Strike

Nov 14, 1995 — Tamura (Eiji Funakoshi), the hero of Kon Ichikawa’s drama, may be the loneliest man in the history of the movies—lonelier than the spiritual pilgrims of Bergman, Bresson, and Dreyer.

Nov 19, 1992 — In Hieronymous Karl Friedrich, Baron von Munchausen, the greatest liar in history outside of politics, director Terry Gilliam has found perhaps his closest fictional counterpart.

Jun 3, 1991 — Jean Marais on the set of Beauty and the Beast An excerpt from Cocteau: A Biography (1970) by Francis Steegmuller Beauty and the Beast, the first film of Cocteau’s own since The Blood of a Poet, and his finest poem since...

Nov 12, 1990 — For a twenty-seven-year-old director with a smattering of television experience and only one prior feature, Steven Spielberg demonstrated an awesome mastery of the film medium when his first big production hit the screen in 1975. An instant and certifiable phenomenon,...

Jun 24, 1990 — Some films have become famous simply because they’ve sold a lot of tickets. Others have major studio publicity machines behind them, the better to hog the spotlight. Still others earn their fame the hard way through genuine critical acclaim. But...

Apr 11, 1988 — Over the years countless films have been made about war, its horrors and its devastations—few, however, have been as moving and heartfelt as René Clément’s.

Jan 11, 1988 — Alfred Hitchcock committed a shocking murder in Sabotage (1936). Here, in one of the director’s darkest works, a child unknowingly carrying a bomb is blown to pieces in the streets of London. The death of Stevie is a deliberate attempt...

Dec 13, 2018 — Repertory Picks Tomorrow, as part of the opening night of the three-week-long retrospective Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker, New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center will scare up a screening of the director’s masterpiece Cat People. The chilling tale of a fashion designer...

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...

Jun 26, 2024 — A happily married lawyer strikes up an affair with her teenage stepson in Breillat’s first feature since Abuse of Weakness (2013).