A Year of School

Apr 2, 2019 — Mike Leigh’s endless fascination with human behavior is palpable in every one of the films he’s made over the course of his nearly fifty-year career. With an acute sensitivity to rhythm, character, and setting, he extracts extraordinary moments from the...

Mar 26, 2019 — It’s the afternoon of February 8, 1964, and Ed Sullivan has assembled a gaggle of CBS ushers to talk about tomorrow night’s show, featuring the four lads from Liverpool who call themselves the Beetles—strike that, the Beatles. He needs to...

Mar 18, 2019 — One Scene When Jia Zhangke made his 1997 feature debut, Xiao Wu, he was rebelling against decades of tradition that had drawn a hard line between cinema and reality. Chinese film history is rooted in genres found in classical theater...

Mar 12, 2019 — The first few days have also seen premieres of new films by Lynn Shelton, Jonathan Levine, and Olivia Wilde.

Jan 9, 2019 — There’s a certain tall-tale quality to Sandi Tan’s life. When the California-based filmmaker was growing up in Singapore in the 1980s and ’90s, movies were a powerful way of experiencing the world beyond her small native country, a place she...

Nov 20, 2018 — In the aftermath of the political turmoil that swept through France in 1968, Sylvina Boissonnas used her wealth to sponsor some of the most radical films of the era, including works by Philippe Garrel and Jackie Raynal.

Oct 30, 2018 — Ridiculous on the outside but full of truth on the inside, Rob Reiner’s fairy-tale classic is a childhood touchstone for generations of movie lovers.

Aug 20, 2018 — A haven for punks and drifters, 1980s downtown New York is captured in all its grit and romance in Susan Seidelman’s Palme d’Or–nominated debut feature.

May 4, 2018 — What do we mean when we say a narrative film is poetic? The answer lies in this visionary western from director Jim Jarmusch.

May 3, 2018 — Depth, beauty, curiosity—what gave luminous French star Danielle Darrieux staying power across eight decades? Critic Farran Smith Nehme looks for the answer in two films from opposite ends of her career.