A Better Life

May 11, 2009 — Novelists learn not to expect too much when their books are made into movies. Obviously, great fiction has been turned into great cinema, but the dents and scrapes that so many classics have sustained on the rocky road from the...

Oct 20, 2008 — Though he had been directing films since the silent era, Kenji Mizoguchi didn’t become an international sensation until after the Second World War, benefiting from a new fascination with Japan’s cinematic output.

Aug 18, 2008 — This modest-scale psychological drama by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger follows an explosives expert with a drinking problem who harbors a great deal of bitterness.

Jun 16, 2008 — Decades later, we’ve come to understand that Claude Sautet’s film—in a less gaudy and obvious, more secretive, insidious way—was just as revolutionary as Breathless.

Feb 19, 2007 — A powerful document of anti-Nazi propaganda, Powell and Pressburger’s war drama consolidated their partnership and showed a way forward for British cinema.

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

Apr 24, 2026 — Great writing this week on Maurice Pialat, Paul Newman, Johnnie To, Mark Fisher, and wrestlers.

Feb 3, 2026 — This year’s winners tell stories of trauma and triumph.

Jun 25, 2024 — Barry Jenkins’s extraordinarily ambitious limited series distinguishes itself in the tradition of the cinematic slavery epic through its understanding that Black joy and Black trauma cannot be cleaved from each other.

Dec 5, 2023 — A tight-lipped stranger arrives in a gold-mining town. After checking into a hotel, he heads to Charlie’s Saloon, one of those gambling palaces with glittering chandeliers and be-feathered hostesses. He is told that Charlie “runs the town” and “owns a...