The Player

Sep 13, 2011 — Hollywood has been importing talented European filmmakers at least since the early twenties, when Victor Sjöström and Ernst Lubitsch heeded the siren wail of Tinseltown resources, and their work there has tended to quickly obscure the cultural memory of the...

Jan 17, 2005 — Jacques Becker’s crime film contains plenty of the requisite genre elements—double-crossings, violence, kidnappings, and gun battles—but it’s also a pensive meditation on age, friendship, and lost opportunities.

Mar 7, 1988 — A low-key mood study about a broken-down carnival strongman and his half-wit assistant traveling through the bleak backwaters of post-war Italy catapulted Federico Fellini to the front ranks of that country’s greatest filmmaking talents.

Oct 16, 2018 — Seen as a light-hearted farce upon its release, this star-studded comedy by Hal Ashby stands as one of Hollywood’s most prescient portraits of post-Watergate politics.

Jul 24, 2018 — A feast of sumptuous color and cinematic imagination, Powell and Pressburger’s postwar masterpiece is also a powerful reckoning with recent history.

Oct 30, 2012 — All of them actors? Nearly everyone wears a mask in Roman Polanski’s devilishly clever work of horror.

Aug 20, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s generous-hearted satire achieves a synthesis that is both terribly funny and deeply moving.

Jan 7, 1997 — Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. He had so far turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture (Le Petit soldat), and a sort-of-musical comedy (Une femme est une femme). Now...

Feb 11, 1990 — Bob Rafelson’s ultimate road movie is a relaxed masterpiece, a film of laid-back innovation that hasn’t aged one iota since its original release.

Jul 6, 2023 — The accomplished actor excelled at playing ordinary men facing down life’s most outrageous absurdities.