The Word

Oct 30, 2020 — In his tension-filled, black-comic Oscar winner, Bong Joon Ho masterfully mixes tones and subverts genres in order to shine a harsh light on the mechanisms that maintain class inequality.

Apr 18, 2018 — Sofia Coppola lets us behind closed doors in ways that are beyond the imagining of the novel’s boy narrators.

Mar 17, 2008 — In its portrayal of the long international arm of crime families, Alberto Lattuada’s ingenious comedy offers a prescient look at globalization.

Aug 25, 1998 — Abeautiful woman is mysteriously beating the bejesus out of a drunk when he suddenly pulls at her hair and it comes off. The now totally bald woman continues smacking him around with her shoe until he falls to the ground....

Apr 22, 2025 — This year’s edition spotlights work by Dea Kulumbegashvili, Alex Ross Perry, Eva Victor, and Ryan White.

Jul 29, 2024 — Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on the Bard were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines the ambiguously queer tensions in the history play Henry IV.

Jul 10, 2023 — Writer-archivist-filmmaker Jenni Olson and critic Caden Mark Gardner discuss Masc, a collection of films on the Criterion Channel that explores the many forms of masculinity beyond the realm of cisgender men.

Aug 26, 2022 — Louise Brooks, Marguerite Duras, Lucrecia Martel, and Jacquelyn Mills headline this week’s roundup.

May 13, 2022 — It wasn’t always smooth going for Max Ophuls, Mike Hodges, or Irrfan Khan.

Oct 22, 2021 — Sexuality—how one defines it, lives with it, hides it, shuns it, or wields it—is inextricable from matters of socioeconomic class, though rare is the American film that centralizes this intersectional reality. Americans have long been encouraged to buy into the...