The Idea of You

Nov 26, 2018 — The legendary filmmaker possessed the greatest speaking voice in American cinema, and The Magnificent Ambersons represents the summit of his work as a vocal actor.

Nov 14, 2025 — This week: Buñuel revivals, the Rock Hudson centenary, and Mishima’s Japanese premiere.

Mar 21, 2025 — Along with conversations with David Cronenberg, Alain Guiraudie, and Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, the week offers a dossier on “the cinema of the senses.”

Nov 5, 2021 — This week heads in all directions—noir, musicals, and the avant-garde.

Jun 12, 2020 — We’ve got a disparate set of highlights this week: Arthur Jafa, Josephine Decker, Bill Duke, Tsai Ming-liang, and the late Lynn Shelton.

Feb 21, 2020 — Reflections from Bong Joon-ho’s interpreter and a report from the set of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria open this week’s wide-ranging round.

Aug 13, 2019 — Something uncanny is brewing in George Sikharulidze’s Fatherland. This darkly comedic film transports us to a spring evening in Joseph Stalin’s birthplace—Gori, Georgia—where the townspeople have gathered on the sixty-third anniversary of their long-departed leader’s death. What follows is part...

Dec 29, 2018 — Polls and ballots, lists and considered reflections give shape to the year that was.

Jul 16, 2013 — Theater legend Peter Brook’s approach to bringing the classic fable about human savagery to the screen was radical in its straightforwardness.

Apr 2, 2009 — Writing the screenplay with Suzanne Schiffman, I intended to do for the theater what I had done for the cinema in Day for Night: the chronicle of a troupe at work, within a framework respecting the unities of place, time,...