The Law Is the Law

Sep 29, 2003 — In May 1981, in the midst of shooting Lola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder sketched out his next film project: Sybille Schmitz. On the cover, he had written, “Story for a Feature Film*.” The asterisk pointed to this footnote: “It is possible...

Sep 28, 2022 — A long-obscure landmark of the Iranian New Wave, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s daringly ambiguous portrait of feudalism’s demise mirrors the revolutionary times in which it was made.

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.

Nov 13, 2025 — The filmmaker’s memoir is “messy, manic, and shot through with revelation.”

Sep 11, 2025 — For J. Hoberman, the film “more than makes the case for Fonda’s centrality in the American imaginary.”

Jul 22, 2025 — New films by Olivier Assayas, Noah Baumbach, Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Mona Fastvold, and Park Chan-wook will compete for the Golden Lion.

Jul 7, 2018 — The writer and director lived a full and robust life both before and after his monumental Shoah.

Jun 8, 2017 — When we think of American cinema in the 1970s, it’s the “New Hollywood” that first comes to mind, landmark films such as The Godfather and Taxi Driver, Nashville and Chinatown. In his new book, Opening Wednesday at a Theater or...

Jul 5, 2016 — Arthur Hiller’s 1979 comedy pairs Alan Arkin and Peter Falk as unlikely comrades in a madcap farce that lands every laugh.

Jun 4, 2015 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder stocked the cast of The Merchant of Four Seasons with friends and colleagues from his experimental theater days.