On the Beat

Apr 1, 2023 — This week: Heart-stopping stunts from Harold Lloyd and Michelle Yeoh plus writing on Dziga Vertov and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.

Mar 16, 2026 — Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another wins six, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners wins four.

Sep 18, 2019 — One Scene The way some rock fans talk about the sanctity of live music, you’d think it was a guaranteed path to transcendence. But of course most concerts fall far short of the sublime, and the thrill of breathing in...

Aug 11, 2023 — Back in the early 1980s, people were still trying to figure hip-hop out.Now in its fiftieth year, this cultural movement built by DJs, rappers, break dancers, and graffiti writers began in New York, spreading from the South Bronx to the...

Dec 12, 2018 — As the commanding presence at the center of Samuel Fuller’s wild feminist western Forty Guns, the great Barbara Stanwyck taps into the tough, no-nonsense bearing she’d honed on-screen since the late twenties, playing the part of a corrupt rancher who...

Jun 26, 2025 — One of the defining independent films of its era, François Girard’s provocatively splintered portrait of the great pianist finds playful ways of toying with the cultural mythologization of its subject.

May 4, 2018 — What do we mean when we say a narrative film is poetic? The answer lies in this visionary western from director Jim Jarmusch.

Apr 25, 2017 — When it comes to capturing the sensory pleasures of food on film, it’s hard to beat Juzo Itami’s mouthwatering 1985 “ramen western” Tampopo. A mix of wicked humor and surreal eroticism, this culinary odyssey follows a widowed noodle-shop owner and...

Jun 25, 2014 — You can hear from John, Paul, George, and Ringo themselves in In Their Own Voices, a piece on Criterion’s new special edition of A Hard Day’s Night consisting of audio recordings of the Beatles talking about the movie during their...