After Life

May 27, 2025 — A landmark of independent cinema, Charles Burnett’s debut feature captures daily life in Watts, Los Angeles, with a depth and precision that evokes the history of Black American music.

May 12, 2025 — Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel The Director reimagines the life of G. W. Pabst, and there’s a minor role in it for Leni Riefenstahl.

Feb 7, 2025 — The week brings fresh appreciations of Sara Gómez, Frederick Wiseman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Vittorio De Sica, and David Lynch.

Jan 21, 2025 — Lynchian may be impossible to define, but you know it when you see it.

Nov 26, 2024 — In this tragicomic road movie about a Bible-selling con man and his precocious young charge, Peter Bogdanovich brings Depression-era America to vivid life without sentimentality or nostalgia.

Nov 21, 2024 — Dennis Hopper’s bleakly nihilistic drama struggled to find an audience after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but time has revealed it to be one of the most hardcore films about disaffected youth ever made.

Nov 12, 2024 — Filled with expressionistic shadows and pungent details of life in the criminal underworld, this seminal tale of money and violence was among director Howard Hawks’s favorite of his own films.

Oct 30, 2024 — The filmmaker struggled to emerge from the long shadow of one of the world’s most famous artists.

Sep 16, 2024 — Ready or not, the win for Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation kicks off this year’s awards season.

Jun 27, 2024 — At their best, movies that showcase a sizable collective of virtuosic actors can give you the feeling of a rich ecosystem being brought to life.