† From Now On

Nov 2, 2009 — The following, written in 1986, is from the first treatment for Wings of Desire. And we, spectators always, everywhere,looking at, never out of, everything!—Rilke, “The Eighth Elegy” At first it’s not possible to describe anything beyond a wish or a...

Jun 8, 2009 — The word “opera” doesn’t immediately come to mind when one thinks of Abbas Kiarostami. Such a grandly theatrical form would seem antithetical to the more minimalist film sensibility of the Iranian director (Taste of Cherry). But thanks to a surprise...

Jun 16, 2008 — Decades later, we’ve come to understand that Claude Sautet’s film—in a less gaudy and obvious, more secretive, insidious way—was just as revolutionary as Breathless.

Apr 25, 2005 — In Andrzej Wajda’s masterful antiwar film, we see scarcely a single combat death, yet the dark radiance of doom haloes one and all.

Sep 13, 2004 — This oblique strategy can be seen as a self-referential characterization of Slacker itself: it appears to have no struc­ture, to be chaotic (a matter of random encounters), when, in fact, it has a very subtle, extremely well-crafted structure that makes...

Sep 7, 2016 — Jenni Olson is an acclaimed filmmaker, writer, archivist, LGBT film historian, and online pioneer. Since premiering at Sundance in 2015, her innovative feature-length essay film The Royal Road, which reflects on an array of topics ranging from the Spanish colonization...

Nov 21, 2008 — “Oh! What have you done to me? What an impossible task. To pick ten titles from the Criterion Collection is difficult enough, but to put them in any kind of order would defeat Ockham's sharpest razor,” exclaimed Nicolas Roeg, director...

Jul 2, 2026 — This week’s roundup ranges from sad goodbyes to a silent comedy, from Hitchcock to Barker, and from video art to a cult TV series.

Nov 12, 2025 — In this Sundance-award-winning exploration of war and memory, writer Cathy Linh Che shines a spotlight on her parents, who were Vietnamese refugees living in the Philippines when they were cast as extras in Apocalypse Now.

Jul 17, 2025 — Among this month’s highlights are a spotlight on ’90s soundtracks, a celebration of Hong Kong icon Sammo Hung, and a retrospective of the work of Spanish auteur Bigas Luna.