A New Dawn

Apr 2, 2017 — What defines noir acting? In her latest Dark Passages column, Imogen Sara Smith examines the stylistic variety in some of the genre’s most iconic male performances, including Burt Lancaster in The Killers and Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly.

Jul 25, 2011 — A fearless tragicomedy about hope, dread, longing, and forgiveness, Life During Wartime (2010) is Todd Solondz’s boldest and most haunting movie to date, carrying his exploration of Middle American malaise into new territory. As before, he probes the dreams, dissatisfactions,...

Feb 25, 2026 — A survey of Black cinema and memories of watching movies with John Ashbery are among this month’s highlights.

Jul 28, 2020 — Having won the hearts of audiences and costars, one of the brightest lights of Hollywood’s golden age also scored a landmark victory in the courts.

Dec 3, 2018 — Yorgos Lanthimos’s period romp wins a record ten British Independent Film Awards, and John Waters picks his ten favorite films of 2018.

Mar 30, 2018 — This spectacular and technically ambitious Hollywood musical is a priceless window onto American pop culture’s view of itself in the 1930s.

Jul 31, 2017 — What is the defining characteristic of the femme fatale? Critic Imogen Sara Smith explores the range of this film noir archetype through a handful of classic performances.

Jul 16, 2017 — “Legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, father of the modern movie zombie and creator of the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead franchise, has died at 77,” reports Tre’vell Anderson for the Los Angeles Times. “Romero died Sunday in his sleep...

Apr 12, 2017 — British director Jack Clayton elicited landmark performances from a host of great ladies of the cinema, including Maggie Smith, Deborah Kerr, and Anne Bancroft.

Apr 29, 2016 — The writer-director of such witty cultural sendups as Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco talks about that early-career trilogy; his new Jane Austen adaptation, Love and Friendship; and the filmmaker’s work of capturing the past.