Presence

Jul 19, 2018 — Deep Dives A tough, dirty gangster picture that delivers the requisite payload of violence and bastardly behavior, Giuliano Montaldo’s Gli intoccabili (released in the U.S. as Machine Gun McCain) is also a landmark in the story of John Cassavetes and his ragtag repertory...

Jul 12, 2018 — The French director’s English-language debut and first science fiction film is one of the first seven films selected to compete in San Sebastián.

Jun 21, 2018 — The American philosopher was an early proponent of cinema as a subject worthy of serious study.

Jun 17, 2018 — The stakes are high. An unknown entertainer newly arrived in a foreign country prepares for her first performance, under pressure to make a hit with a restless, rowdy audience. It is a hot night; the crowd exudes a collective humidity,...

Jun 11, 2018 — Building on a rich lineage of gothic fairy tales and noirish melodramas, this lavishly stylized curio has an ominous beauty all its own.

May 23, 2018 — About halfway through Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation (2016), Dr. Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni) finds himself in a patch of woods in the middle of the night, crying. It’s a surprisingly vulnerable moment for a protagonist who is usually all business. We’re...

May 14, 2018 — In the singular world of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, auteurist homage and social consciousness are joined by some of the most lovingly filmed dogs in contemporary cinema.

May 3, 2018 — Depth, beauty, curiosity—what gave luminous French star Danielle Darrieux staying power across eight decades? Critic Farran Smith Nehme looks for the answer in two films from opposite ends of her career.

May 3, 2018 — Two of the earliest films to depict the bombing of Hiroshima show how politics shapes national mourning.

Apr 20, 2018 — “Jiri Trnka didn’t craft his puppet-cartoon shorts and features merely to imitate life,” writes Michael Sragow for Film Comment. “His endlessly original and inventive movies incorporate life, or transcend it. Trnka insisted that he was ‘local,’ and drew many of...