Smart People

Feb 14, 2025 — The director of Down with Love talks about his favorite romantic comedies set in the great metropolis and looks back on the making of his own foray into the genre.

Feb 3, 2025 — The vibe in Park City was unsettling, but critics and juries discovered plenty of films to fall for.

Dec 11, 2024 — In this semiautobiographical meditation on the fickle nature of creative genius, Federico Fellini opens his arms wide to the enigmas of childhood, religion, art, sex, and love—mysteries with no solution.

Dec 10, 2024 — In this brilliant adaptation, Joel and Ethan Coen find a kindred spirit in novelist Cormac McCarthy, whose abiding themes—including destiny, the American West, and the contest between our better natures and our survival instinct—mirror their own.

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.

Sep 25, 2024 — At a time when women were understood to be the primary audience for movies, Hollywood studios built vehicles for actresses that doubled as showcases for the industry’s many brilliant female screenwriters.

Sep 12, 2024 — Chime, a French remake of Serpent’s Path, and Japan’s Oscar submission, Cloud, have all premiered within months of each other.

Aug 22, 2024 — This year, Bologna’s annual feast of restorations and rediscoveries showcased one of the most ambitious masterpieces of the silent era, the melodramas of Japanese filmmaker Kozaburo Yoshimura, and other treasures of film history.

Jul 17, 2024 — Summer reading options range from fiction to philosophy, from the fog of war to finicky fame.

Jun 18, 2024 — We’re diving deeper this month into a new Elaine May biography and memoirs from Susan Seidelman and Griffin Dunne.