And Then There Was Light

Dec 9, 2025 — In one of cinema’s greatest love stories, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger use the mercurial beauty of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides to evoke the unruly passions of an indelible heroine.

Dec 1, 2025 — One of the most vital playwrights of our era was also an award-winning screenwriter.

Sep 9, 2022 — James Wong Howe was a fighter, and he learned how to be one over the course of a turbulent upbringing. Born Wong Tung Jim in 1899, in the Chinese province of Guangdong, the man who would become one of the...

May 31, 2022 — Billy Wilder’s classic film noir is a powerful meditation on masculinity, desire, and the fantasies of white America.

May 13, 2022 — It wasn’t always smooth going for Max Ophuls, Mike Hodges, or Irrfan Khan.

Oct 26, 2021 — Considered his first directly political film, Satyajit Ray’s 1960 masterpiece explores how the denial of self-knowledge, a void neither religion nor Western rationalism can fill, takes a toll on women in Indian society.

Dec 21, 2020 — This month we’re reading David Bordwell on the Massive Auteur Monograph, Rachel Kushner on Marguerite Duras, and Adam Gopnik on early animation.

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...

Aug 6, 2019 — The groundbreaking filmmaker had a hand in inventing—and then reinventing over and again—the modern documentary.

Apr 9, 2018 — Ingrid Bergman’s work in her native Sweden was an early showcase for her dazzlingly precocious talent and emotional depth.