The Thing

Mar 1, 2019 — Claire Simon begins her new documentary The Competition with a shot of young filmmakers chatting outside the locked gates of La Fémis, the most prestigious film school in France, patiently awaiting an opportunity to be judged by a panel of...

Feb 25, 2019 — Turns out, not everyone loves a winner.

Feb 25, 2019 — Songbook Pace Lou Reed, nobody’s life is saved by rock and roll in Cold Water. This in spite of  its young characters’ relentless pursuit of it, in both musical and metaphysical forms. Made in 1994, set in 1972, Olivier Assayas’s...

Jan 22, 2019 — Elaine May is a writer and filmmaker and actor and improviser, but beyond that, she is an artist whose career-long quest for truth has driven her to create work that has taken many forms but always sought to cast aside...

Oct 23, 2018 — Brian De Palma found his home in the psychological thriller with this chilling tale of murder, which twists genre conventions to investigate the perils of looking and the pitfalls of subjectivity.

Oct 18, 2018 — An autumnal round of reviews, excerpts, interviews, and news.

Sep 29, 2018 — This “lean but evocative allegory” can be read in a surprising number of ways.

Aug 26, 2018 — Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought cinema to the center of Cuban society with this richly ambiguous portrait of postrevolutionary Havana.

Aug 24, 2018 — Film Studies for Free turns ten, BlacKkKlansman sparks debate—and more.

Aug 23, 2018 — The director of Computer Chess and Support the Girls finds in John Cassavetes a surrealist whose weirdest set pieces could make David Lynch blush.