Born American

Mar 18, 2020 — People talk a lot about the way that Rita Hayworth looked. She was the Hollywood “love goddess,” with a sensational figure, a dazzling smile, and hair that fell in long, auburn waves. The pinup so iconic that her posters were...

Feb 12, 2007 — The trailblazing career of the extraordinary singer, actor, and activist was pivotal to the emergence of a black film aesthetic and, by extension, an African-American cultural identity.

Aug 18, 2011 — Stanley Kubrick’s labyrinthine 1956 heist flick The Killing—an exploded rethink of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and eventual template for the narrative convolutions of Reservoir Dog—became an instant facet in the jewel that was film noir, even as it refracted...

Nov 28, 2014 — It Happened One Night is part of a long tradition of American comedies on the move.

Nov 2, 2021 — Wendell B. Harris Jr. is an American independent filmmaker trained in drama at Interlochen and Juilliard. His family founded Prismatic Images, a multi-award-winning film/video/audio production facility in Flint, Michigan, in 1979.Harris spent three years crisscrossing the United States in order...

Aug 19, 2016 — Born and raised in Los Angeles, Andrew Ahn is a Korean-American filmmaker whose debut feature, Spa Night, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and won the US Grand Jury Prize at Outfest. The film’s lead actor, Joe Seo, won...

Aug 28, 1995 — Three Cases of Murder is of most interest to American audiences for Orson Welles’s flamboyant and bravura performance as Lord Mountdrago. However, it’s equally important as a showcase for Wendy Toye, one of Britain’s first female directors, and star Alan...

Acclaimed for a delicate portrait of queer Black adolescence and an ambitious epic set in the era of Jim Crow, the Nashville-born writer and director has distinguished herself as a major new force in contemporary American cinema.

Rebecca Bengal is a writer born in western North Carolina and the author of the collection Strange Hours. Her stories, essays, and interviews have been published by the Paris Review, Aperture, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and Oxford American.

Dec 17, 2025 — Amid the disorientation of the COVID-19 era, this rousing film cut through with a life-affirming reminder that community and connection are still possible.