The Red Line

Dec 13, 2011 — Just what is it that makes Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter (1966) so different, so appealing? The cherubic hero in the neat powder blue suit, who looks like he was torn out of a yakuza pop-up book? That hauntingly cornball theme...

Sep 28, 2010 — “The past, again and again.” —Major Jack Celliers, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Nagisa Oshima’s filmmaking career began with the risen sun—or rather, with the promise of a sun soon to rise: Tomorrow’s Sun (1959), a dizzyingly designed faux “coming attraction”...

Aug 18, 2009 — In the late 1970s, during the long years of waiting for international and domestic funding to come together to produce Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa returned to the pastime of his youth—he painted. Working fast and furiously, each day turning out scores...

Jonathan Lethem is the author of thirteen novels, including Chronic City and Brooklyn Crime Novel. His writings and commentaries on film include the monograph They Live; liner notes for releases of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, Thom Andersen’s Red Hollywood, Orson...

Sep 25, 2017 — Highlights from this year’s stellar Toronto International Film Festival lineup echoed a handful of classics from our collection.

Jun 27, 2017 — On what would have been his seventy-sixth birthday, we look back at the incandescent, richly cinematic reveries of one of the most acclaimed Polish filmmakers of his generation.

Jun 18, 2001 — Pent-up, unfulfilled sexuality spills onto the screen in Douglas Sirk’s sumptuous melodrama.

Mar 24, 2026 — In this true-crime epic, Martin Scorsese combines his career-long exploration of amoral gangsterism with a sobering meditation on what it means to live on American soil.

Oct 16, 2024 — This year’s special anniversary edition will open with Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation, The Piano Lesson.

Mar 22, 2024 — This week we’re revisiting two classic video essays and reading about great bio-pics, Med Hondo, and Haitian cinema.