The Challenge

Apr 23, 2007 — Louis Malle’s documentary work adopts certain tenets of cinéma direct—improvisation, minimal crew, the refusal to organize reality—and applies them to a consistently class-conscious, outsider perspective.

May 12, 2026 — Sexuality—how one defines it, lives with it, hides it, shuns it, or wields it—is inextricable from matters of socioeconomic class, though rare is the American film that centralizes this intersectional reality. The foundational myth of the American dream puts forth...

Feb 20, 2026 — Steven Soderbergh talks and two retrospectives showcase work by Raymond Depardon and John Schlesinger.

Jul 24, 2025 — Directed by Jack Bond, It Couldn’t Happen Here is a strange and compelling document of the synth-pop duo at the height of their success, as well as a darkly absurdist send-up of provincial England in the Thatcher era.

Feb 26, 2025 — This month brings deep dives into the work of Ken Loach and Radu Jude as well as new books on Isabelle Huppert, Holly Woodlawn, and more.

Jan 23, 2024 — In the first ten years of her extraordinary career, the Belgian filmmaker used the raw materials of quotidian, marginal lives to spark a radical reinvention of cinema.

Sep 27, 2023 — After winning a handful of top awards in Beijing, the novelist-turned-filmmaker’s thirteenth fictional feature arrives in New York.

May 16, 2023 — New this month: André Bazin in English, the Farrow family, and Tom Hanks’s first novel.

Apr 26, 2023 — The activist, singer, and actor dealt with stardom on his own terms.

Dec 13, 2022 — A pioneering feminist artist drawn to universal themes, the Swedish director mined the complexity and humor of human behavior in films that courted controversy and cultivated a sense of detachment.