The Long Game

Sep 25, 2019 — With Polyester, his first movie to flirt with the mainstream, maverick filmmaker John Waters set out to send up the overripe Hollywood melodramas of yesteryear—but also “to make a movie that really stunk,” as he has put it. Inspired by...

Aug 28, 2024 — Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds are at their comedic best in this tale of parent-child bonding filled with Oedipal humor and emotional insight.

Aug 31, 2011 — French sociologist Roger Caillois proposed that every form of human recreation could be placed somewhere on a continuum between two terms: ludus and paidia. The first of these represents games defined almost wholly by their rule systems. Crossword puzzles and...

Sep 8, 1998 — In David Lean’s Summertime, in which Rossano Brazzi seduces Katharine Hepburn—an aging, repressed Ohio “working girl” on vacation in Venice—the Continental lover reached his pinnacle and approached his end. In the next decade, he would be embodied by Marcello Mastroianni,...

Jul 7, 2025 — Karlovy Vary premieres a new restoration of the last great film of the Czechoslovak New Wave.

Feb 18, 2025 — HIghlights this month include a look back at the Dogme 95 movement, a showcase of great supporting performances, and spotlights on directors Michael Mann, Alain Guiraudie, and Lee Chang-dong.

Jul 8, 2024 — The other big winner in Karlovy Vary is Lilja Ingolfsdottir, whose Loveable takes home five awards.

Nov 28, 2022 — We’re closing out the year with a gift bag full of screwball comedy favorites, a wagon train of wintry westerns, and a World Cup–ready team of eclectic football movies.

Sep 28, 2022 — This melodrama, made by André de Toth in his native Hungary, anticipates the unease of the director’s postwar Hollywood films with an array of radical stylistic choices and jarring visual tensions.

Aug 18, 2022 — This week’s announcements from Toronto and New York promise tantalizing world premieres and other highlights of the season.