The Straight Story

Aug 13, 2024 — In films that elude categorization, the Ukrainian director developed a boldly experimental aesthetic that evokes her mercurial inner dialogue and the leaps and stutters of her imagination.

Apr 22, 2024 — Fiercely committed to the possibilities of political art, the trailblazing director talks about how her intersectional understanding of feminism imbues her films, three of which are now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Jan 26, 2024 — We gather essays and interviews related to series spotlighting Ousmane Sembène, Serge Daney, Skip Norman, Iranian cinema, and the Oscars.

Dec 12, 2023 — In the history of cinema, French director Albert Lamorisse is a unique figure. His intense focus on three subjects—children, animals, and flight—is distinctive, and the fact that all of his works clock in under ninety minutes (and most under an...

Dec 8, 2023 — Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage), the jittery protagonist of Ridley Scott’s 2003 crime comedy Matchstick Men, doesn’t like to think of himself as a common crook. “I’m a con artist,” he insists, and—in a frenzy of self-justification—further explains: “They give me...

Oct 19, 2023 — The UK celebrates Powell and Pressburger, two writers tune into Robert Bresson, and The Exorcist turns fifty.

Jul 10, 2023 — Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev took the top prize, while the Yasuzo Masumura retrospective thrilled attendees.

Jun 20, 2023 — In their first collaboration, director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter explore the cultural fissures in modern England by dramatizing a kind of role-play in which no role is stable or easy to define.

Apr 10, 2023 — Ian Penman’s new book Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is neither a straight-ahead biography nor an orderly critical analysis.

Feb 10, 2023 — We head this week to Germany before and after the war and then revisit gruesome killings in Japan and France.