Black

Apr 27, 2017 — Blending irreverent comedy and surreal eroticism, Juzo Itami’s international hit is a utopian look at the peculiarities of gastronomic culture.

Sep 2, 2026 — Shatara Michelle Ford is an African American filmmaker. Their debut feature, Test Pattern, was released by Kino Lorber in 2021 to critical acclaim, landing on over a dozen best-of-2021 lists. It received nominations at the Gotham Awards, Spirit Awards, and...

Jul 13, 2023 — Celine Song’s feature directorial debut, Past Lives, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023 and was released in theaters by A24. Her play Endlings received its world premiere in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater and had its New...

The comedian, actor, and author reflects on what Alex Cox’s Walker has to say about American history, talks about the subtle depth of Two-Lane Blacktop, and praises performances by Peter Falk and Walter Matthau.

Jan 25, 2021 — The blacklist couldn’t stop the irrepressible screenwriter known for his work with Sidney Lumet and Martin Ritt.

Sep 13, 2004 — Fifteen years ago I received a letter from a young film director in Texas, who enclosed a tape of his first film, with the unlikely title It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. It might as well have...

Monte Hellman, a protégé of legendary producer/director Roger Corman, is best known for a pair of Jack Nicholson Westerns, as well as the cult film favorites Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, and China 9 Liberty 37. He has also worked as a...

Filmmaker Richard Linklater originally presented this tribute at the 2000 South by Southwest in Austin, TX, as an introduction to a special screening of Two-Lane Blacktop, part of a retrospective of Hellman's work that Linklater helped coordinate. It also appeared...

Sep 25, 2023 — There was a period under the Nixon administration when the collective American psyche, as seen on film, seemed almost convulsed by its fixation on the motor vehicle. Every other week a moviegoer might see a film that could broadly be...

Apr 5, 2019 — Two-Lane Blacktop A longtime Criterion contributor, Kent Jones has written for us on everything from the glories of studio filmmaking to the most daring and cerebral of art-house auteurs. But regardless of the subject he’s set his sights on, he’s...