The Dirt

Aug 17, 2017 — “My first job out of UCLA Film School, at age twenty-two, was directing second unit on The Night of the Hunter for Charles Laughton.” So begins a collection of memories, pre-production sketches, and screenplay pages at the Talkhouse Film from...

Jun 19, 2006 — Decades after its backyard birth, Jack Woods’s DIY horror movie has forged a model of inspiration for succeeding generations of effects artists and low-budget filmmakers.

Jun 9, 2021 — As part of Criterion’s team of digital-restoration artists, it’s my job to make dusty old films look polished and new again, like the first time they were ever screened for the public. This process is akin to photo retouching, but...

Jan 19, 2023 — Critics list their most-anticipated films as Sundance opens with Rotterdam and Berlin hot on its heels.

The writer and director of All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt selects films that have left an indelible mark on her sensibility, praising the revelatory inspiration of Lynne Ramsay’s short films and the visceral effect of The Piano Teacher, and...

May 5, 2026 — The nation’s largest silent film festival returns to the newly renovated Castro Theatre.

Sep 20, 2021 — Kenneth Branagh gets an early awards season boost, while Indonesian director Kamila Andini wins the Platform prize.

Aug 31, 2018 — And a pillar of American film criticism falls.

Sep 7, 2017 — Joe Wright (Atonement) will direct Casey Affleck in Andrew Bovell’s adaptation of John Williams’s 1965 novel Stoner, reports Variety’s Justin Kroll. “The movie will follow the life of William Stoner, a dirt-poor farmer turned academic, who emerges as an unlikely...

Oct 8, 2024 — Though it received dismissive reviews upon its release, this chillingly nihilistic horror film has since influenced such masters as Alfred Hitchcock and Jacques Rivette with its low-budget evocation of anxiety and indeterminacy.