Close-Up

Sep 4, 2019 — With their novelistic density and sexual openness, the films of French master André Téchiné introduced director Stephen Cone to a strange new world of contradictions.

Apr 14, 2016 — In honor of our disc release last week of the classic John Frankenheimer thriller The Manchurian Candidate, we sat down to talk about the film with the director’s widow, actor Evans Frankenheimer.

Dec 3, 2013 — This scathing drama about a toxic society established Elio Petri as an important director of popular political entertainment in Italy.

Dec 2, 1990 — In Martin Scorsese’s hands, the camera is not simply a recording device, but an x-ray machine—and it shows us close-ups of the human soul.

Mark Asch is the author of the New York Movies volume of the Close-Ups series of film books and a contributor to Film Comment, Sight and Sound, Reverse Shot, Filmmaker, Screen Slate, and other publications.

Oct 8, 2026 — Having achieved fame for her work in On the Waterfront and North by Northwest, Saint insisted on putting her private family life first.

Sep 28, 2026 — Anchored by an extraordinary performance from Sandrine Bonnaire, the epic historical drama Joan the Maid strips away its saintly protagonist’s mythic aura and gives us a humbler, more intimate version of her life story.

Aug 27, 2026 — The illuminating 1982 documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine follows the celebrated author on a journey through the American South, as he attempts to reckon with the legacy and losses of the civil rights movement.

Aug 25, 2026 — James Gray’s extraordinary debut feature is a painstakingly distilled tale of crime and family dysfunction, captured with a merciless gaze and a sharp attention to idiosyncratic detail.

Jul 21, 2026 — At the beginning of Cruel Story of Youth (1960), the title splashes across the screen in fiery red. Each of the three Japanese words that appear offers a key to understanding director Nagisa Oshima’s breakthrough film and the energies that...