The Perfect Fishplate

Jan 13, 2015 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s characters play an endlessly layered game of dress-up in this tale of sadomasochistic love.

Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.

Nov 19, 2008 — My first trip to Paris took place inside the darkened cafeteria of Warnsdorfer Elementary School in East Brunswick, New Jersey. A few times each year, the entire student body was brought together to watch movies cast from a rickety 16...

Apr 3, 2024 — This year’s edition is bookended by two very New York movies.

Dec 22, 2023 — An appreciation of Raúl Ruiz, a chat with Maggie Renzi and John Sayles, and a holiday lightning round.

May 18, 2020 — It’s hard to imagine Hollywood without Frances Marion. The story of the screenwriter’s career is entwined with the story of Hollywood itself, from its pioneer days to the Golden Age. Part of Marion’s skill as a writer was how her...

Jul 18, 2019 — With its picturesque Provençal village, florid theatrical dialogue, and cast of familiar southern-French actors, dominated by the formidable Raimu, The Baker’s Wife is classic Marcel Pagnol territory. In 1938, when the film was released, the feted author and playwright was...

Feb 5, 2019 — Shame (1968) is one of the great neglected films from Ingmar Bergman’s midcareer creative explosion. It builds on and surpasses the two Bergman films that immediately preceded it: the avant-garde milestone Persona (1966) and the surreal shocker Hour of the...

Nov 19, 2018 — Billy Wilder proves himself one of cinema’s greatest pleasure seekers in this irresistible confection, a landmark of Hollywood comedy.

Aug 9, 2017 — New York. “Though Fire Island is the movie’s very recognizable locale, it is filmed in arcadianly remote aspects of sunlight, shade and water, and narrated simply on the solemn, picturesque, stark level of myth. . . . The world as...