The Past

Jul 14, 2023 — This week, we’re reading conversations with Cheryl Dunye, Christian Petzold, and Whit Stillman.

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.

Jul 15, 2022 — In her last significant film role, the art-house icon reveals an emotional vulnerability previously hidden by her ethereal persona.

Sep 25, 2019 — With Polyester, his first movie to flirt with the mainstream, maverick filmmaker John Waters set out to send up the overripe Hollywood melodramas of yesteryear—but also “to make a movie that really stunk,” as he has put it. Inspired by...

May 15, 2019 — It may have taken nearly two decades after graduating from England’s National Film and Television School for Joanna Hogg to emerge as a feature filmmaker, but it was worth the wait. After making her thesis film, Caprice (starring a then-unknown...

May 6, 2019 — Greta Garbo, Anita Loos, Ernst Lubitsch, Ben Hecht, and Salka Viertel cross paths in this month’s round.

Oct 23, 2018 — Brian De Palma found his home in the psychological thriller with this chilling tale of murder, which twists genre conventions to investigate the perils of looking and the pitfalls of subjectivity.

Aug 26, 2018 — Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought cinema to the center of Cuban society with this richly ambiguous portrait of postrevolutionary Havana.

Jul 16, 2018 — The legendary baseball writer talks about the no-nonsense pleasures of one of the all-time great sports movies and the classic essay he wrote about it.

May 3, 2018 — Depth, beauty, curiosity—what gave luminous French star Danielle Darrieux staying power across eight decades? Critic Farran Smith Nehme looks for the answer in two films from opposite ends of her career.