A Shot in the Dark

Sep 27, 2019 — Charlie Chaplin gave The Circus (1928) one of his favorite themes, some of his most sublime gags, and an incomparably poignant ending. It’s a hugely personal work, which draws on moments from his whole career, from his early stage work...

Aug 23, 2019 — A good number of the pieces that have stood out this week examine the ways that music and cinema have informed each other’s traditions.

Jun 4, 2019 — Before The Dead Don’t Die opens in theaters, two series offer crash courses on a singular oeuvre.

May 20, 2019 — Triple crosses follow double crosses in this slick crime thriller.

Jan 25, 2019 — Retrospectives in New York and Glasgow offer opportunities to catch up with or revisit the work of an outstanding director of comedies.

Nov 23, 2018 — The work of James Agee (1909–1955) remains one of the touchstones of American movie criticism. An extraordinarily versatile writer, he won acclaim as a novelist, a poet, and a screenwriter (his scripts for The African Queen and The Night of the...

Apr 9, 2018 — Ingrid Bergman’s work in her native Sweden was an early showcase for her dazzlingly precocious talent and emotional depth.

Mar 7, 2018 — A Wrinkle in Time, the adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 science fiction classic, “directed by Ava DuVernay from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, has been a long time coming,” writes A. O. Scott in the New York...

Jan 1, 2018 — One of the most intriguing films we can look forward to in the new year is Claire Denis’s English-language debut, High Life. “I’ve always been interested in science, in astrophysics,” Denis told the Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Roxborough in November. “But...

Dec 12, 2017 — “Evil is ascendant,” begins Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. “The Resistance—an intrepid, multi-everything group whose leaders include a battle-tested woman warrior—has been fighting the good fight for years but is outnumbered and occasionally outmaneuvered. Yes, the latest Star...