This Our Life

May 27, 2026 — Is it possible to look without trying to grasp the object of one’s gaze? Traditional ethnographic documentaries, much like the written ethnographies that preceded them, have attempted to explain a given culture to those who don’t belong to it, assuming...

May 11, 2026 — We begin with the Marilyn Monroe centenary and move on to thrillers and collections of poetry and critical essays.

Mar 30, 2026 — Suffused with visual beauty and moments of magical realism, Jess X. Snow’s queer diasporic cinema invites us to imagine new possibilities for freedom, transformation, and intergenerational healing.

Jan 27, 2026 — William and David Greaves’s film captures a gathering of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in 1972.

Dec 31, 2025 — As we come to the end of 2025, we’re looking back at some of the essays and interviews we’ve shared with you over the past year.

Aug 12, 2024 — The great actor creates an unforgettable portrait of a man worn down by the world in Tamara Jenkins’s darkly funny and deeply moving family drama.

Aug 8, 2024 — The monumental forty-film box set CC40 celebrates forty years of the Criterion Collection with an electrifying mix of classic and contemporary films, and presents them with all their special features and essays.

Sep 21, 2023 — Like the nuclear family, the internet shapes us whether or not we choose to relate to it. In 38, the final short in a triptych by filmmakers Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew, a woman approaching middle age becomes obsessed with...

Jun 14, 2023 — In her deeply empathetic documentaries, the British filmmaker illuminates the lives of ordinary people who have quietly created new identities and possibilities for themselves.

May 19, 2023 — In her feature debut, Cette maison, the Haitian Canadian filmmaker develops an ornate and innovative approach to documentary form as she grapples with a painful part of her family history.