The Call

Feb 19, 2016 — The filmmaker, who began his career as a stage director and designer before shifting his focus to movies, swung by for a chat about his new film and his lifelong affinity for the macabre.

Aug 12, 2015 — Director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter’s brilliant adaptation of John Fowles’s novel focuses on the experiences of women in two radically different eras.

Feb 19, 2013 — Elia Kazan’s masterwork is a vivid, tough look at a time and place, and a transcendent human drama.

Mar 30, 2026 — Suffused with visual beauty and moments of magical realism, Jess X. Snow’s queer diasporic cinema invites us to imagine new possibilities for freedom, transformation, and intergenerational healing.

May 30, 2025 — The director discusses her path from neuroscience to cinema and the childhood memory that inspired her short August Visitor, a film about culture and intergenerational understanding.

Apr 22, 2025 — Adaptations, Hollywood histories, and Satyajit Ray’s cover designs feature in this month’s roundup.

Feb 19, 2025 — Gus Van Sant’s lyrical exploration of addiction and faith—adapted from an autobiographical novel by James Fogle—influenced cinematic drug depictions throughout the nineties and helped to initiate a wave of American independent filmmaking.

Oct 24, 2024 — The director of such classic political docudramas as On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa defied the conventions of nonfiction filmmaking with his innovative approach to collaboration and performance.

May 17, 2024 — We’re reading about Chris Marker and Hiroshi Shimizu and listening to conversations from Cannes.

May 1, 2024 — Films by Horace Ové, Menelik Shabazz, John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, and more depict Black lives in a tumultuous era.