First Match

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Sep 10, 2013 — Martin Ritt’s 1965 movie of John le Carré’s first great novel (and first best seller), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, declares “a plague on all your houses” to capitalists, Communists, and ruthless intelligence operatives. It’s one espionage...

Aug 19, 2013 — This moving drama about gender, race, and class in 1960s Kolkata is a pioneering work from Satyajit Ray.

Aug 13, 2013 — John Frankenheimer burrows into the insidious side of the American sixties in his visually dazzling thriller.

Jul 16, 2013 — Theater legend Peter Brook’s approach to bringing the classic fable about human savagery to the screen was radical in its straightforwardness.

May 21, 2013 — It’s tough to tell where reality ends and fiction begins in Haskell Wexler’s deft chronicle of a turbulent era.

Mar 18, 2013 — Using a 1958 murder spree as a narrative springboard, Terrence Malick fashioned a fractured fairy tale about American innocence lost.

Jan 16, 2013 — Both sparkling and suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock’s benchmark thriller is the perfect getaway, and it set the scene for much of the master’s later work.

Dec 5, 2012 — The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs...