Murder Without Crime

Feb 14, 2023 — This month’s roundup opens with an appreciation of Preston Sturges and wraps with a book launch serving donuts and damn fine coffee.

Dec 6, 2022 — Known for their austerity and shocking moments of violence, the Austrian director’s first three films cultivate a kind of humanism in their dogged refusal to coddle the viewer.

May 31, 2022 — The jury gave awards to nearly half the competition, but some critical favorites missed out.

Mar 1, 2022 — The first film I saw at last year’s Morelia International Film Festival opens on the image of a freshly dug grave. Shovelfuls of earth fall into the open pit as two doctors stand above it, lamenting the loss of yet...

Feb 22, 2022 — The fourth feature by the Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui devastatingly lays bare the conditions that spurred hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to flee after the fall of Saigon.

Jan 1, 2022 — Ring in the new year with the French New Wave, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and a look back at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.

Oct 20, 2021 — The range this month stretches from the silent era to this weekend’s launch of The Liberated Film Club.

Oct 5, 2021 — Kaneto Shindo’s visceral erotic-horror film centers on a dangerous duo of women fighting to survive while men are away at war.

Jul 19, 2021 — When Dennis Lehane joked in 2011 that the only real difference between Greek tragedy and noir was that in the former characters fall from great heights and in the latter they drop from the curb, he was pinpointing something simultaneously...

Jun 28, 2021 — Next month brings a twenty-seven-film spotlight on the neonoir thrillers of the post-studio-system era, a survey of art-house animation from around the world, and more.