Born American

Feb 28, 2014 — The Great Beauty, which is up for best foreign-language film at Sunday’s Academy Awards, feels at times like a glorious throwback to a time when art-house cinema reigned. Feeling nostalgic for that era, when films by the great directors of world...

Feb 18, 2014 — The immediacy of an ongoing war electrifies Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful second Hollywood feature.

Jan 21, 2014 — Bigger is better in Stanley Kramer’s crazily crammed slapstick epic, a timeless showcase for comedy genius.

Dec 16, 2013 — Here at last comes the time of ecstasy, of trances.Those who refuse to their senses the gift of trances shall wither.Brothers in trances, when will freedom come?They threw me out of my land and country.May my star shine. [. ....

Dec 11, 2013 — This political drama was made in Mexico at a revolutionary moment and represents an extraordinary confluence of international talent.

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Nov 6, 2013 — Samuel Fuller and Vincent Price would seem to make an incongruous pair. The director’s gritty, unaffected sensibility might seem antithetical to the actor’s lofty, melodramatic approach to performance. But Price is delightful as the protagonist in Fuller’s second film, The...

Oct 22, 2013 — This delicately creepy Hollywood horror movie lives up to its reputation as a classic of the genre.

Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...

Oct 7, 2013 — René Clair, Fredric March, and Veronica Lake cast sensational spells in this screwball supernatural treat.