No Way Up

Mar 9, 2020 — “My objective is to create my own world, and these images which we create mean nothing more than the images which they are.” Andrei Tarkovsky More than three decades after his passing, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky retain their ability...

Dec 20, 2019 — This week we’re spotlighting directors’ and writers’ appreciations of other directors and writers, plus Céline Sciamma and Agnès Varda.

Dec 17, 2019 — She worked with Rivette, Fassbinder, and Visconti, but of course, any discussion of her illustrious career will always circle back to Godard.

Jan 25, 2019 — Deep into Cristian Mungiu’s 2007 drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, we sit in on a leisurely dinner-table chat that appears to be unrelated to the film’s main event, an illegal abortion conducted in a seedy hotel. After...

Mar 24, 2018 — Just a day or two after Stephen Hawking left us on March 14, Isaac Butler called up Errol Morris for Slate to talk about A Brief History of Time (1991), the documentary that takes it title from Hawking’s surprise bestseller....

Mar 23, 2018 — In anticipation of his debut on the Criterion Channel, Connor Jessup spoke with us about his experiences as an emerging filmmaker and his collaboration and friendship with Thai maverick Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Feb 14, 2018 — With her acclaimed new film Western opening in theaters this week, we spoke with German director Valeska Grisebach on the romantic ideals of the quintessential American genre.

Jan 26, 2018 — “I’m glad that I wasn’t familiar with the work of comedian and YouTube star Bo Burnham before seeing his directorial debut Eighth Grade,” begins the Village Voice’s Bilge Ebiri, “because otherwise I’m not sure how I would have initially received...

Dec 20, 2017 — Over the past decade, contemporary Greek cinema has erupted onto the international film stage with a new vanguard of directors whose bold works share a taste for provocation and highly stylized worlds. This week on the Criterion Channel on FilmStruck,...

Nov 12, 2017 — In Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero, Nancy Schoenberger “has hidden a provocative thesis,” suggests Stephen Metcalf, writing for the Atlantic. “She asks us to remember the beauty of masculine self-mastery as...