In America

Aug 20, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s generous-hearted satire achieves a synthesis that is both terribly funny and deeply moving.

May 15, 2000 — Horror movies take place in their own territory. The trick is to get us there. It doesn’t matter whether they start with fantastic premises and gothic settings, or with ordinary neighborhoods and daily experience, because the places and assumptions change...

Nov 22, 1999 — Amarcord presents a scathing satirical critique of Italian provincial life during the 1930s, the height of the fascist period (1922–43). In this era, Mussolini’s dictatorship enjoyed its greatest popular support. While Fellini’s depiction of the provincial world under fascism provides...

Jun 21, 1999 — Despite what you may have heard, Armageddon is a work of art by a cutting-edge artist who is a master of movement, light, color, and shape—and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion. (It was no surprise to me to learn...

Aug 25, 1998 — Abeautiful woman is mysteriously beating the bejesus out of a drunk when he suddenly pulls at her hair and it comes off. The now totally bald woman continues smacking him around with her shoe until he falls to the ground....

Jul 14, 1998 — Adirector who knows his genres, Jonathan Demme has never been able to resist turning them inside out. Starting in the film industry as a publicist, Demme was soon hired by Roger Corman as a scriptwriter and then as a director....

Dec 19, 1993 — The first above-ground picture made by John Waters was a cinematic breakthrough more profound than Dolby sound or Cinerama.

Apr 6, 1993 — Robert Altman’s darkly witty, gleefully close-to-bone satire of Hollywood is also a return to the infinitely sly and supple virtuosity that marked his great work of the ‘70s.

Mar 6, 1989 — This black-and-white horror flick is the definitive ‘50s film about a town that won’t listen to the kids until it’s too late.

Oct 31, 1988 — The wittiest, most sophisticated thriller ever made, North by Northwest is one of the crowning achievements in the careers of its director, Alfred Hitchcock, and its star, Cary Grant. Released in 1959 to both critical and public acclaim, this classic...