Another Thin Man

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.

Nov 17, 2021 — Decades after Peter Lorre’s knife-toting creep Hans Beckert prowled the Berlin streets in search of little girls in Fritz Lang’s M (1931); after Robert Mitchum’s silver-tongued Harry Powell cut down all the “smooth and curly-haired things” he could get his...

Sep 14, 2021 — A staple of 1980s British cinema, Neil Jordan’s crime drama considers the slippery characters that inhabit the London underworld.

Jul 6, 2021 — Howard Hawks’s madcap battle of the sexes is a reminder of how necessary and sneakily profound silliness can be.

Apr 15, 2021 — Catherine Breillat and Todd Field are getting back behind the camera, while Scorsese and Spielberg forge ahead with their latest projects.

Mar 23, 2021 — “Pleasure,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh, “is a safer guide than either right or duty.” Surely this is true when it comes to watching films. While cinema can be edifying, most of us go to the...

Feb 16, 2021 — Reviews are strong for the biography of the unique theater and film director, comedian and actor.

Jul 15, 2020 — When I first saw The Lady Eve (1941), in my teens, I was certain I had never seen a comedy more perfectly constructed, a judgment that the subsequent decades have not revised. I had also seen none more acutely witty,...

Jun 9, 2020 — A couple walk down a cacophonous street in New York. They’re bundled in coats—wrapped up in their own worlds. She is incandescent with joy, talking about her cadre of close friends and their regular meetings. He wears a resigned face,...

May 4, 2020 — “You’ve never seen prairie grass with the wind leaning on it, have you, Diz?”Jean Arthur asks this poetic, expressively peculiar question of Thomas Mitchell in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and we understand her yearning for truth...