Light of the World

Mar 16, 2015 — Director and star Robert Montgomery suffuses his moody 1947 New Mexico–set noir with palpable postwar anxiety and expressive fatalism.

Mar 9, 2015 — François Truffaut’s adultery drama is at times corrosively funny and at others frighteningly tense, but it’s always incisive and humane.

Jan 6, 2015 — Kihachi Okamoto's The Sword of Doom is likely to strike the unalerted viewer as an exercise in absurdist violence, tracking the career of a nihilistic swordsman from his gratuitous murder of a defenseless old man to his final descent into...

Dec 9, 2014 — Liliana Cavani’s tale of the sadomasochistic bond between an ex-SS officer and a former concentration camp prisoner is a transgressive take on history and fascism.

Aug 18, 2014 — The filmmaker and critic discuss the pleasures and provocations of the Spanish auteur’s work.

Jun 16, 2014 — Georges Franju evokes the surreal silent serials of Louis Feuillade while constructing his own personal cinematic paradise.

Jan 28, 2014 — Terence Davies beckons the viewer into a private world of moods and sensations with this exquisite childhood reverie.

Jan 7, 2014 — Satyajit Ray was ailing when he made them, but these three works from the great filmmaker’s final years show an artist at the height of his powers.

Jan 6, 2014 — Critics commonly describe Throne of Blood (1957) as Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth. While this description is certainly not untrue, the film is much more than a direct cinematic translation of a literary text. Kurosawa’s movie is a brilliant synthesis...

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?