Lost Illusions

May 20, 2025 — Set in the dying days of the 1960s, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical tale of two unemployed actors is a triumph of screenwriting and a brilliant showcase for then-unknown stars Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.

Sep 25, 2024 — At a time when women were understood to be the primary audience for movies, Hollywood studios built vehicles for actresses that doubled as showcases for the industry’s many brilliant female screenwriters.

Jan 8, 2024 — The National Society of Film Critics and the Golden Globes have us surveying the latest round of best-of-2023 lists and overviews.

Dec 12, 2023 — In the history of cinema, French director Albert Lamorisse is a unique figure. His intense focus on three subjects—children, animals, and flight—is distinctive, and the fact that all of his works clock in under ninety minutes (and most under an...

Oct 17, 2023 — I. “Morbid Cinema” On October 10, 1962, there appeared a brief paragraph from the Associated Press: “Tod Browning, eighty-two, who directed scores of movies between 1917 and 1939, is dead. He succumbed Saturday after an illness, and no funeral plans...

Apr 13, 2023 — Combining elements of soft-core porn and film noir, one of the most popular Hollywood genres of the 1980s and ’90s captured the fraught aspirationalism and sexual mores of the era.

Jan 17, 2023 — One of contemporary cinema’s most provocative filmmakers launched his career with three deeply unnerving, deliriously genre-blending portraits of Europe.

Jul 19, 2022 — Our midsummer books roundup opens with one sharp critique and one celebration of American popular culture.

Dec 16, 2021 — Whether their lists run to ten or fifty films, critics argue their cases for the films they’ve put on top.

Aug 30, 2021 — Next month, we’re headed to the Big Apple with a century-spanning survey of New York on-screen.