The Woman and the Stranger

Jan 13, 2016 — In Bitter Rice, Giuseppe De Santis focused his lens on the world of Italy’s female rice workers, for a story that’s part social commentary, part pulp melodrama—and introduced the world to a dazzling young actress named Silvana Mangano.

Feb 18, 2020 — In what was no doubt an appeal to subtitle-averse audiences, advertisements for the U.S. release of Teorema (1968) trumpeted, “There are only 923 words spoken in Teorema—but it says everything!” A meager few of those utterances are expended in an...

Sep 23, 1993 — Two men, one woman and a boy. French director Bertrand Blier fashions out of this bizarre love quadrangle a film of seamless beauty, high farce and, finally, haunting majesty. To experience Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is to watch a master...

Aug 27, 2021 — This week we’re delving into the history of Black cinema and reflecting on films from Afghanistan and Iran.

Mar 16, 2015 — Director and star Robert Montgomery suffuses his moody 1947 New Mexico–set noir with palpable postwar anxiety and expressive fatalism.

Sep 24, 2025 — Jacques Audiard’s Paris-set drama about small-time hoodlum with musical ambitions crystallized his identity as an artist with a high degree of confidence and control.

Aug 28, 2024 — Critics look ahead to their most-anticipated films in Venice, the festival that kicks off the season.

Dec 5, 2023 — A tight-lipped stranger arrives in a gold-mining town. After checking into a hotel, he heads to Charlie’s Saloon, one of those gambling palaces with glittering chandeliers and be-feathered hostesses. He is told that Charlie “runs the town” and “owns a...

Aug 13, 2021 — This week we’re reading about the first and second waves of noir and taking a good look at a smartly dressed man.

Mar 26, 2019 — As BAM prepares to present the largest U.S. retrospective yet, we look back on the singular oeuvre.