The War Room

May 19, 2026 — Elevator doors open onto a warehouse floor bathed in red light, high above downtown Manhattan in early May 2024. Exposed concrete and visible ductwork frame a room where artists in green aprons, cosplaying as waiters, circulate among guests in suits...

May 19, 2026 — “My history’s burning up out here,” Ned Racine (William Hurt) tells his lover in the opening minutes of Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut, Body Heat (1981). Ned, a small-time attorney and local roué in his South Florida beach town, recognizes the...

Mar 31, 2026 — Claude Lelouch’s Palme d’Or–winning breakout hit combines elements of a classic Hollywood love story with dynamic photography, an edgy editing style, and a naturalistic sense of character and location.

Oct 28, 2025 — An adaptation of a classic pulp novel by William Lindsay Gresham, Guillermo del Toro’s first foray into film noir is an intensely evocative exploration of how human impulses can give rise to monsters.

Sep 10, 2024 — Andrew Haigh explores loss and queer loneliness in this exquisite, twilit tangle of lives and loves separated by space, time, and personal defenses.

Nov 10, 2020 — In the half-light of the opening shot of Girlfriends, a woman asks, “What are you doing?” and another responds, “Go back to sleep.” You could dismiss this as a bit of passing dialogue—or you could see in it a larger...

Oct 13, 2020 — I know I need somethingOr someone. From “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day” (1978), by Nikki Giovanni While the screen is still dark, Gladys Knight’s voice drifts in, in a strong, sincere belt: “How can I / Work out this...

Aug 17, 2020 — Deep Dives Baseball’s back in America—as of this writing, anyway—though for much of spring and early summer the Major League season hung in the balance as negotiations between the owners and the players’ union approached a peak of acrimony. Being...

Apr 14, 2020 — Whether or not you believe it is the greatest year of all for the Hollywood studio system, the wonder of 1939 is the sheer depth of its bench. On a ten-movie best-picture ballot, the Oscars found no room to nominate...

Sep 2, 2019 — Dark Passages Thieves’ Highway A hay cart trundles through a sunny field above Fresno, California, in the opening shot of Thieves’ Highway. This is not an image you expect to see in film noir, which most often breeds in cities, alienated from the...