The Way Way Back

Jan 16, 2013 — Both sparkling and suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock’s benchmark thriller is the perfect getaway, and it set the scene for much of the master’s later work.

Jun 19, 2012 — Steven Soderbergh delivers a poignant psychological portrait of the late Spalding Gray in this deftly structured documentary.

Nov 16, 2011 — The Rules of the Game is one of the best-loved films of all time. The following is a selection of tributes to it from writers and directors, originally included in the 2004 Criterion DVD edition.   Paul Schrader, Writer-Director The...

May 24, 2011 — In 1938, Charles Chaplin deposited with the Library of Congress a script for a film to be called The Dictator, and told the press it was a project in which he would play a double role. He clearly had Hitler...

Apr 28, 2010 — Just over halfway through Ang Lee’s masterful Civil War drama Ride with the Devil, the small group of men at the story’s center, young, Southern-sympathizing Bushwhackers fighting in divided Missouri, meet up with other ragtag bands of rebels. Coalescing under...

Aug 18, 2009 — Jacques Tati’s masterpiece converts work into play so pleasurably that it turns the very acts of seeing and hearing into a form of dancing.

Oct 6, 2008 — Jean-Pierre Melville’s ninth and to that point most commercially successful feature in France, was an important watershed in the director’s career.

Jul 14, 2008 — Linguistic cosmopolitanism in the Babel-like world of commerce and culture is one of Jacques Tati’s several satirical targets.

Oct 24, 2005 — Mirroring changes in awareness, politics, and lifestyle occurring across the globe, the chanbara (or Japanese swordplay film) underwent a significant metamorphosis in the early 1960s, acquiring a decidedly more radical spirit. Seemingly without warning, groundbreaking cinematic styles from beyond the...

Dec 12, 2025 — This week: Bi Gan, Radu Jude, a new Film Quarterly, and of course, more year-end lists and polls.