The American Friend

Mar 7, 2024 — The Austin festival presents action-heavy Headliners, creepy Midnighters, and promising Competition contenders.

May 30, 2023 — Arriving at a fulcrum moment in women’s history in the United States, Thelma & Louise stoked controversy by delivering a boldly feminist worldview in a funny, warm, and sexy package.

Aug 17, 2021 — This month we’re reading about Hollywood memoirs, cultural histories, and the revived debate over the screenplay for Last Year at Marienbad.

Oct 9, 2020 — This week we’re revisiting Irma Vep, more than a century of animation, and the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Michael Snow.

Sep 22, 2008 — With their rotating casts of sourpuss Finns and their stringent compositions, Aki Kaurismäki’s films would seem the least likely candidates for laughs, yet his black-comic precision has made him one of the most warmly embraced filmmakers on the international art-house...

Aug 28, 2025 — Made for public television, this moving vérité documentary about three terminally ill cancer patients is one of the purest expressions of the director’s career-long preoccupation with human fragility.

Mar 5, 2024 — Friends and admirers pay tribute to his rigorous scholarship, his boundless enthusiasm, and his warm generosity.

Jan 26, 2023 — This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.

Nov 24, 2021 — Mike Leigh, Hayao Miyazaki, Céline Sciamma, and Jessica Beshir discuss their work, and Farran Smith Nehme launches a newsletter.

Jun 17, 2021 — The first real lesbian kiss in a film is an honor that rightfully belongs to Mädchen in Uniform. It’s true that a year earlier, in 1930, Marlene Dietrich played a tux-clad chanteuse who snogs a woman in a nightclub audience...