Set It Off

Jun 23, 2020 — In Céline Sciamma’s unabashedly romantic and fiercely political film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), two women fall in love and set each other free, if for only a few glorious days or weeks. It is one of the...

May 27, 2019 — The awards have been presented, the red carpet rolled up, and now we can gather a little perspective on this year’s competition.

Apr 11, 2018 — The Cannes Film Festival has announced the lineup for its seventy-first edition, running from May 8 through 19. Artistic director Thierry Frémaux has declared that this year’s Official Selection represents “a great renewal,” a new generation of filmmakers reflecting the...

Jan 25, 2018 — “I don’t scare easily,” begins A. A. Dowd at the A.V. Club. “So it’s a special kind of awful, a rare treat of sorts, when something comes along that actually gets past my defenses, that does more than make me...

Aug 18, 2017 — In this unsparing drama, Mike Leigh captures the grim mood of Thatcher’s England through the frustrations of a working-class London family.

May 2, 2017 — On a trip to the Library of Congress’s Mostly Lost workshop—affectionately known as “film-geek heaven”—Imogen Sara Smith joined early-cinema aficionados in uncovering treasures from the vaults.

Mar 1, 2017 — In his most seductive experiment with cinematic time, Richard Linklater wrestles with the joys and challenges of long-term intimacy.

Dec 21, 2016 — Garrett Brown in our kitchen reenacting a Steadicam-shot scene from Blow Out In 1975, the cameraman Garrett Brown revolutionized filmmaking technology with the Steadicam, an invention that brought together the agility and immediacy of a handheld camera with the smoothness and...

Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.

Apr 14, 2015 — Preston Sturges revealed a lot about himself and the movie business in this hilarious and socially committed comedy.