† This is the Life

Aug 12, 2024 — The great actor creates an unforgettable portrait of a man worn down by the world in Tamara Jenkins’s darkly funny and deeply moving family drama.

Jul 29, 2024 — Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on the Bard were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines the ambiguously queer tensions in the history play Henry IV.

May 20, 2024 — From documentaries and stop-motion animation to multimedia projects, the richly varied work of this veteran director is a testament to her innovative spirit and her commitment to the everyday beauty of African American experiences.

Mar 8, 2024 — Though the Taiwanese director began working in commercial genres, even his earliest mainstream films contain the seeds of the inimitable style that would establish him as one of the world’s most important filmmakers.

Mar 14, 2023 — A pivotal early film from legendary Hong Kong director John Woo, this martial-arts classic explores the heroic ethos of youxia, Chinese warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to fight for justice and fulfill their promises.

Dec 8, 2022 — We can look forward to new work from Ira Sachs, Nicole Holofcener, Randall Park and Adrian Tomine, and Brandon Cronenberg.

Aug 26, 2022 — In a pivotal early scene in this baseball classic, director Ron Shelton mischievously uses two contrasting rock tunes to comment on disparate versions of masculinity.

Aug 16, 2022 — The Safdie brothers drew inspiration from their childhood memories for their first feature as codirectors, a terrifying yet wondrous portrait of an unpredictable father.

Jun 29, 2022 — A fresh round on biographies and studies of filmmakers and actors as well as a few novel ideas and critical collections.

May 13, 2022 — The director of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair reflects on the transformative power of a Sonic Youth needle drop in Olivier Assayas’s 1996 film.