Life and Nothing But

Jun 21, 2022 — By centering an empowered Black hero, Gordon Parks reimagined the detective genre and exposed its racial politics.

Apr 27, 2022 — In his uncompromising chronicles of modern Japanese society, the celebrated filmmaker shows a deep understanding of both larger-than-life individuals and collectives of ordinary citizens.

Mar 24, 2022 — Yes, it’s a trip to the moon, but mostly, it’s a lovingly detailed recollection of being a kid in Houston in the summer of 1969.

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

Jul 13, 2021 — Critics assess new work from Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Paul Verhoeven, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, François Ozon, Joachim Trier, and more.

Jul 6, 2021 — The fourth of Andrei Tarkovsky’s seven features is his most oneiric and resistant to interpretation, drawing from the director’s own childhood memories to create a fluid sense of history.

Feb 3, 2021 — The lauded star of film, television, and theater was “determined to do all I could to alter the narrative about Black people.”

Dec 29, 2020 — Alongside the traditional top tens, critics are offering imaginative pairings and lists of the best audiovisual essays and title sequences of the year.

Dec 7, 2020 — As early reviews of Let Them All Talk come in, Steven Soderbergh discusses the state of the movies following the collapse of the theatrical window.

Nov 18, 2020 — In Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), often considered the essay film, we meet the wildcat video game designer Hayao Yamaneko, who imports scenes from his life into his memory machine. The machine is shown only in parts: a slider being...