A Better Life

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...

Nov 4, 2015 — In the midst of a tumultuous period in his life and career, Ingmar Bergman made one of his most ebullient comedies.

May 28, 2013 — Mike Leigh’s breakthrough is a funny film about serious things, and an emotional and slyly political take on consumer culture.

Mar 13, 2025 — While a film’s stars are forced to bear the responsibility of moving a narrative forward, supporting actors get to have fun providing comic relief or suggesting whole lives being lived beyond the screen.

May 29, 2024 — This Oscar-winning courtroom drama revolves around one of director Justine Triet’s most complex creations—a high-achieving female protagonist whose motivations remain tenaciously mysterious.

Feb 20, 2024 — I have, over time, become wary of and impatient with the word authentic, especially when it’s too casually and blithely deployed, as it often is these days, to defame or diminish someone or something based on arbitrary standards of what...

Jul 25, 2023 — In his five collaborations with actor Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown, Boetticher presents an unsentimental vision of honor-bound men competing and banding together in a desolate landscape ruled by chance.

Jan 27, 2023 — This week brings a new issue of Seen, featuring Cauleen Smith; a conversation with Jia Zhangke; and a deep dive into Twin Peaks: The Return.

Sep 4, 2019 — With their novelistic density and sexual openness, the films of French master André Téchiné introduced director Stephen Cone to a strange new world of contradictions.

Aug 6, 2019 — The groundbreaking filmmaker had a hand in inventing—and then reinventing over and again—the modern documentary.