The Criterion Collection
May 5, 2014 — Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole almost requires an honorary expansion of the term film noir. There are no private eyes in seedy offices or femmes fatales lurking in the shadows of neon-lit doorways, no forces of evil arrayed against...
Features
Mar 4, 2014 — The great documentarian Claude Lanzmann’s new movie, made from footage he didn’t use in Shoah, provides a fascinating glipse at the way he began that monumental project.
Features
Dec 30, 2013 — Charlie Chaplin’s comedy has a secret ingredient that has bound us to him forever.
Essays
Dec 2, 2013 — With its dazzling array of characters, acerbic take on American entertainment and politics, and innovative approach to sound, this is the ultimate Robert Altman movie.
Short Takes
Nov 20, 2013 — On November 5, Frances Ha herself, Greta Gerwig, appeared onstage at the New York Institute of Technology Auditorium on Broadway for a special Screen Actors Guild Foundation event. Following a screening of Noah Baumbach’s film, cowritten by and starring Gerwig,...
Jun 28, 2013 — Did You See This?• The Times of Harvey Milk, Weekend, and other essential LGBT cinema • The Hitchcock 9 are here. • Badlands inspires a book of photographs. • Proving 8½’s influence • Remembering a stellar sci-fi scribe • The...
The dynamic, Tokyo-born star was convincing whether playing a mercenary lone wolf or a heartsick love interest, a hero or a villain, in a sleek suit or samurai robes, and just as comfortable blending in to an ensemble as commanding...
Production Notes
Apr 4, 2013 — 1. Director Robert Bresson originally titled his screenplay Aide-toi . . ., a reference to the French expression “Aide-toi et le ciel t’aidera” (“Heaven helps those who help themselves”). He ultimately decided instead to use the title Devigny’s journalistic account of his...
Short Takes
Mar 6, 2013 — The great documentarian Allan King burst onto the scene in 1967 with Warrendale, a primal scream of a film set in an experimental Toronto home for emotionally disturbed children. With its fly-on-the-wall approach, this “actuality drama,” as King termed it,...
Nov 13, 2012 — Rejecting the orientalism of other adaptations, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s take on the classic tales is humane and erotic.