The Given Word

Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...

Aug 30, 2022 — Next month, the Criterion Channel celebrates the films of trailblazing cinematographer James Wong Howe, European acting icon Romy Schneider, and Spanish provocateur Carlos Saura.

Jul 30, 2019 — The New York Film Festival has landed the world premiere of The Irishman—and Scorsese is already at work on his next feature.

Jul 16, 2013 — Theater legend Peter Brook’s approach to bringing the classic fable about human savagery to the screen was radical in its straightforwardness.

Apr 28, 2003 — The sense of the difficulty of a real assumption of adulthood gives François Truffaut’s final Antoine Doinel film an undercurrent of anguish, despite its surface lightness.

Mar 12, 2026 — A selection of fine writing on this year’s Academy Award nominees.

Feb 25, 2025 — Like many of the characters found throughout the director’s oeuvre, the alternative-press staffers at the center of her sophomore feature are bound up in a perpetual tug-of-war between past and present realities.

Oct 16, 2024 — This year’s special anniversary edition will open with Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation, The Piano Lesson.

May 21, 2024 — The Senegalese filmmaker’s steadfast devotion to African autonomy led him to become a foundational contributor to the hard-won, dynamic flourishing of an independent cinematic tradition on his home continent.

Dec 18, 2023 — As we scan the latest lists, polls, and awards, it seems that many critical favorites are emerging in pairs.