The Wave

A lifelong cinephile, this French filmmaker reinvigorated cinema throughout the sixties and seventies by breaking from the industry’s bloated “tradition of quality.”

Emerging in France during the 1930s, this movement combined working-class milieus with moody, proto-noir art direction to stylishly represent contemporary social conditions.

No one has influenced modern filmmaking more than this French New Wave pioneer. He was one of our greatest lyricists on historical trauma, religion, and the legacy of cinema.

Jan 21, 2008 — Lindsay Anderson’s adaptation of David Storey’s novel is a clenched fist of a movie that follows a professional Rugby League player who instinctively channels feeling through physical aggression.

Mar 26, 2007 — Across five films, the Swedish director defined his guiding themes and cinematic style.

Dec 4, 2006 — William Greaves’s masterpiece uses a single situation as the basis for a theme-and-variation structure that interrogates every aspect of the filmmaking process as well as the categories of fiction and documentary.

Dec 1, 2006 — We left St-Michel feeling uplifted and took a nice stroll south, past the Closerie des Lilas, the restaurant made famous by Hemingway, and through the Luxembourg gardens, where a film crew was laying dolly tracks and fitting counterweights on a...

Aug 20, 2001 — Carl Dreyer considers the work of art’s soul in this excerpt from Dreyer in Double Reflection.

Jan 11, 1994 — A harrowing nightmare about life in inner-city hell, this 1993 sleeper-hit is a powerhouse filmmaking debut by the Hughes brothers.

Jul 9, 2026 — Deep Dives One of the most mischievous figures in world cinema, Věra Chytilová is still best known for Daisies, the daring 1966 film whose gonzo vision of female rebellion and empowerment launched her into the public eye. This Czechoslovak New...