The Railroad Man

Feb 16, 2021 — “Me myself, I prefer literature,” the Senegalese author-filmmaker Ousmane Sembène tells a group of African students in the 1994 documentary Sembène: The Making of African Cinema. “But in our time, literature is a luxury.” Sembène’s historical conjuncture—Africa’s putative transition from...

Dec 18, 1989 — When Tootsie opened in December, 1982, the ad copy read: “In the next 72 hours this desperate, unemployed actor will secretly audition for the female lead of a soap opera.”  That was the plot line to the movie even when...

Mar 4, 2014 — The great documentarian Claude Lanzmann’s new movie, made from footage he didn’t use in Shoah, provides a fascinating glipse at the way he began that monumental project.

Jun 11, 2024 — Every screening in this sin-ridden program will be introduced by an esteemed film historian.

Mar 4, 2016 — Over the past half century, production designer Jack Fisk has created some of cinema’s most memorable on-screen worlds—from the farmlands of early-twentieth-century Texas to the byways of contemporary Los Angeles.

Sep 29, 2021 — It’s National Silent Movie Day—and the Pordenone Silent Film Festival opens on Saturday.

Nov 18, 2015 — Richard Brooks’s In Cold Blood applied cinematic specificity and flair to the literary realism of Truman Capote’s classic “nonfiction novel.”

Aug 28, 2020 — “Anyone with that kind of brilliance, you just give them space . . . She was a kind of unique, extraordinary, eccentric wild animal. And some jewels came out of her mouth.” Richard Gere On Halloween 1978, a month after...

Jul 19, 2004 — In Yasujiro Ozu’s hands, the extended-family drama widened its focus to encompass friends, neighbors, and employers.

Nov 30, 2021 — Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrante adaptation wins best feature, screenplay, and breakthrough director—and scores a nod for Olivia Colman, too.