The Way of Drama

Nov 12, 2025 — He anchored some of the best films by Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Okamoto, Naruse, and Teshigahara.

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.

Jun 26, 2025 — One of the defining independent films of its era, François Girard’s provocatively splintered portrait of the great pianist finds playful ways of toying with the cultural mythologization of its subject.

Dec 5, 2024 — Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow scores six Spirit Awards nominations and is the cover story in the new Film Quarterly.

Nov 21, 2024 — Dennis Hopper’s bleakly nihilistic drama struggled to find an audience after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but time has revealed it to be one of the most hardcore films about disaffected youth ever made.

May 21, 2024 — The Senegalese filmmaker’s steadfast devotion to African autonomy led him to become a foundational contributor to the hard-won, dynamic flourishing of an independent cinematic tradition on his home continent.

Jul 28, 2023 — This week: Stephanie Zacharek’s hundred favorites, Peter Wollen on the British New Wave, and a conversation with Hong Sangsoo.

Jul 25, 2023 — In his five collaborations with actor Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown, Boetticher presents an unsentimental vision of honor-bound men competing and banding together in a desolate landscape ruled by chance.

Jul 11, 2023 — Screenings of work by Yasujiro Ozu, John Ford, Erich von Stroheim, and more will all feature live musical accompaniment.

Jul 10, 2023 — Writer-archivist-filmmaker Jenni Olson and critic Caden Mark Gardner discuss Masc, a collection of films on the Criterion Channel that explores the many forms of masculinity beyond the realm of cisgender men.