Songs XIX & XX

May 27, 2026 — Is it possible to look without trying to grasp the object of one’s gaze? Traditional ethnographic documentaries, much like the written ethnographies that preceded them, have attempted to explain a given culture to those who don’t belong to it, assuming...

May 8, 2026 — Film Comment relaunches, Richard Kelly writes, Lynne Ramsay prepares, and in 1976, Roberto Rossellini talked.

Apr 28, 2026 — In April 1992, John Singleton was en route to the set of his second film when he heard the verdict on the radio. A predominantly white jury had acquitted four police officers who, a year earlier, had been caught on...

Apr 17, 2026 — So many Hamlets! Plus Radley Metzger, Marco Bellocchio, and Tilda Swinton and Orbital.

Apr 16, 2026 — Dozens of filmmakers will attend the third edition of the American Cinematheque’s documentary festival.

Mar 31, 2026 — Violently nihilistic, simultaneously energizing and crushing, Tsui Hark’s remake of the martial-arts classic One-Armed Swordsman captures the zeitgeist of pre–1997 handover Hong Kong.

Mar 30, 2026 — Suffused with visual beauty and moments of magical realism, Jess X. Snow’s queer diasporic cinema invites us to imagine new possibilities for freedom, transformation, and intergenerational healing.

Mar 30, 2026 — This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will present twelve Chinese-language classics.

Mar 27, 2026 — The first documentary feature about the rock legends, Charlie Is My Darling captures the band as a group of consummate musicians coming into their fame, fully committed to their craft and enjoying one another’s company.

Mar 20, 2026 — This week: Thierry Frémaux on the Lumière brothers, Lynne Littman and Jane Alexander on Testament, and Christian Petzold on Hitchcock.