They Had to See Paris

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

Nov 21, 2005 — Why would ambitious filmmakers simply film an opera? Many admirers of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have assumed that their decision to make The Tales of Hoffmann, in 1950, was in some way an admission by the...

Sep 29, 2003 — Fassbinder had long dreamed of a “German Hollywood film.” He sought not only success with the audience, but also professionalism. The auteur film in its purest form is an attempt to abolish the division of labor: the filmmaker represents in...

Apr 15, 2002 — Jean-Pierre Melville’s first-class crime picture may be the most elegantly rigorous movie ever made about a cockeyed heist.

Feb 14, 2002 — Robert Bresson’s second feature is fixed in history as one of the movies that heralded an austere, modernistic way of seeing and feeling.

Jan 7, 1997 — Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. He had so far turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture (Le Petit soldat), and a sort-of-musical comedy (Une femme est une femme). Now...

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.

Jul 10, 2026 — We’re celebrating the Harry Dean Stanton centennial, listening to Ross McElwee and Tsai Ming-liang, and revisiting the work of Bruce Conner.

Jul 25, 2025 — Kenneth Lonergan and Terry Gilliam check their to-do lists and Vincent Price meets Greta Garbo.

Apr 17, 2020 — Tsai Ming-liang, Charlie Chaplin, Wim Wenders, and Albert Serra are just some of the names in the news this week.