The American Dream

Oct 12, 2017 — Tonight, Griffin Dunne will be at the Walter Reade Theater to take part in a Q&A following a screening of the documentary he’s made about his aunt, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. The New York Film Festival will...

Aug 14, 2016 — While considered to lie outside the highly policed boundaries of film noir, films like Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind and Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes nevertheless share many of noir’s stylistic and thematic tropes.

Dec 8, 2015 — In Speedy, Harold Lloyd, a comic genius who thought of himself as a quintessentially average American man, places his optimistic everyman character within the context of a society in shift, to great comedic effect.

Nov 24, 2009 — For twenty years, the remains of television’s self-proclaimed golden age lay dormant in the vaults of the commercial networks. I remember traveling, as a young researcher for NBC, to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where the old shows of the fifties...

May 26, 2008 — Though producer Alexander Korda’s adventure movie forms part of a continued tradition of representing the East by purposefully occluding the reality of it, it celebrates the Arabian fantasy as a site of childlike wonder.

May 12, 2026 — Sorting through critics’ most-anticipated titles, catching up with interviews and profiles, and more.

Nov 20, 2025 — To complement his new exhibition, Jafa programs a series of four double bills.

Apr 29, 2025 — In this exuberant and moving portrait of a Brooklyn sex worker, Sean Baker draws on themes he has explored throughout his career, depicting the workaday grind of twenty-first-century American existence with biting humor and clear-eyed humanity.

Mar 17, 2025 — Headlining this month’s roundup are Joan Didion, Merle Oberon, and Charlie Chaplin.

Nov 22, 2024 — Powell and Pressburger, Cassavetes and Rowlands, Robert Frank, Catherine Breillat, John Waters, Babette Mangolte, Sergei Loznitsa . . .