A Human Condition

Aug 3, 2021 — With two short films and his acclaimed debut feature, No Data Plan, now playing on the Criterion Channel, the Filipino American filmmaker discusses his vision of the immigrant experience.

Oct 9, 2020 — In Scoundrels & Spitballers: Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s, veteran French journalist Philippe Garnier brings to life an enchantingly raffish community of typewriter-pounders who headed west to try their luck in the verbal gold rush set off by the...

Jul 31, 2012 — Aki Kaurismäki’s latest working-class fable is his warmest, and his most political.

Jan 9, 2026 — The director of some of the bleakest films ever made once claimed all they were all comedies—except one.

Sep 8, 2023 — We’re celebrating Ousmane Sembène’s centennial, reading interviews with Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Kasi Lemmons, and watching soundies.

Jun 21, 2022 — By centering an empowered Black hero, Gordon Parks reimagined the detective genre and exposed its racial politics.

Aug 8, 2021 — This month on the Channel, dive into the films of John Huston, Jean Harlow, Josephine Baker, and other cinematic icons.

Jan 29, 2021 — Dark Passages A nightclub floor show with dancers kicking and tapping under a scrim of cigarette smoke and the murmuration of an indifferent crowd. Couples listlessly swaying in a second-floor ballroom, the men clutching rolls of tickets and the ladies...

Feb 28, 2018 — With the Oscars coming up this weekend, we gathered some highlights from an in-depth conversation with five of this year’s most-lauded directors.

Dec 12, 2017 — “Evil is ascendant,” begins Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. “The Resistance—an intrepid, multi-everything group whose leaders include a battle-tested woman warrior—has been fighting the good fight for years but is outnumbered and occasionally outmaneuvered. Yes, the latest Star...