The Swissmakers

Jan 13, 2016 — In Bitter Rice, Giuseppe De Santis focused his lens on the world of Italy’s female rice workers, for a story that’s part social commentary, part pulp melodrama—and introduced the world to a dazzling young actress named Silvana Mangano.

Jan 6, 2016 — Celebrated English playwright, actor, screenwriter, and composer Noël Coward brought us many cinema classics, but his relationship with the medium was far from straightforward, as Coward scholar Barry Day explains in a post at Literary Hub.

Jan 5, 2016 — The late Haskell Wexler wore many hats—he was an independent, impassioned documentarian; a commercial Hollywood cinematographer; a political and social activist; an institutional (even union) contrarian. He was also an exemplar of how to live.

Dec 30, 2015 — Reggie Watts is a multifaceted performer best known for his comedy collaborations and improvisational music sets. After spending several years as the front man for Seattle-based rock group Maktub, Watts began his career as a solo performer in the early...

Dec 8, 2015 — The Sundance Film Festival’s 2016 documentary premieres lineup, announced yesterday, will feature Richard Linklater—dream is destiny, the directorial debut of Louis Black.

Dec 4, 2015 — We were touched by the announcement that the 2015 New York Film Critics Circle awards had chosen to honor our late, beloved cofounder William Becker with a special award for him and Janus Films.

Dec 1, 2015 — Critic Todd McCarthy takes an inside look at Michael Ritchie's outdoor drama, which he calls “spare, cut to the bone, as fine as dry powder. Had Hemingway ever written about competitive skiing, this would have been the right style with...

Nov 30, 2015 — Ana Lily Amirpour is an Iranian-American director, writer, producer, and actor best known for her award-winning debut film, the Persian-language vampire western A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). Her second feature, The Bad Batch, is scheduled for release...

Nov 29, 2015 — Now that Satyajit Ray’s dazzling epic is back out in its original glory, watch a video by :: kogonada that shows how Ray’s breathtaking work was reconstructed from the ashes.

Nov 25, 2015 — Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film about one man’s mortality offers a study in postwar Japan, Kurosawa vs. Ozu, and the realization that knowing how to die requires learning how to be alive.