Magnificent Obsession

Jun 19, 2014 — PerformancesTime has added some latter-day ironies to All That Heaven Allows, and not just the revelation that its star Rock Hudson was gay. There’s also the political career of Ronald Reagan, the ex-husband of Hudson’s costar, Jane Wyman—built on the...

May 13, 2014 — Few national cinemas have confronted the issue of preparedness for war with the creative vigor of England’s. Thorold Dickinson’s The Next of Kin (1942), Alberto Cavalcanti’s Went the Day Well? (1942, from a story by Graham Greene), and, of course,...

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Aug 2, 2012 — Repertory PicksOne of the upcoming releases of ours that we’re most excited about is Paul Fejos’s Lonesome. It’s early-Hollywood buried treasure, produced by Universal at a time when studios were still cranking out silent films as well as the talkies...

With themes of love, suffering, betrayal, sacrifice, and redemption, melodrama puts its audiences through the emotional wringer.

Apr 26, 2012 — In honor of the great German émigré director’s birthday, here’s a short, quotable clip from the 1979 BBC documentary Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, more excerpts of which can be found on our release of All That Heaven...

May 1, 2026 — A new month begins with a Visconti restoration, a new issue of Senses of Cinema, and a deep backgrounder on Backrooms.

Oct 16, 2019 — This month’s round includes new critical assessments of Bresson and Rohmer, Hollywood memoirs, and interviews with living legends.

Jun 10, 2014 — Douglas Sirk once said: “This is the dialectic—there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” When All That Heaven Allows was...

Jun 17, 2015 — From a shrewd adaptation by André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, Jonathan Demme fashions a visually inventive dreamscape out of an Ibsen classic.