Intimate Strangers

Apr 14, 2015 — Before he turned Vienna into a labyrinth of shadows with The Third Man, Carol Reed brought film noir to Belfast for this stylishly fatalistic tale of a man caught up in political violence.

Jan 20, 2015 — Here he is: the real, unreal Guy Maddin, in his phantasmagorical, polymathic stew of sex, memory, and dreams.

Sep 24, 2013 — Marketed as a movie of volcanic passion, Roberto Rossellini’s first film with Ingrid Bergman is rather a pragmatic take on the negotiations of matrimony.

Jan 16, 2013 — Both sparkling and suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock’s benchmark thriller is the perfect getaway, and it set the scene for much of the master’s later work.

Feb 2, 2011 — This essay first appeared in the winter 2010 issue of Brick, a literary journal based in Toronto. It is posted here by permission of the author. Michelangelo said he could sense the figure in the uncut stone; his job was...

Oct 22, 2007 — Through the alcohol-induced convulsive movements of Firmin, a fallen diplomat, John Huston puts what is perhaps his own fear of decline, of departure without making peace with one’s loved ones, on the screen.

Jun 26, 2000 — Kevin Smith writes about his third feature as a sort of penance/valentine for the woman who made him grow up.

Apr 29, 2022 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, we’re celebrating the career of one of our favorite contemporary American filmmakers—the independent, inquisitive, and ever-eclectic Richard Linklater—with a retrospective of beloved hits and lesser-known gems selected by the director himself. Take...

Jan 18, 2022 — MoMA’s festival of film preservation presents Beat poets, crown jewels, a lonely Hungarian, and a Senegalese bad boy.

Jun 14, 2022 — Ekwa Msangi’s intimate feature debut pushes the conventions of the immigrant family drama.