The Getting of Wisdom

Apr 12, 2016 — Howard Hawks’s 1939 aviation classic Only Angels Have Wings is an exemplar of the auteurist Hollywood entertainer’s capability to fuse “a personal existential statement and a delightful piece of showmanship.”

Apr 17, 2020 — Tsai Ming-liang, Charlie Chaplin, Wim Wenders, and Albert Serra are just some of the names in the news this week.

Apr 17, 2024 — Three of this month’s programs blast back to the turbulent midcentury moment when old Hollywood gave way to something new.

Aug 13, 2024 — In films that elude categorization, the Ukrainian director developed a boldly experimental aesthetic that evokes her mercurial inner dialogue and the leaps and stutters of her imagination.

Nov 14, 2017 — Donna Deitch combined tropes of lesbian pulp romance with the sheen of mainstream filmmaking in her beloved debut feature.

Sep 25, 2025 — To celebrate Robert Altman’s centennial, we invited five writers—Howard Hampton, Bruce LaBruce, Violet Lucca, Christina Newland, and Carlos Valladares—to each explore a favorite lesser-known gem from the great director’s filmography.

Mar 25, 2025 — Unfettered by the precepts of bourgeois morality and the nuclear family, the characters in Alan Rudolph’s romantic drama struggle to find happiness as they navigate love’s whims and ambiguities.

May 20, 2024 — From documentaries and stop-motion animation to multimedia projects, the richly varied work of this veteran director is a testament to her innovative spirit and her commitment to the everyday beauty of African American experiences.

Mar 7, 2018 — A Wrinkle in Time, the adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 science fiction classic, “directed by Ava DuVernay from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, has been a long time coming,” writes A. O. Scott in the New York...

Nov 26, 2024 — In this tragicomic road movie about a Bible-selling con man and his precocious young charge, Peter Bogdanovich brings Depression-era America to vivid life without sentimentality or nostalgia.