The Pearl

Jul 6, 2026 — Karlovy Vary hosts the world premiere of a new restoration of the Czech director’s 1988 tragicomedy.

Sep 8, 2020 — Always a lively presence on-screen, Menzel also directed Closely Watched Trains and I Served the King of England.

Nov 11, 2019 — This month we’re reading about the women (and men) of Hollywood, weighing arguments from all corners, and picking up an overlooked novel.

Apr 22, 2020 — One of the true dark glories of the Czechoslovak New Wave, The Cremator (Spalovač mrtvol, 1969) is the most popular and indelible work by the underappreciated Juraj Herz and remained a firm favorite of the director’s among his many films....

Nov 7, 2013 — Repertory PicksIf you’ve seen the films in our Eclipse set Pearls of the Czech New Wave, you surely will not have forgotten the lively and profoundly disturbing A Report on the Party and Guests. This was one of the most...

May 25, 2010 — Between 1952 and 2003, depending on how the various serial works are counted, Stan Brakhage made somewhere between 350 and 400 films, about half of them short film poems under ten minutes in length, most of the rest between ten...

Mar 18, 2025 — In what he described as his “first serious drama,” Charlie Chaplin channeled the influence of modernist literature, foreign cinema, and his European travels into a work of striking formal sophistication.

Nov 17, 2020 — Along with Dead Man (1995), his previous narrative feature, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai marks a quantum leap in the Jim Jarmusch universe—a discovery of history (both antiquity and tradition) that carries with it a sense of gravity and even tragedy...

Dec 6, 2011 — Ernst Lubitsch’s Design for Living (1933) is what sexy should be—delightful, romantic, agonizing ecstasy. And it’s not just sexy but also revolutionary, daring, sweet, sour, cynical, carefree, poignant, and so far ahead of its time that one could cite it...

Mar 22, 2017 — A stately satire of modern media consumption and American politics, Hal Ashby’s 1979 film Being There follows the fortunes of a childlike gardener named Chance (Peter Sellers), who becomes an unlikely celebrity of D.C. high society after attracting the attention...