The Turn in the Road

Apr 17, 2018 — “Almost every Steven Spielberg movie has its antecedent in a TV show, a movie serial or a comic book,” wrote Michael Sragow when he spoke with Spielberg for Rolling Stone in 1981. “The one he feels [Raiders of the Lost...

Jul 24, 2026 — Names on our minds this week: Mike Mills, Jean Renoir, Ronee Blakley, and Luchino Visconti.

May 13, 2013 — Delmer Daves’s visually majestic, emotionally charged western finds its drama in the decency of its characters.

Nov 28, 2010 — “What we need are good old American—and that’s not to be confused with European—Art Films.” So declared the then twenty-nine-year-old beatnik Method actor Dennis Hopper in an unpublished 1965 manifesto. “The whole damn country’s one big real place to utilize...

Aug 16, 2011 — “It is my best film. I always loved it. I always believed in it. It is real cinema, done for cinema—like art for art.” That was Roman Polanski’s view of Cul-de-sac in 1970, four years after its release and just...

Dec 5, 2018 — The New Beverly reopens in Los Angeles and Film Comment offers fresh coverage of the repertory scene in New York.

Jan 26, 2021 — Larisa Shepitko was born in eastern Ukraine in 1938. Her mother was a schoolteacher; her father, who left the family, fought in World War II. Her mother raised her and her two siblings on her own, and the moment Larisa...

Jul 11, 2019 — The accomplished actor could be “compellingly loathsome,” a “titan” of comedy, and “unexpectedly moving.”

Feb 14, 2023 — This month’s roundup opens with an appreciation of Preston Sturges and wraps with a book launch serving donuts and damn fine coffee.

Jan 31, 2022 — Movies are about looking, and no one involved in the making of a film is more directly responsible for the frames we look at than a cinematographer, or director of photography. Together with the director, the cinematographer shapes the visual...