Out of the Blue

Apr 24, 2006 — This influential crime thriller, designed purely as a genre exercise, is the first in the long series of anomalies that was Louis Malle’s career.

Nov 7, 2025 — Ira Sachs’s new film opens this week, plus: Joy Williams on Gene Hackman and Claire Atherton’s work with Chantal Akerman.

Jun 30, 2025 — An up-and-coming director reflects on the resourcefulness and scrappy ingenuity that went into making his three films, now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Jan 8, 2025 — We’re looking forward to new work from Richard Linklater, Bong Joon Ho, Kelly Reichardt, Christian Petzold, Chloé Zhao, Sebastián Lelio, and many other filmmakers.

Jul 16, 2024 — In one of the most patient films he has ever made, Wim Wenders captures how everyday existence drifts into our dream lives.

May 30, 2023 — Seamlessly blending an array of cinematic traditions, Thelma & Louise is more than anything a western—one that takes advantage of the genre’s elasticity and reflects its preoccupation with justice, liberty, and self-determination.

Apr 13, 2023 — Combining elements of soft-core porn and film noir, one of the most popular Hollywood genres of the 1980s and ’90s captured the fraught aspirationalism and sexual mores of the era.

Feb 14, 2023 — This month’s roundup opens with an appreciation of Preston Sturges and wraps with a book launch serving donuts and damn fine coffee.

Apr 20, 2021 — 1. “I Felt Nothing” In September 2019, about halfway between claiming the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May and earning multiple Oscar nominations in January 2020, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite was briefly upstaged by a movie from the director’s past....

Aug 18, 2020 — A sensuous exploration of amorous discontent and dreadful miscalculation, The Comfort of Strangers (1990) could be described as an erotic thriller, though it rarely is: its eroticism is too perverse, its pedigree too highbrow. Directed by Paul Schrader and based...