This Is Not a Film

Jun 10, 2009 — Kind Hearts and Coronets, that most wicked comedy of ill manners, had established Alec Guinness as an acting force—and coming so soon after he had disappeared into the role of Fagin in David Lean’s Oliver Twist, his dazzling embodiment of...

Sep 29, 2023 — The newly reconstructed and restored seven-hour version of the 1923 melodrama screens on Saturday and again next week in New York.

A delicate hand, effervescent humor, and an economy with words and images define this German director, who became a legendary figure in Hollywood comedy.

May 17, 2016 — For decades, celebrated Italian film composer Ennio Morricone has been lending his musical talents to directors from Pier Paolo Pasolini and Sergio Leone to Terrence Malick and Quentin Tarantino. In the latest installment of the Guardian’s weekly This Much I...

Jul 10, 2015 — Sean Baker is a writer-director and cocreator of the television show Greg the Bunny. His movies include Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012), and Tangerine (2015). He says, “Writing this list was a little like Sophie’s choice for me. And...

Oct 23, 2014 — “I have been collecting Criterion Collection DVDs almost as long as I have owned a DVD player,” writes Alex Ross Perry, the director of Impolex (2009), The Color Wheel (2011), and Listen Up Philip (2014). “These are not my top...

Feb 23, 2012 — Author John Voelker (a.k.a. Robert Traver) met musician Duke Ellington on the set of Anatomy of a Murder; he wrote this piece about the experience for the Detroit News Sunday Magazine in 1967.

Dec 16, 1991 — Lady for a Day represented a watershed in the career of Frank Capra. The young director had been laboring at Columbia Pictures’ Poverty Row Studio, churning out 18 films in less than six years. He had moved from low-budget programmers...

Oct 23, 2025 — For many critics and fans, the only problem with the five-hour series is that it isn’t twice as long.

Oct 31, 2024 — She brought a winning intelligence to suffering characters in such films and Young Frankenstein, Tootsie, and After Hours.