Let There Be Light

Sep 16, 2021 — For some, it’s “a relentless, propulsive chase movie,” while others find this first part to be “a turgid preamble with little payoff.”

Jul 6, 2020 — The latest short film to take the spotlight on the Criterion Channel, Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s Dirt Daughter emerged from the collaboration of a vibrant community of artists. Not only was it produced by the innovative collective the Eyeslicer, which supports...

Jun 17, 2014 — The brutal lessons of Vietnam remained in America’s national consciousness for a generation. September 11 gave us collective amnesia, and they’ve had to be learned again.

May 13, 2009 — It doesn’t really come as a surprise that Chris Marker is a devoted inhabitant of the virtual world Second Life. After all, one could call the playful French filmmaker and multimedia artist’s kitty—and alter ego—Guillaume-en-Egypt a trailblazing avatar (when asked...

Mar 18, 2009 — Writer, critic, and film lecturer Teruyo Nogami also served as one of Akira Kurosawa’s principal assistants. Hired as script supervisor on 1950’s Rashomon, Nogami went on to work on all of Kurosawa’s subsequent films, later chronicling their unique relationship in...

Apr 28, 2026 — In April 1992, John Singleton was en route to the set of his second film when he heard the verdict on the radio. A predominantly white jury had acquitted four police officers who, a year earlier, had been caught on...

Mar 20, 2026 — We’re reading up on the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Chantal Akerman—and Liza Minnelli has a new memoir.

Jan 22, 2026 — A singular achievement in Arab film history, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina’s sweeping political epic is a memorial to the lives lost in the struggle for Algerian independence.

Nov 18, 2025 — A pre-Code aviation epic that makes pioneering use of the era’s innovations in cinematic color and sound, Howard Hughes’s directorial debut was Hollywood’s first modern portrait of World War I.

Oct 30, 2025 — Classics of the genre—including Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession and David Cronenberg’s The Fly—explore the gory extremes of corporeal experience.