The First Time

May 31, 2017 — Director Terry Zwigoff shares his own musical taste in this article about how he went about selecting songs to underscore the deadpan tone of his cult comedy Ghost World.

May 17, 2016 — Before the release of his new film Sunset Song, the beloved filmmaker stopped by the Criterion kitchen for lunch and became especially animated when our discussion drifted toward two of his great loves: the plays of Anton Chekhov and musicals...

May 5, 2014 — Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole almost requires an honorary expansion of the term film noir. There are no private eyes in seedy offices or femmes fatales lurking in the shadows of neon-lit doorways, no forces of evil arrayed against...

Aug 9, 2011 — Gillo Pontecorvo’s incendiary epic commemorates the popular uprising that had succeeded in ousting the French from Algeria in July 1962.

Jul 21, 2008 — A dreamy alternative to the standard notion of horror, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s phantasmal film reimagined the figure of the vampire.

Dec 9, 1985 — Movie thrillers may come and go, but after half a century, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps still reigns supreme. And not only for the sheer, breathless excitement of the story; the seamless construction; the chilling, beautifully realized atmosphere; and the...

Apr 22, 2026 — Boots Riley and Olivia Wilde both have two films at this year’s edition of New England’s largest film festival.

Apr 20, 2026 — For half a century, she was, as Emmanuel Macron put it, “a constant presence in French cinema.”

Apr 3, 2026 — This week: Mani Haghighi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sophy Romvari and Martha Coolidge, and Ken and Flo Jacobs.

Jan 22, 2026 — Ryan Coogler’s genre mashup now leads what has become a genuine race.