From What Is Before

Apr 13, 2021 — This month’s round spans from the earliest days of cinema, through Hollywood’s golden age and Scorsese’s Raging Bull to Sharon Stone’s memoir.

Jan 12, 2021 — In the course of selling or promoting a film, a director will invariably be asked, “What’s this movie really about?” The desired answer is usually predetermined—marketers want a concise, two-sentence hook; reporters want a sound bite; critics want a thesis...

Sep 4, 2020 — The festival opens with a winning oddity from Greece and an Italian time-hopping family drama.

May 22, 2019 — Everyone’s all in for the first two acts of this love letter to Los Angeles—but for many, the third is a deal-breaker.

Jul 14, 2015 — Carroll Ballard’s film is a work of rapture, a mesmerizing adventure that envelops the viewer in the beauties of the natural world.

Aug 3, 2026 — The American Cinematheque presents six of the eleven films Douglas Sirk and cinematographer Russell Metty made between 1952 and 1959.

Jul 14, 2026 — One of the funniest and most affecting scenes in 1970s Hollywood cinema is also one of the most quietly radical—no small feat in a decade of movies marked by wiggy experimentation, explosions of brutal and cathartic violence, and shaggy new...

Apr 30, 2026 — The festival presents new work by Isabel Sandoval, Kogonada, Ildikó Enyedi, and more.

Feb 24, 2026 — Centered on the emotional unraveling of a failed newsman, this darkly prescient satire envisions the collapse of American society as we knew it through an unsparing critique of corporate media and capital accumulation.

May 28, 2024 — In Karyn Kusama’s award-winning feature debut, Michelle Rodriguez delivers a smoldering performance as a young woman who finds in boxing a container for her grief, loss, and rage.