They Had to See Paris

Apr 27, 2016 — In Phoenix, Christian Petzold sets his nuanced melodrama of postwar German-Jewish identity within a starkly realist aesthetic, making newly fascinating use of his enduring interest in the tensions between the real and the artificial.

Jun 23, 2014 — Peter Davis’s provocative, Oscar-winning Hearts and Minds, released to the American public in 1974, is that rare documentary whose truths and relevance have been underlined and amplified by the passage of time. The title is derived from President Lyndon B....

May 24, 2011 — In 1938, Charles Chaplin deposited with the Library of Congress a script for a film to be called The Dictator, and told the press it was a project in which he would play a double role. He clearly had Hitler...

Jun 11, 2007 — Claude Berri’s witty comedy-drama depicts Nazi sympathizers with three-dimensional candor, neither whitewashing nor apologizing for their misguided ideas.

Sep 17, 2001 — George Sluizer’s nightmarish film is a study in everyday madness, rooted in the specifics of the Dutch and French landscapes and character.

Jul 19, 2024 — We’re looking back to films by Pakula and Oshima, and from the 1990s, by Claire Denis and Richard Shepard.

Apr 27, 2009 — Stephen Frears’s gangland drama subverts its genre by removing its villains to an alternate mythic universe, that of the western, as its protagonists traverse the roads that snake through Spain’s arid hills and plains.

Jun 2, 2025 — More than a hundred films likely to make you feel bad in all the best ways will screen in eight cities this month.

Apr 26, 2024 — This week offers reflections on the work of Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Béla Tarr, Satyajit Ray, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Joan Chen.

Dec 14, 2018 — In this week’s round: Tarkovsky and Eisenstein, Godard and Varda, and one of the most consequential television programs of all time.