The Professor

Paul Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory and American Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley. A contributing editor of Film Quarterly, he is currently at work on a critical biography of Jean Renoir.

Graham Petrie, professor emeritus at McMaster University in Canada, is the author of books on François Truffaut, Andrei Tarkovsky (with Vida T. Johnson), and Hungarian cinema, as well as Hollywood Destinies: European Directors in America, 1922–1931, which has a section...

Lisa Dombrowski is the author of The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I’ll Kill You! and the editor of Kazan Revisited. She has written for the New York Times, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Film History, and the Velvet...

Leonard Leff, emeritus professor of English at Oklahoma State University is the author of three books, including Hitchcock and Selznick (University of California Press, 1999). His essay on African Americans and Gone With the Wind appears in The Best American...

Apr 29, 2022 — This week swerves from the slick cinéma du look to the harshest punk noise.

Jun 27, 2017 — On what would have been his seventy-sixth birthday, we look back at the incandescent, richly cinematic reveries of one of the most acclaimed Polish filmmakers of his generation.

Aug 26, 2026 — The fifteen-film series sets the mood for the unique first feature by Jack Auen and Kevin Walker.

Jun 1, 2026 — The world’s most desolate film festival expands to nearly a hundred theaters in seventy-three cities.

Apr 7, 2026 — The third edition opens with Maddie’s Secret and features Chronovisor, After Dreaming, and Blue Heron.

Sep 18, 2023 — Winners and runners-up include American Fiction, The Holdovers, Dicks: The Musical, and Dear Jessi.