City of Life and Death

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.

Apr 30, 2024 — The gentle rapport between actors Lili Taylor and River Phoenix fuels this humane examination of American masculinity, a film that showcases the nuanced and compassionate approach of director Nancy Savoca.

Aug 18, 2020 — A sensuous exploration of amorous discontent and dreadful miscalculation, The Comfort of Strangers (1990) could be described as an erotic thriller, though it rarely is: its eroticism is too perverse, its pedigree too highbrow. Directed by Paul Schrader and based...

Feb 22, 2018 — Bengali cinema icon Uttam Kumar stars as a matinee idol on the brink of failure in this deeply introspective meditation on art and fame.

Jun 27, 2017 — Alfred Hitchcock brings a spirit of cinematic ingenuity to a thin narrative, resulting in a flawed but fascinating film that contains one of the most virtuosic sequences in his filmography.

Jun 26, 2000 — Kevin Smith writes about his third feature as a sort of penance/valentine for the woman who made him grow up.

Oct 19, 2026 — Classics of highway horror like The Hitcher, The Appointment, and Race with the Devil present the open road as a dangerous landscape and automobiles as single-minded killing machines.

Dec 22, 2025 — Kleber Mendonça Filho programs a series of films that have informed his slow-burning thriller.

May 27, 2025 — In the singular mid-1980s TV show Eternity’s Pillar, the jazz iconoclast gives viewers a chance to experience the healing powers of her music—and the intense spiritual practice that fuels it.

Jul 19, 2023 — This month we’re reading Pasolini, Chris Marker, Christian Petzold, Lorenza Mazzetti, Derek Jarman, and more.