The Chair

Oct 7, 2013 — René Clair, Fredric March, and Veronica Lake cast sensational spells in this screwball supernatural treat.

Aug 31, 2011 — City symphony or spa burlesque? Polemic or caprice? From the outset, even in his manifesto lecture “Towards a Social Cinema,” delivered to the Groupement des Spectateurs d’Avant-Garde at Paris’s Le Vieux-Colombier before what was only the second public screening of À propos...

Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...

David Sterritt is a contributing writer at Cineaste, a film professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, the former film critic of the Christian Science Monitor, and past chair of the National Society of Film Critics. His books include...

Jeanine Basinger is the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, the founder and curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, and the founding chair of the Film Studies Department at Wesleyan University. She is the author of eleven books on film, as...

Apr 19, 2022 — Frank Tashlin directs Jayne Mansfield to her cartoonish limits in this outrageous showbiz satire that is a testament to the power of bad taste.

Mar 4, 1989 — Alec Guinness used his new-found prominence and clout to initiate a long-cherished ambition, to bring Joyce Cary’s most famous novel to the screen.

Feb 24, 2026 — For this existential noir, Joel and Ethan Coen drew inspiration from crime-fiction master James M. Cain’s lean, hard-boiled style and interest in the quotidian world of work.

Aug 27, 2025 — The summer’s been terrific for new movie magazines and filmmaker biographies.

Jul 1, 2025 — Made nearly two decades into Fritz Lang’s Hollywood career, this brutal noir is designed for maximum velocity and impact, eschewing the director’s accustomed flourishes in favor of a stark literalness.