The Final Year

Jan 6, 2009 — Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film is not just an epic but also a small film, one in which, somehow or other, the scope of David Lean has been enriched with the vision of Ozu.

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.

Feb 11, 2002 — The last, best, and funniest movie Milos Forman would make in his native Czechoslovakia is a deceptively simple miniature.

Apr 21, 2026 — From new titles on the silent era and Hollywood’s Golden Age to forthcoming novels and memoirs, this month offers something for every reader.

Mar 12, 2026 — A selection of fine writing on this year’s Academy Award nominees.

Feb 19, 2026 — In more than forty nonfiction features, he tried, as he said, “to create dramatic structures out of ordinary experience.”

Feb 19, 2026 — Though in many ways the quintessential company man, the director brought an intimate understanding of the margins of American society to the films he made for Warner Bros. in the 1930s.

Jan 26, 2026 — The new year brings an ode to Judy Garland, conversations with Martin Scorsese, and a novel by John Sayles.

Nov 18, 2025 — A pre-Code aviation epic that makes pioneering use of the era’s innovations in cinematic color and sound, Howard Hughes’s directorial debut was Hollywood’s first modern portrait of World War I.

Sep 18, 2025 — No movie star was bigger in the 1970s, and he won an Oscar for directing Ordinary People. But Sundance may be his most impactful legacy.