The Absent

Oct 2, 2018 — Performances There’s an irreducible reserve about Kristen Stewart, an appearance of not doing much on-screen, that I mistook for lack of talent when I first saw her mumbling into her shirt in the Twilight franchise. Still, playing Bella Swan, chastity...

Aug 14, 2006 — La collectionneuse is a strong, sensuously lush, deceptively slight film, a Riviera fruit with a bitter, uncompromising aftertaste. In retrospect, it is both classically Rohmeresque and atypical, as befits a film in which the director was still finding his way....

Jan 12, 2022 — Gifted with the looks and suavity of a young Elvis, the “Wicked Game” crooner shares with David Lynch an obsession with 1950s Americana—and a knowledge of the darkness at its heart.

Jun 18, 2026 — We’re wrapping the week with top docs, Black writers, screwball comedies, and appreciations of Raoul Peck and Jafar Panahi.

Jan 13, 1992 — Few films have had as exalted, or as tumultuous, a history as The Devil and Daniel Webster. Directed and produced by William Dieterle at RKO after his triumphant Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster is the finest...

Feb 23, 2012 — Author John Voelker (a.k.a. Robert Traver) met musician Duke Ellington on the set of Anatomy of a Murder; he wrote this piece about the experience for the Detroit News Sunday Magazine in 1967.

Jan 5, 2004 — Jacques Tati’s second tale about the whimsical wanderer Monsieur Hulot, this classic comedy presents a world in which characters are defined solely by their actions.

Mar 10, 2003 — Vilgot Sjöman’s cultural-sexual sensation sparked much critical and popular mayhem, only to be consigned to nearly instantaneous oblivion.

Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...

Sep 29, 2020 — In this masterpiece from the father of modern Indonesian cinema, Usmar Ismail, a violent military culture grips the nation in the years following a brutal revolution.