In Black and White

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...

Dec 25, 2008 — Robert Rossellini’s efforts to put history into images would yield some forty-two hours of “didactic” movies, mostly for television.

May 12, 2008 — Today it may be hard to understand the shock waves that Louis Malle’s romantic drama created with its “frank” depiction of a woman’s sexual pleasure, but in the context of late-1950s France, it was a bombshell.

Jan 15, 2007 — Allison Anders, Dean Lent and Kurt Voss’s influential indie paints a compelling picture of the Los Angeles punk-rock scene of the 1980s: what it was like on the inside—and what it was like inside the musicians’ heads.

Jan 5, 2026 — One of France’s biggest stars took the world by storm before her reputation took a turn.

Jan 21, 2025 — Lynchian may be impossible to define, but you know it when you see it.

Aug 25, 2023 — Between 1960 and 1964, Roger Corman directed eight films loosely derived from Edgar Allan Poe and in all but one case starring Vincent Price: House of Usher (1960) was followed by The Pit and the Pendulum (1961); the omnibus feature...

Jun 12, 2019 — Some of the best new independent films of the past year are lined up for the eleventh edition.

Oct 16, 2018 — Seen as a light-hearted farce upon its release, this star-studded comedy by Hal Ashby stands as one of Hollywood’s most prescient portraits of post-Watergate politics.

Aug 6, 2018 — The new half-hour series lives up to the promise of his unclassifiable debut feature.