos Reygadas’s debut film, Japón, came out in 2002, my generation was just starting to drive cars, smoke weed, use contraceptives. A movie ticket at the Cineteca Nacional still cost only twenty pesos then if you showed your student...

Feb 1, 2019 — A cast of dolls and a rhino are featured in this year’s award-winners, and Steven Soderbergh has previewed his new film.

Jan 28, 2019 — With WR: Mysteries of the Organism, the late Serbian director made what Amos Vogel called “one of the most important subversive masterpieces of the 1970s.”

Jan 8, 2019 — “Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated” is how Abbas Kiarostami once described his late turn toward minimalism. While the Iranian director was known for the intricate, metatextual playfulness of his work, he also spent much of his career...

Jan 3, 2019 — We look ahead to films by Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Paul Verhoeven, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and dozens more.

Aug 26, 2018 — The director and the star of Smithereens reminisce about how their landmark film immortalized the mean streets and crumbling buildings of 1980s downtown New York.