The Watch

May 10, 2019 — This week has seen surveys of the careers of Abbas Kiarostami and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière and deep dives into milestone works by George Cukor and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Jan 18, 2019 — Award-winning cinematographer John Bailey discusses the complications that Alfred Hitchcock faced trying to execute one of the most ambitious shots in his filmography.

Dec 6, 2018 — Adam McKay’s Vice leads the Golden Globe nominations as critics write up their lists of the best of 2018.

Oct 15, 2018 — Film historian Ronald Haver breaks down one of classic Hollywood’s most iconic action sequences in this clip from our laserdisc release of King Kong.

Jul 12, 2018 — The director of Bull Durham explains the ins and outs of bringing baseball to the screen and why Kevin Costner is the finest athletic actor he’s worked with.

Jan 9, 2018 — The legendary French director Robert Bresson rattles off a string of his artistic axioms in this excerpt from his episode in Cinéastes de notre temps.

Oct 10, 2017 — Two singing mermaid sisters take 1980s Poland by storm in this extravagantly mounted musical-horror hybrid.

Jun 20, 2017 — “Bertrand Tavernier joins a growing list of filmmakers who've made what amounts to an epic video essay with My Journey Through French Cinema, a three-hour-plus leap into notable French filmmaking from roughly 1930 to 1980,” writes Clayton Dillard at Slant....

Oct 13, 2016 — Jean Renoir’s captivating coming-of-age tale The River, playing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, centers on the relationship between three teenage girls growing up in Bengal, India.

Oct 6, 2016 — As part of a celebration of Kirk Douglas’s centennial, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cinematheque is screening Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder’s biting 1951 exposé of the American media.