A Self-Made Hero

Sep 17, 2025 — One of the most influential comedies of the 1980s, Rob Reiner’s rock-and-roll satire is a remarkably authentic, lived-in portrait of musicians, their egotism, and the industry that feeds off their stardom.

Mar 25, 2025 — Set in a grimy, unglamorous version of Los Angeles, Arthur Penn’s Watergate-era neonoir tells the story of an honorable private eye acutely conscious of living in an era that is the mere shadow of a nobler past.

Mar 19, 2024 — One of the first postrevolutionary Iranian films screened and celebrated internationally, Amir Naderi’s autobiographical masterpiece is a lyrical exploration of childhood that showcases the director’s gift for radical simplicity.

Dec 12, 2017 — Alexander Payne skewers the absurdities of American politics in this tale of a high-school presidential campaign gone ugly.

Apr 21, 2014 — A real-life prison uprising inspired this two-fisted tale directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to make many more films about men in extreme situations.

May 21, 2013 — It’s tough to tell where reality ends and fiction begins in Haskell Wexler’s deft chronicle of a turbulent era.

Mar 18, 2013 — Using a 1958 murder spree as a narrative springboard, Terrence Malick fashioned a fractured fairy tale about American innocence lost.

May 22, 2012 — These five films chart the unlikely ascendance of a hero of American underground cinema.

Oct 24, 2005 — The hero in Masahiro Shinoda’s popular samurai movie is both a genre figure and an ordinary character, both killer and savior, both larger than life and lost in the mists.

Sep 23, 2002 — The theatricality of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller makes the point that psychoanalysis is a sister to cinema rather than a rival.