Zen

Mar 17, 2008 — During the Second World War, when Hiroshi Teshigahara was a schoolboy, Japan’s cities—above all his hometown, Tokyo—were mercilessly firebombed. He, and his future associates in countless artistic undertakings, returned to a landscape of bleak ruins. The adolescent Hiroshi was particularly...

Oct 12, 1998 — Are there cultural purists still remaining who would argue that the “Westernized” title of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 masterpiece—High and Low—throws polluted water on the cosmological fire of its given name: Tengoku to jigoku—literally, Heaven and Hell?Kurosawa’s once insisted-upon reputation as...

Jul 21, 1998 — Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, of which this release is the first part, was adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa’s epic novel Musashi Miyamoto, which has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. The comparison is valid, for the tale of the medieval...

Feb 27, 2019 — Studio Visits Growing up in Houston, Texas, in the 1970s and ’80s, Greg Ruth fell in love with art but had a hard time imagining himself pursuing it professionally. But almost three decades of devotedly plying his craft as an illustrator in a...

Jul 17, 2026 — Some early reviews raise a few objections, but for the most part, Nolan is wowing critics with his grandest vision yet.

May 5, 2026 — The nation’s largest silent film festival returns to the newly renovated Castro Theatre.

Jan 26, 2026 — The new year brings an ode to Judy Garland, conversations with Martin Scorsese, and a novel by John Sayles.

Jan 8, 2026 — We can look forward to new films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, David Fincher, Greta Gerwig, Lee Chang-dong, Ulrike Ottinger, and many, many more.

May 8, 2025 — The lineup features newly restored films by Chaplin, Kubrick, Mikio Naruse, Edward Yang, Satyajit Ray, and John Woo.

Jan 24, 2025 — We’re sampling new issues of Notebook, Senses of Cinema, and 032c and reading about Eisenstein and Charlotte Zwerin.