The Ear

Dec 29, 2020 — Alongside the traditional top tens, critics are offering imaginative pairings and lists of the best audiovisual essays and title sequences of the year.

Dec 6, 2019 — Coaxed out of retirement, the actor and singer is winning plaudits for his powerfully understated performance in The Irishman.

Nov 15, 2018 — In two made-for-television productions, a middle-aged Ingmar Bergman blurred the boundaries between screen and stage.

Jul 26, 2018 — The creator of Hamilton has lined up his directorial debut, a TV series, a book . . . the list goes on.

Feb 13, 2018 — With the scrappiest of means, George A. Romero created not only a landmark of independent cinema but also an indelible portrait of America as hellscape.

Oct 4, 2016 — This account of a visit to the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls set is excerpted from an issue of the University of California, Los Angeles, newspaper.

Jul 30, 2014 — A friend and longtime scholar of Jacques Demy ruminates on the great director’s career, as well as the port hometown they shared—which would become a magical movie location.

Mar 20, 2013 — Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s adroit masterpiece is war film, dark comedy, historical drama, poignant romance, and a portrait of the modern woman.

Oct 4, 2011 — The spectacle of joyless lubricity and dehumanizing cruelty and carnage visualized by Pier Paolo Pasolini could not be further from the dry, dense, and circular arguments to be found in the printed pages of his bibliographic sources.

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...