The Absent

Jun 15, 2009 — With the arrival of this film, cinema catapulted to the front line of a cultural advance guard that sought to undermine the intractable mass taste promoted by Hollywood, television, and the Brill Building.

Dec 18, 2000 — Elegant humor cloaks despair in Luis Buñuel’s masterwork, wherein greedy characters flee their toxic lives and find refuge in the loneliness of dreams.

Apr 24, 2026 — Great writing this week on Maurice Pialat, Paul Newman, Johnnie To, Mark Fisher, and wrestlers.

Nov 19, 2025 — Joachim Trier’s family drama stars Stellan Skarsgård as a renowned film director and Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as his estranged daughters.

Sep 16, 2025 — In response to the suffocating conservatism of the eighties, Lizzie Borden crafted a pluralistic vision of a feminist front that neither ignores difference nor lets it stand as an immovable obstacle to political solidarity.

Mar 21, 2025 — Along with conversations with David Cronenberg, Alain Guiraudie, and Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, the week offers a dossier on “the cinema of the senses.”

Jan 14, 2025 — There’s a Delphine Seyrig retrospective on in New York and another will open at the Harvard Film Archive on Friday.

Sep 26, 2024 — The directors discuss their award-winning documentary Bad Press and their effort to invert the exploitative dynamics that have long existed between documentary filmmakers and Indigenous communities.

Aug 13, 2024 — In films that elude categorization, the Ukrainian director developed a boldly experimental aesthetic that evokes her mercurial inner dialogue and the leaps and stutters of her imagination.

Jul 25, 2024 — During a tumultuous period in New York’s history, movies like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, and Shaft found excitement and squalor in one of the city’s most infamous tourist attractions.