The Outsider

Mar 26, 2019 — It’s the afternoon of February 8, 1964, and Ed Sullivan has assembled a gaggle of CBS ushers to talk about tomorrow night’s show, featuring the four lads from Liverpool who call themselves the Beetles—strike that, the Beatles. He needs to...

Dec 3, 2018 — True Stories, David Byrne’s 1986 paean to American eccentricity and ordinariness, called to me from the shelves of a video store in Austin, Texas. Subtitled “A Film About a Bunch of People in Virgil, Texas,” True Stories is not “true”...

Sep 14, 2022 — Always innovating, Godard was one of the most vital and influential figures in the history of cinema.

Oct 4, 2016 — This account of a visit to the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls set is excerpted from an issue of the University of California, Los Angeles, newspaper.

Mar 31, 2025 — The first five days of New Directors/New Films, the showcase of new talent copresented by FLC and MoMA, are packed.

Oct 27, 2021 — Channel Calendars Celebrate Noirvember on the Criterion Channel with a tribute to the cool-as-ice Robert Mitchum, whose nonchalance and quiet menace made him a defining presence in American cinema’s underworld. Or enjoy the sophisticated, pitch-dark pulp classics in our Fox...

Jan 29, 2019 — In the Heat of the Night (1967) opens with an air of mystery, of outsiderness winding its way into the small town of Sparta, Mississippi, a place that right away seems heavy with a sense of what belongs and what...

Oct 31, 2016 — In her latest column, critic Imogen Sara Smith explores landmark moments in the intersection of noir and the western, including Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks.

Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.

Sep 29, 2003 — Roman Polanski’s maiden feature would define his maverick status once and for all.