The Test

Nov 19, 1989 — Almost as long as they’ve been able to talk, films have been able to sing and dance. Frequently high-style, often rapturously romantic, most musicals have nonetheless been content to remain light, sophisticated entertainment. Still, there has always been a minority...

Apr 21, 2009 — Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows being selected to represent France at...

Sep 28, 2016 — “King of the Nudies” Russ Meyer injects his transgressive exuberance into this big-studio send-up of Hollywood debauchery.

Sep 26, 1993 — Kon Ichikawa’s magisterial achievement is a barbed, poignant, and seductive elegy that draws on the skills he acquired over his four-decade career.

Jul 21, 2023 — Names in the news this week: Agnès Varda, Hayao Miyazaki, Jafar Panahi, Savanah Leaf—and Bree Daniels.

Apr 24, 2020 — Paul Schrader and Petra Costa are among the filmmakers determined to make the most of what they’ve got during lockdown.

Mar 12, 2020 — Canceled festivals and closed movie theaters: The impact has been tough, and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (Contagion) discusses what we should be doing next.

Sep 25, 2019 — Here’s an overview of how fifteen films in the NYFF’s Main Slate have been faring since premiering in Cannes.

May 12, 2008 — Today it may be hard to understand the shock waves that Louis Malle’s romantic drama created with its “frank” depiction of a woman’s sexual pleasure, but in the context of late-1950s France, it was a bombshell.

Aug 14, 2026 — Fine writing on Powell and Pressburger, James Gray, Catherine Breillat, and Richard Linklater—plus: Isabelle Huppert on Claude Chabrol.