To Be or Not to Be

Jun 27, 1995 — Orson Welles’s Shakespeare adaptation was his first first fully independent feature, made without the resources of Hollywood.

Oct 25, 1994 — Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary, made for less than $3000 over 5 days of principal photography, manages to be twenty years ahead of its time and perfectly of its time. Spiritual forebear to the contemporary low-budget American independent film movement...

Jun 21, 1994 — From the opening credits of Spike Lee’s seminal film, She’s Gotta Have It, viewers in 1986 were able to recognize the presence of an extraordinary talent. For it was Lee, a graduate of the New York University’s Tisch School of...

Jul 26, 1993 — But for the recalcitrance of RKO, Evergreen could have been the finest of Fred Astaire’s movies. Instead, it was never an Astaire film, but “merely” the best musical ever made in England, and the finest film of the legendary Jessie...

Jun 7, 1993 — For as long as images have flickered on a screen, romance has been the ever-beating heart of the filmgoing experience, and audiences never seem to tire of seeing lovers in each other’s arms. Yet when it comes to the most...

Dec 22, 1992 — With a script by Graham Greene, Carol Reed’s thriller plays upon the classic themes of trust, innocence, betrayal, and truth through the lens of a precocious eight-year-old.

Sep 30, 1992 — The unprecedented popularity of this gender-bending sex farce inspired two sequels, a hit Broadway musical, and at least one transvestite nightclub.

Mar 30, 1992 — John Schlesinger’s controversial masterpiece made moviegoers squirm with its bold, bleak portrayal of unrequited love, gay and otherwise, and it remains as jolting and thought-provoking as ever.

Oct 21, 1991 — Written under the German occupation of France, and produced with the sanction of occupation censors, Marcel Carné’s masterpiece began shooting on August 17, 1943, at the Victorine Studios in Nice.

Jun 3, 1991 — Jean Marais on the set of Beauty and the Beast An excerpt from Cocteau: A Biography (1970) by Francis Steegmuller Beauty and the Beast, the first film of Cocteau’s own since The Blood of a Poet, and his finest poem since...