The Absent

Mar 11, 1991 — The long absent comic essence of the silent era was suddenly revived in the hands of lovable and wildly antic filmmaker Jacques Tati.

May 3, 2018 — Two of the earliest films to depict the bombing of Hiroshima show how politics shapes national mourning.

Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.

Oct 24, 2005 — Hideo Gosha’s swordplay drama captures rebellion against the Japanese feudal system, pitting its twin protagonists against each other but also, together, against the very notion of authority itself.

Aug 18, 2003 — The third installment in Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy about religious faith sees the auteur coming to terms with the pious rigidity and strangled emotional life of his own upbringing.

Nov 12, 2025 — He anchored some of the best films by Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Okamoto, Naruse, and Teshigahara.

Jun 18, 2025 — Throughout a small but indelible body of work that includes the 1984 neorealist masterpiece Bless Their Little Hearts, the veteran filmmaker has explored how everyday life is lived within structures of power.

Apr 29, 2025 — To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the director of Three Seasons discusses a selection of landmark films that have shaped how we remember this devastating and divisive conflict.

Jan 23, 2024 — In the first ten years of her extraordinary career, the Belgian filmmaker used the raw materials of quotidian, marginal lives to spark a radical reinvention of cinema.

Apr 30, 2021 — The British New Wave, Eric Rohmer, and the late Monte Hellman figure among this week’s highlights. Also, it turns out there’s still a lot to say about Nomadland.