Life at the Top

Dec 20, 2019 — This week we’re spotlighting directors’ and writers’ appreciations of other directors and writers, plus Céline Sciamma and Agnès Varda.

Jul 27, 2017 — Venice International Film Festival director Alberto Barbara has presented the lineup for the seventy-fourth edition (August 30 through September 9) at a press conference in Rome. I’ve gathered notes and trailers.CompetitionAi Weiwei’s Human Flow. From the Hollywood Reporter’s Tatiana Siegel:...

May 26, 2022 — The top awards at this year’s Critics’ Week go to stories of young people with uncertain futures.

Mar 21, 2022 — Sebastian Meise is an Austrian director and screenwriter. His acclaimed debut feature film, Still Life, premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and won several awards, including Best Feature Film at Diagonale Film Festival. His documentary film Outing was...

Dec 17, 2014 — Trenchant in its portrayal of gender dynamics, sophisticated in its look at the actor’s life, and, of course, hilarious, Tootsie is Hollywood comedy at its finest.

Jan 10, 2018 — The director of the war masterpiece Come and See got his start lampooning social conformity in 1960s Soviet life. Two of his early-career gems are now available on the Criterion Channel on FilmStruck.

Jan 14, 2021 — Herman Mankiewicz—a washed-up Hollywood screenwriter writing the first draft of Orson Welles’s 1941 biopic about William Randolph Hearst—may seem an unlikely hero for a 2020 biopic. He is rarely remembered today outside of cinephile circles, but in telling his story,...

Oct 18, 2022 — The winner of top nonfiction awards at Sundance, Cannes, and London arrives in theaters.

Jun 21, 2024 — We open with an Italian neorealist classic, steer through ’70s-era paranoia, and wrap with a blast of gnarly rock ’n’ roll.

Oct 18, 2021 — Panah Panahi’s debut feature expertly balances “knockabout humor and slowly tightening tension.”