Paper Lives

May 19, 2026 — Elevator doors open onto a warehouse floor bathed in red light, high above downtown Manhattan in early May 2024. Exposed concrete and visible ductwork frame a room where artists in green aprons, cosplaying as waiters, circulate among guests in suits...

May 12, 2026 — Sorting through critics’ most-anticipated titles, catching up with interviews and profiles, and more.

May 11, 2026 — We begin with the Marilyn Monroe centenary and move on to thrillers and collections of poetry and critical essays.

May 5, 2026 — The nation’s largest silent film festival returns to the newly renovated Castro Theatre.

Apr 28, 2026 — As the 1950s began, Kinuyo Tanaka found herself at a turning point. She had been acting in films since she was fourteen, becoming one of Japan’s most beloved, admired, and prolific women stars. Now in her early forties, she saw...

Apr 9, 2026 — Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Asghar Farhadi, Paweł Pawlikowski, Na Hong-jin, Cristian Mungiu, and Ira Sachs are headed into the main competition.

Jan 8, 2026 — We can look forward to new films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, David Fincher, Greta Gerwig, Lee Chang-dong, Ulrike Ottinger, and many, many more.

Dec 19, 2025 — This week: Kubrick conspiracies, Malickian movies, Spike Lee’s musical moments, and a talk with Rebecca Hall.

Dec 17, 2025 — This January, savor multiple levels of nostalgia with a survey of ’90s cinema’s riffs on the ’70s, or turn a new page with a collection of films about dreamers seeking fresh starts in life.

Oct 24, 2025 — It is hard to conceive of a film more dazzlingly, dizzyingly divided against itself—or one more appropriately so—than this delirious creation of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and director Ken Russell.