The Last First Time

May 11, 2020 — This week’s round comes loaded with lists: 100 novels about cinema, fifty novelizations, and dozens of Sheila O’Malley’s favorite biographies.

Apr 20, 2020 — This month sees new books by and about Woody Allen, Miranda July, and Michael Snow as well as fresh translations and collections of criticism.

Feb 26, 2020 — Karel Zeman belonged to an obsessive fringe fellowship of moviemakers that stretched right back to the medium’s first formative days—a lineage of auteurs who believed in cinema as a full-blown daydream machine, capable of realizing inhabitable fantasias. These were filmmakers—practical-effects...

Feb 11, 2020 — The universal success of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is undoubtedly due to a skill that the director has demonstrated over the course of several decades and many enduring pieces of work. But it is also a sign of our times. What...

Feb 11, 2020 — How might four history-making Oscars impact movies from here on out?

Jan 29, 2020 — It is almost impossible to discuss Sidney Lumet’s Cold War thriller Fail Safe without also considering its more financially successful cinematic foil and fellow 1964 Columbia Pictures release, Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to...

Jan 20, 2020 — In celebration of Federico Fellini’s 100th birthday, the director of The Farewell talks about the deeply moving final scene of Nights of Cabiria and its mixture of pain and hope.

Dec 20, 2019 — This week we’re spotlighting directors’ and writers’ appreciations of other directors and writers, plus Céline Sciamma and Agnès Varda.

Dec 19, 2019 — Lists (of course), but also philosophical surveys, biographies, and coffee table books are featured in this month’s round.

Dec 17, 2019 — She worked with Rivette, Fassbinder, and Visconti, but of course, any discussion of her illustrious career will always circle back to Godard.