The Master

Dec 12, 2016 — Patriotic masterminds choreograph capers from secret headquarters while dashing secret agents execute their plans by the light of flashing blades and gunfire. Jeopardy escalates second to second until our heroes and heroines escape by the skin of their teeth. Spy...

Mar 24, 2016 — With Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day finally available in the U.S., screenwriter Hung Hung talks about his working relationship with Yang, the film’s truncated distribution and slow path to acclaim, and the real-life roots of its narrative.

Nov 5, 2015 — Julien Duvivier’s early sound films offer emotionally rich explorations of life in prewar France.

Oct 9, 2015 — Guy Maddin and his filmmaking partner Evan Johnson dropped by the Criterion kitchen to talk about their new film, The Forbidden Room.

Sep 2, 2014 — The following is excerpted from the book-length study Terence Davies, out September 8. See the bottom of the post for a clip of the scene it describes. Excerpt copyright 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois...

May 13, 2013 — Delmer Daves’s visually majestic, emotionally charged western finds its drama in the decency of its characters.

Dec 5, 2012 — In René Clément’s sparkling but menacing anti-noir, the Mediterranean setting is as seductive as Alain Delon’s baby blues.

Aug 15, 2011 — Celebrated as Stanley Kubrick’s first mature film and made when he was only twenty-eight years old, The Killing (1956) is remarkable for boldly announcing so many of the stylistic and thematic preoccupations that would become important constants of his cinema....

This most unpredictable of filmmakers enriched cinema over a nearly forty-year career that took him from the peripheries of the French New Wave to the vanguard of American moviemaking.

Oct 12, 2010 — Ingmar Bergman’s Ansiktet (1958)—the title literally translates as The Face, though in North America it was released as The Magician—is arguably one of his most underrated achievements. Its undeservedly lowly standing may perhaps be attributed to its chronological position in...