The Family Friend

Oct 9, 2020 — In the summer of 2020, I spoke with Philippe Garnier about his book Scoundrels & Spitballers: Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s, available for the first time in English from Eddie Muller’s Black Pool Productions. The book introduces a rogues’...

Sep 23, 2020 — First Person 1.In the past years I’ve often walked or bicycled alone to the small multiplex in my town, on weeknights. I like sitting by myself in movie theaters—I specify “by myself” to indicate my preference for going unaccompanied, as...

Aug 25, 2020 — Set among immigrants and laborers in an unglamorous corner of the South of France, Toni (1935) fulfills Jean Renoir’s wish to make a film in “a style as close as possible to that of daily encounters,” as he wrote in...

Feb 28, 2020 — Flashbacks Had Jörn Donner been born anywhere other than Finland, he would have been world-famous. As it was, he dominated the Finnish cultural scene for several decades. Prolific writer, film critic, director, and producer, as well as a politician and...

Mar 23, 2016 — We had come to expect Chantal Akerman’s periodic gifts of small and large cinematic gems. Certain of this flow, we were devastated when, all too abruptly, we were forced to think of her latest film, so beautiful, as her last.

Mar 18, 2013 — Using a 1958 murder spree as a narrative springboard, Terrence Malick fashioned a fractured fairy tale about American innocence lost.

Apr 17, 2024 — Three of this month’s programs blast back to the turbulent midcentury moment when old Hollywood gave way to something new.

Sep 7, 2022 — The first reviews are in for new films by Martin McDonagh, Joanna Hogg, Emanuele Crialese, and Koji Fukada.

Mar 5, 2021 — Here’s an overview of what critics have been saying about this year’s winners of the Berlinale’s top awards.

Dec 8, 2020 — Frederick Wiseman’s documentary ranks high in the latest round of lists of the best films and television of 2020.