The Circle

These stories of discovery and disillusionment capture lives transformed by the open road.

Oct 26, 2022 — Deep Dives Every elliptical pleasure of Michael Laughlin’s Strange Behavior (a.k.a. Dead Kids, 1981)—the flattened post–Twilight Zone affect, the tableaux evoking Technicolor footage faded like old Polaroids, a host of cross-pollinated genre kinks—suggests outmoded code that’s been surreptitiously updated. Embracing...

Jun 12, 2019 — One Scene One of the most talked-about movies at this year’s Sundance, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is both a rhapsodic portrait of first-time director Joe Talbot’s native city and a mournful look at how gentrification, income inequality,...

Apr 10, 2013 — Teinosuke Kinugasa’s landmark color film is a visual feast that has finally been vibrantly restored.

Vinson Cunningham is a staff writer and critic for the New Yorker. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2024 and 2025. His 2024 debut novel, Great Expectations, was a finalist for the National Book Critics...

Dec 29, 2020 — Alongside the traditional top tens, critics are offering imaginative pairings and lists of the best audiovisual essays and title sequences of the year.

Jun 26, 2019 — Boasting the longest, most versatile career of any Czechoslovak New Waver, the late master made films mixed with deep compassion and an antiauthoritarian spirit.

Apr 7, 2023 — Along with the new Cinema Scope, we’re reading Raúl Ruiz’s diaries and conversations with Agnès Godard and Gregg Araki.

Nov 29, 2021 — The composer and lyricist who reinvented the American musical was “more of a film buff than a theater buff.”

Jun 10, 2019 — The new issue focuses on the impact of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, women’s film criticism, and Hollywood’s international productions.