The Exam

Feb 27, 2020 — Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran and Philippe Garrel’s The Salt of Tears premiere in the festival’s main competition.

Feb 16, 2018 — Critic Maitland McDonagh incisively examines the character of Clarice in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs and how her perspective as a woman informs the way she sees forensic evidence.

Oct 21, 2025 — Set in a postcard-perfect American town, David Cronenberg’s provocative take on the old-fashioned crime thriller examines the pleasure we derive from cinematic violence and the construction of patriarchal impunity.

Aug 23, 2019 — A good number of the pieces that have stood out this week examine the ways that music and cinema have informed each other’s traditions.

Jun 18, 2019 — Bruno Dumont’s remarkable first feature examines the intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the French provinces.

Apr 2, 2017 — What defines noir acting? In her latest Dark Passages column, Imogen Sara Smith examines the stylistic variety in some of the genre’s most iconic male performances, including Burt Lancaster in The Killers and Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly.

Mar 28, 2017 — In his first English-language feature, Michelangelo Antonioni examines the elusiveness of the real through the lens of a murder mystery.

Feb 6, 2017 — In the inaugural installment of his new column, archivist Michael Chaiken examines the Nobel Prize–winning icon’s unique artistic process through a collection of ephemera.

Oct 5, 2016 — Rock critic Robert Christgau examines the evocative use of three early Leonard Cohen songs in Robert Altman’s brilliant revisionist western.

Oct 21, 2015 — A new book examines the distinct clothing worn in Andrei Tarkovsky’s films.