Life Is Beautiful

Jun 15, 2021 — These landmark documentary portraits of intergenerational struggle in Seattle expose social horrors while also revealing the humanity of their subjects.

Mar 18, 2021 — The range this month is wide, from Tsai Ming-liang to Ida Lupino, from Tobe Hooper to Josephine Baker.

Jul 24, 2014 — Everyday life gets a musical makeover in Jacques Demy’s tale of chance and love, a film of exquisitely sad happiness.

Oct 23, 2012 — After winning an Oscar, John Schlesinger used his newfound artistic freedom to make a personal film in which homosexuality is treated as groundbreakingly ordinary.

Jan 17, 2005 — Along with Touchez pas au grisbi and Le Trou, Casque d’or is now widely recognized as the summit of Jacques Becker’s achievement as a filmmaker.

May 31, 1990 — Isabelle Huppert shot from minor actress to full-fledged French star with a mesmerizing performance as, ironically, a young woman who is incapable of escaping anonymity. In Swiss director Claude Goretta’s elegant, beautifully observed tragedy/character study, Huppert is “Pomme,” a lovely,...

May 26, 2026 — Of all the performing arts, stand-up comedy may be the most ephemeral, even more so if the humor is considered dangerous or taboo. Stand-up relies on the charged dynamic between a comedian and an audience, with both sides often bringing...

May 19, 2026 — “Last night, I was in the Kingdom of Shadows,” proclaimed Maxim Gorky, writing about an 1896 projection of films by Auguste and Louis Lumière in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. “Suddenly a strange flicker passes through the screen and...

May 20, 2025 — A film about and against everything, this astonishingly original comedy attacks Big Brother, the bomb, and the incipient collapse of our planetary ecosystem, along with the lies that stop us from recognizing all of the above.

Dec 2, 2022 — We’re sorting through the Sight and Sound poll and reading about Paweł Łoziński, the Sankofa Collective, and the first films ever made.