Key of Life

Dec 5, 2005 — If there is a skeleton key to François Truffaut’s oeuvre, it is this film, in which all of his assorted gifts and preoccupations are in play and meshed into a uniquely idiosyncratic whole.

Jan 17, 2005 — Along with Touchez pas au grisbi and Le Trou, Casque d’or is now widely recognized as the summit of Jacques Becker’s achievement as a filmmaker.

Aug 23, 2004 — This drama about young dreamers is the first definitive plunge into many of Federico Fellini’s dominant thematic and imagistic preoccupations.

Sep 17, 2001 — Elmar Klos and I usually work as equal partners, but in this case he left me a free hand. He knows that I am not thinking of the fate of all the six million tortured Jews, but that my work...

Aug 20, 2001 — Before Lars von Trier, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson there was Carl Th. Dreyer. The first great film artist to pursue the ineffable in cinema, Dreyer gave depth to what early silent filmmakers innately understood yet took...

Aug 24, 1989 — Yasujiro Ozu’s favorite theme of the stresses and strains of parent-child relationships figure prominently in this story of a raggle-taggle theater troupe giving its final performances in a small fishing village.

Nov 14, 2025 — This week: Buñuel revivals, the Rock Hudson centenary, and Mishima’s Japanese premiere.

Jun 2, 2025 — More than a hundred films likely to make you feel bad in all the best ways will screen in eight cities this month.

Apr 14, 2025 — This month’s programming brings seaside thrills and white-knuckle tension, noir classics from a politically repressive era in American history, early gems from Kathryn Bigelow, and guest-curated picks from Spike Lee.

Dec 6, 2024 — Richard Linklater and James Benning revisit Godard’s Breathless and Wim Wenders looks back on Paris, Texas.