The Better Way

Mar 13, 2013 — The slimiest movie monster of them all is part of—and perfects—a great tradition of unstoppable outer-space invaders.

Oct 2, 2012 — Set in 1960s Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai’s ravishing masterpiece is both a love song to a city and a human romance of epic intimacy.

Aug 21, 2012 — Andrew Haigh’s boy-meets-boy story reminds us that the biggest pleasures of falling in love come from the little moments of connection.

May 29, 2012 — A watershed film in Bergman’s career, this tale of a woman caught between the past and present is a masterful study in darkness and light.

Aug 18, 2011 — Stanley Kubrick’s labyrinthine 1956 heist flick The Killing—an exploded rethink of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and eventual template for the narrative convolutions of Reservoir Dog—became an instant facet in the jewel that was film noir, even as it refracted...

Apr 25, 2011 — In 1981, the legendary critic went all out for Blow Out, which she thought was De Palma's most mature work to date.

Feb 1, 2011 — This essay was originally published in the booklet accompanying the 2006 DVD release of The Double Life of Véronique. A new life experience is in the air today, a perception that explodes the form of the linear narrative and renders...

Nov 26, 2010 — Early in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, as the wind from the Texas plains whips the small town of Anarene, the high-school senior Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) halts his recalcitrant pickup truck—Hank Williams is warbling “Why Don’t You Love...

Jul 27, 2010 — Americans got The Secret of the Grain. In France, they got La graine et le mulet (The Grain and the Mullet)—basically, “Couscous and Fish.” Depending on whose table you eat dinner at, the French title can seem as elemental as...

May 25, 2010 — In the films of Stan Brakhage, the viewer’s role must be reimagined: from a passive receiver to one who meets the film halfway, actively plumbing the depths of its imagery and the various themes and ideas suggested by its subject...