Character

Jun 14, 2021 — Audiences immediately connected with the character actor who could hint at a deviant intent a behind an amiable smile.

Nov 17, 2015 — Satyajit Ray began his filmmaking career by offering a vision of the young Apu, the character he would go on to follow throughout the three films of his stunning breakthrough epic.

Aug 12, 2014 — The emotional culmination of a brilliant career in film, John Cassavetes’s unruly masterpiece is an enigmatic character study and a direct investigation of the nature of love.

Jul 21, 2014 — Anouk Aimée’s beguiling chanteuse, the title character of Jacques Demy’s romantic debut feature, is the figure from whom the director’s entire cinematic world springs.

Sep 25, 2012 — No mere jigsaw movie, David Fincher’s thriller is also a nuanced character study, a satire of corporate culture, and a film about filmmaking.

Joshua Clover’s most recent book is Riot.Strike.Riot: The New Era of Uprisings (Verso), about (among other things) the way the character of political struggle changed around the time of Straw Dogs, and why. This piece was originally written for the...

Aug 25, 2026 — James Gray’s extraordinary debut feature is a painstakingly distilled tale of crime and family dysfunction, captured with a merciless gaze and a sharp attention to idiosyncratic detail.

Aug 25, 2026 — In her second film, Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple captures the anguish and perils of disunity in the labor movement and the corrosion of union power during the Reagan era.

Aug 24, 2026 — New, forthcoming, and noteworthy titles include one of the most debated novels of the moment.

Aug 21, 2026 — Touring David Lynch’s LA, listening to screenwriter Samy Burch, and deciphering Adam Curtis.