The Last First Time

Jul 21, 2025 — Summer offers new biographies and memoirs, expansively big ideas, and more than a few curious fictions.

Jul 11, 2025 — This week: A new Paul Vecchiali restoration, late revisions from P. Adams Sitney, and Charli XCX on Jacques Rivette.

Jun 24, 2025 — The product of a famously tumultuous production, William Friedkin’s nerve-jangling adaptation of the classic suspense novel The Wages of Fear infuses the mechanics of genre with rough-hewn realism and the New Hollywood’s renegade spirit.

Jun 10, 2025 — Sidney Lumet’s lavish adaptation of a Tony Award–winning stage musical combines an ecstatic appreciation of Black artistry with a celebration of freedom and perseverance.

May 21, 2025 — Lee reunites with Denzel Washington, who has been given an honorary Palme d’Or in Cannes.

Apr 29, 2025 — Drawing from a rich tradition of films that depict the lives of sex workers, Sean Baker’s Oscar-winning triumph takes a complex approach to exploring the fundamentally transactional nature of human relationships.

Mar 31, 2025 — Steeped in theater history, Shinoda infused centuries-old tales with twentieth-century dynamism.

Mar 25, 2025 — Set in a grimy, unglamorous version of Los Angeles, Arthur Penn’s Watergate-era neonoir tells the story of an honorable private eye acutely conscious of living in an era that is the mere shadow of a nobler past.

Mar 3, 2025 — Sean Baker’s eighth feature wins five top Academy Awards.

Feb 18, 2025 — In her mainstream breakthrough, director Joan Micklin Silver envisions New York City through the eyes of a complicated, searching woman trying to figure out her place in the world.