Into the Okavango

Sep 13, 2016 — Kenji Mizoguchi achieved the sublime with this structurally complex portrait of artistic ambition and female subjugation.

Sep 12, 2016 — During a research mission to Spain, Criterion web producer/researcher Valeria Rotella takes a day trip to the medieval desert town of Chinchón, where Orson Welles is rumored to have shot Chimes at Midnight and The Immortal Story.

Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.

Jun 2, 2016 — Kings of the Road is the most “roadish” of Wenders’s road movies, a film about travel as a form of escape for two German men and the transitory bond they form along the way.

May 24, 2016 — In The Player, Robert Altman’s early nineties comeback film, the director brilliantly skewers Hollywood—getting all the details right, as only he could—while constructing his own kind of Hollywood Movie.

Apr 29, 2016 — The writer-director of such witty cultural sendups as Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco talks about that early-career trilogy; his new Jane Austen adaptation, Love and Friendship; and the filmmaker’s work of capturing the past.

Apr 8, 2016 — Ten years ago, with the release of his debut film Reprise, a spirited drama about two young aspiring novelists, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier emerged as one of the most interesting new voices in European cinema.

Feb 18, 2016 — The Kid marked Charlie Chaplin’s wholehearted embrace of sentiment, which he intertwined with the slapstick he was known for to enrich his Tramp character and carry the narrative of feature-length directorial debut.

Nov 10, 2014 — Monte Hellman’s existential westerns take Beckett to the desert.

Jul 30, 2014 — A friend and longtime scholar of Jacques Demy ruminates on the great director’s career, as well as the port hometown they shared—which would become a magical movie location.