The Tale

Feb 19, 2001 — Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s romance film spins a web of myth and evocative symbolism around its central search for self-discovery.

May 19, 2019 — The Austrian director, a Cannes regular, is in competition for the first time with a chilly tale of a happiness-inducing flower.

May 29, 2012 — A watershed film in Bergman’s career, this tale of a woman caught between the past and present is a masterful study in darkness and light.

May 20, 2025 — Set in the dying days of the 1960s, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical tale of two unemployed actors is a triumph of screenwriting and a brilliant showcase for then-unknown stars Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.

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.

Sep 29, 2015 — Merchant Ivory Productions’ sun-kissed romantic comedy is an effervescent tale of class and manners among the Edwardian English.

Sep 24, 2014 — Roman Polanski’s dark vision is the perfect fit for Shakespeare’s grim tale of treachery and ambition.

Oct 28, 2013 — A husband and wife in 1960s Milan are isolated from each other and displaced in the modern world in Michelangelo Antonioni’s tale of love and space.

The actor praises the melancholy tenderness of A Canterbury Tale, shares his admiration for Derek Jarman’s creative genius, and selects favorites like Sweetie and L’humanité.

Phillip Lopate’s latest book is A Mother’s Tale. He has written extensively on the movies for the Criterion Collection, Film Comment, Cineaste, and the New York Times and is a professor at Columbia University.