The Next Best Thing

Oct 11, 2011 — A. E. W. Mason’s sweeping action novel The Four Feathers (1902) had already inspired three films by the time producer Alexander Korda got to it in 1939. It would be filmed three more times afterward. But you really haven’t seen it...

Nov 19, 2008 — My first trip to Paris took place inside the darkened cafeteria of Warnsdorfer Elementary School in East Brunswick, New Jersey. A few times each year, the entire student body was brought together to watch movies cast from a rickety 16...

Apr 17, 2006 — In the absence of a finished, definitive edit of Orson Welles’s enigmatic project, three writers dive into the unsolvable mystery of the film and the different versions presented in the Criterion edition.

Sep 29, 2003 — “Gray literature” is the term German film historians use to describe the material written purely for publicity purposes and made available to the press, but not meant for official publication. Often this gray literature, which is only accessible to film...

Nov 10, 2025 — Olivia Laing’s second novel is set in mid-1970s Rome, where Fellini is shooting Casanova and Pasolini is at work on Salò.

Jul 2, 2025 — Pavements and Videoheaven take us back thirty-odd years, but neither film is merely a nostalgia trip.

Apr 7, 2025 — He played Iceman, Jim Morrison, Doc Holliday, and even Batman as no one else would or could have.

Feb 14, 2025 — The director of Down with Love talks about his favorite romantic comedies set in the great metropolis and looks back on the making of his own foray into the genre.

Dec 4, 2024 — Before she won acclaim as a pioneering director, the Hollywood icon made her name as a powerfully vivid actor who brought grit and toughness to films by such masters as Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Michael Curtiz.

Oct 31, 2024 — She brought a winning intelligence to suffering characters in such films and Young Frankenstein, Tootsie, and After Hours.