The Sign of Four

Feb 28, 2011 — In 1969, director Alexander Macken­drick retired from the film industry and became founding dean of the film school at the newly established California Institute of the Arts. Passionately interested in the pedagogy of cinema (“Film writing and directing cannot be...

Mar 10, 2009 — Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments of the World War...

Mar 27, 2012 — The mysterious letter was signed “Joe.” David Lean’s lawyer had sent me a batch of old correspondence. Struggling with a biography of Lean, I was desperate for any leads, and this one seemed worth following up. But how does one...

Oct 1, 2018 — Three documentaries at the NYFF explore routes to our current moment.

Jan 6, 2009 — Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film is not just an epic but also a small film, one in which, somehow or other, the scope of David Lean has been enriched with the vision of Ozu.

Apr 24, 2006 — This influential crime thriller, designed purely as a genre exercise, is the first in the long series of anomalies that was Louis Malle’s career.

May 27, 2025 — The triumphant return of Jafar Panahi capped off what many consider to be a terrific year at Cannes.

Nov 7, 2023 — By the end of the 1970s, everything had changed for Jackie Chan. He had cowritten, directed, and starred in The Fearless Hyena, which became the top-grossing Hong Kong film of 1979. His next project, The Young Master, would top that...

Mar 28, 2017 — In his first English-language feature, Michelangelo Antonioni examines the elusiveness of the real through the lens of a murder mystery.

Mar 13, 2020 — Maybe in tough times we can draw strength from our passion for great cinema.