The Last Laugh

Jul 28, 2026 — Seven dynamite nights with Keaton, Chaplin, Lubitsch, Ford, Murnau, Griffith, and Raoul Walsh.

Oct 17, 2023 — I. “Morbid Cinema” On October 10, 1962, there appeared a brief paragraph from the Associated Press: “Tod Browning, eighty-two, who directed scores of movies between 1917 and 1939, is dead. He succumbed Saturday after an illness, and no funeral plans...

Feb 14, 2023 — This month’s roundup opens with an appreciation of Preston Sturges and wraps with a book launch serving donuts and damn fine coffee.

Feb 3, 2023 — This week: Jean-Luc Godard, Sara Driver, Kira Muratova, Joyce Chopra, and a new Senses of Cinema.

Jan 26, 2023 — This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.

Jan 13, 2023 — This week’s eclectic round touches on experimental milestones, restorations, Mexican cinema, a Japanese series, and movies about movies.

Nov 17, 2020 — Along with Dead Man (1995), his previous narrative feature, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai marks a quantum leap in the Jim Jarmusch universe—a discovery of history (both antiquity and tradition) that carries with it a sense of gravity and even tragedy...

Oct 9, 2018 — In a world vulnerable to authoritarianism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s television epic stands as an example of how an artist can speak to a broad audience about revolutionary politics.

Nov 16, 2017 — “Hong Sang-soo has a reputation for being a tricky interview, and he knows it,” writes Darren Hughes in the Notebook. But if anyone can get Hong talking, it’s Hughes. Take a look at this page. Gathered here are some of...

Aug 22, 2017 — BBC Culture has polled 253 film critics from fifty-two countries to come up with a list of the “100 greatest comedies of all time.” Nicholas Barber argues the case for the film that’s come out on top, Billy Wilder’s Some...