Kumbalangi Nights

The writer and director of All We Imagine as Light shares why Sans Soleil and Arabian Nights are gifts that keep on giving, talks about Aki Kaurismäki’s “fun and audacious” Leningrad Cowboys films, and praises Louis Malle’s Phantom India as...

Jul 28, 2026 — Seven dynamite nights with Keaton, Chaplin, Lubitsch, Ford, Murnau, Griffith, and Raoul Walsh.

Jan 11, 2023 — Following scandal and a round of reforms, the HFPA is hoping everyone enjoyed Tuesday night’s show.

Geoffrey O’Brien’s books include The Phantom Empire; Sonata for Jukebox; The Fall of the House of Walworth; Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows: Writing on Film, 2002–2012; Where Did Poetry Come From: Some Early Encounters; and Arabian Nights of 1934.

Mar 5, 2018 — On the anniversary of his birth, we look back on the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of the most radical figures of Italian cinema.

Apr 24, 2015 — Atypical in style and subject, Yasujiro Ozu’s early crime dramas show a future master brilliantly experimenting with camera and editing.

Nov 13, 2012 — Rejecting the orientalism of other adaptations, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s take on the classic tales is humane and erotic.

Apr 2, 2009 — It was announced this week that Rialto Pictures founder and Criterion friend Bruce Goldstein will receive the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival Mel Novikoff award, “given annually to an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s...

Aug 19, 2026 — This month’s highlights include a retrospective dedicated to the always-provocative Abel Ferrara, the classic series Neon Genesis Evangelion, and a collection of high-energy tales of female rockers.

Jul 24, 2026 — Names on our minds this week: Mike Mills, Jean Renoir, Ronee Blakley, and Luchino Visconti.