The Myth

With its unbridled frontier violence, themes of civilization versus savagery, and iconographic cowboy figure, the western is the most beloved and recognizable of American cinematic genres.

Jun 5, 2013 — Remembering special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, who is being celebrated at the Aero Theatre in L.A. this month.

Nov 25, 2010 — Five Easy Pieces is not a statement about America but a closely observed report. Or, perhaps, a confession.

Aug 29, 2023 — Exalting Black women’s self-invention with DIY effervescence, Drylongso (1998) is a gorgeously generous study of friendship, creativity, violence, and survival. The multidisciplinary artist Cauleen Smith developed the idea for the project from her habit of taking Polaroid photographs. Shot on...

Mar 9, 2021 — “Oral tradition is a tradition of images. What is said is stronger than what is written; the word addresses itself to the imagination, not the ear. Imagination creates the image and the image creates cinema, so we are in direct...

Mar 17, 2020 — Released in, or rather let loose upon, the first year of the new millennium, Spike Lee’s febrile and ferocious media satire Bamboozled—the fifteenth feature-length “joint” of a prolific career—found its writer-director in an unflinching mode and an unforgiving mood. According...

Oct 15, 2015 — Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are cast against type—and funnyman director Ettore Scola gets serious—in this humane drama set in Fascist Italy.

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

Sep 17, 2007 — Today we are used to seeing dance artistically presented on television and in movies—these films about Martha Graham helped to make that happen.

Apr 9, 2026 — Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art introduce New Yorkers to some of the most exciting new voices in cinema.