In Public

Dec 12, 1988 — Singin’ in the Rain is, in the opinion of most contemporary film critics, one of the great movies of the sound era. The mere mention of its title brings a smile to the face of every movie lover, regardless of...

Aug 25, 2026 — James Gray’s extraordinary debut feature is a painstakingly distilled tale of crime and family dysfunction, captured with a merciless gaze and a sharp attention to idiosyncratic detail.

May 19, 2026 — New films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and James Gray are riding high on the Cannes critics’ grids.

Apr 24, 2026 — Great writing this week on Maurice Pialat, Paul Newman, Johnnie To, Mark Fisher, and wrestlers.

Dec 22, 2025 — The critic and curator talks about working on a program of films by trailblazing Black women directors, which opened at London’s BFI Southbank this year and is now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Jul 3, 2025 — The week wraps with Peter Wollen on Performance, a top ten from Radu Jude, and a conversation with Dag Johan Haugerud.

Jul 2, 2025 — Pavements and Videoheaven take us back thirty-odd years, but neither film is merely a nostalgia trip.

Feb 23, 2024 — Revivals of work by Raoul Peck and Jean-Pierre Bekolo and conversations with James Gray and Jodie Foster are among this week’s highlights.

Aug 1, 2023 — “Do you want me to turn them loose?” This is what cowboy Perce asks a sad-eyed Roslyn in John Huston’s elegiac The Misfits (1961), and that one question about untying the mustangs he and fellow wranglers Gay (Clark Gable) and...

Dec 2, 2022 — We’re sorting through the Sight and Sound poll and reading about Paweł Łoziński, the Sankofa Collective, and the first films ever made.