A Way Out

May 21, 2001 — Akira Kurosawa’s period film not only commemorated historical Japanese myths with new, vivid feeling but also created the source for many of the enduring entertainment tropes in world cinema today.

Nov 13, 2000 — Featuring what may be the only 1950s monster that could not be destroyed, this cult classic warns parents to listen to their kids because the world they understood and controlled is over.

Oct 2, 2000 — The most important of Brian De Palma’s earlier features, Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970), resist the commodification of entertainment while charting the development of Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro) from voyeur to filmmaker to urban guerilla. If pictures like...

Jan 11, 1999 — This epic reimagining of medieval Russia was the most historically audacious production made in the twenty-odd years after Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible.

Aug 20, 2024 — In her formally daring debut feature, Martha Coolidge stages a confrontation with the subject of date rape that questions the kind of “closure” required in conventional storytelling.

Mar 29, 2016 — Les Blank’s long-lost documentary revels in the trippy, eccentric world of and surrounding Tulsa Sound pioneer Leon Russell, transforming what might have been a standard concert movie into a genuine work of art.

Dec 17, 2025 — Amid the disorientation of the COVID-19 era, this rousing film cut through with a life-affirming reminder that community and connection are still possible.

Oct 1, 2025 — With two films set to open next month, Richard Linklater programs a series of French New Wave classics.

May 6, 2024 — Perhaps the most hard-to-categorize of the great Hollywood studios came into its own with a string of critically acclaimed films based on popular books and plays, including Born Yesterday, A Raisin in the Sun, and From Here to Eternity.

Jan 19, 2018 — Two marvels of midcentury social commentary now streaming on the Criterion Channel show how progress can be a one-step-forward, two-steps-backward process.