This Is the End

Jan 28, 2020 — Motherhood is a recurring subject in the films of Pedro Almodóvar. The mothers in his movies are fierce, passionate, and resourceful—often in varying combinations, and to varying extremes. In Almodóvar’s darkly satirical fourth feature, What Have I Done to Deserve...

Jun 10, 2014 — Douglas Sirk once said: “This is the dialectic—there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” When All That Heaven Allows was...

Feb 15, 2012 — Comedy evolves. We long ago bid adieu to the physical acrobatics of Buster Keaton, the wisecracks of Bob Hope, the witty repartee of Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. The now-reigning comedy of embarrassment, seen in the films of Judd Apatow...

Jun 22, 2010 — In the autumn of 1989, the Iranian magazine Sorush printed a story about an unusual crime: a poor man had been arrested for impersonating a celebrated film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, to a middle-class family in northern Tehran. Although the accused,...

Jul 21, 2008 — Akira Kurosawa’s modern adaptation of an American thriller represents a departure from his usual themes and stylistic choices.

Sep 12, 2007 — Here’s a Criterion discussion that won’t die. It has to do with Berlin Alexanderplatz, and it came up again this week, thanks to a couple of customers writing in. We were standing there in a clump outside our production manager’s...

Aug 28, 2006 — Pietro Germi’s brilliant satire skewers Italian society’s devotion to appearances and its cultlike obsession with gossip and honor.

Aug 2, 2019 — Extraordinarily long movies, challenging movies, and even ugly movies figure into this week’s round.

Sep 16, 2024 — Ready or not, the win for Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation kicks off this year’s awards season.

Nov 1, 2023 — Sandra Hüller meets Joachim Trier, Hayao Miyazaki predicts the future, and MoMA showcases Iranian cinema.