The Pilot

Apr 14, 2016 — Before he became one of cinema’s greatest directors, Howard Hawks was a pilot for the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War I. And in the years following the war, Hawks took advantage of his flying expertise and the public’s...

Dec 1, 2015 — Critic Todd McCarthy takes an inside look at Michael Ritchie's outdoor drama, which he calls “spare, cut to the bone, as fine as dry powder. Had Hemingway ever written about competitive skiing, this would have been the right style with...

Oct 1, 2014 — In the hands of director Serge Bourguignon, a potentially sensationalistic story becomes a poetic and complex investigation of love and pain.

Jan 27, 2010 — This piece first appeared in the 1991 Wim Wenders collection The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversation (Faber and Faber), translated by Michael Hofmann. The story’s about a man who turns up somewhere in the desert out of nowhere and returns...

Jan 22, 2007 — A delightfully old-fashioned morality tale, Robert Day’s low-budget space flick is far more than the standard monster fare it was initially sold as.

Mar 22, 2022 — In Robert Aldrich’s epic disaster film, James Stewart leads a pack of temperamentally different men as they struggle to survive in the face of the unknown—a template that would go on to influence Hollywood blockbusters for decades to come.

Dec 17, 2018 — Also, directors discuss their craft, and critics carry on listing the best films of 2018.

Mar 4, 2025 — The Melbourne Cinémathèque presents selections from the four phases of a profoundly influential oeuvre.

May 12, 2020 — In the early 1950s, director John Sturges, then under contract at MGM, read a condensed version of Paul Brickhill’s memoir The Great Escape, which details the mass escape of downed fighter pilots from the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III...

Jul 24, 2018 — A feast of sumptuous color and cinematic imagination, Powell and Pressburger’s postwar masterpiece is also a powerful reckoning with recent history.