Why

The director of The Inspection tells us why Jane Wyman is “a whole mood,” why Douglas Sirk is his dude, and which film will forever change the way you see curtains.

Jul 19, 2019 — Who did Agnès Varda want us to believe she was? Why has the idea that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing caught on? And Roger Corman, feminist hero?

Jul 12, 2018 — The director of Bull Durham explains the ins and outs of bringing baseball to the screen and why Kevin Costner is the finest athletic actor he’s worked with.

Carol Gilligan is best known for In a Different Voice, “the little book that started a revolution.” She was the Graham Professor of Gender Studies at Harvard and is now University Professor at New York University School of Law. Her...

Mark Polizzotti’s most recent books are Why Surrealism Matters and Jump Cuts: Essays on Surrealism, Film, Music, Culture, and Other Utopian Topics.

Tom Piazza is the author of twelve books, including the novels The Auburn Conference and A Free State, the post–Hurricane Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and the essay collection Devil Sent the Rain. He was a principal writer for...

Joshua Clover’s most recent book is Riot.Strike.Riot: The New Era of Uprisings (Verso), about (among other things) the way the character of political struggle changed around the time of Straw Dogs, and why. This piece was originally written for the...

Aug 31, 2026 — The festival’s showcase of nineteen new restorations spans more than half a century of cinema history.

Aug 25, 2026 — In her second film, Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple captures the anguish and perils of disunity in the labor movement and the corrosion of union power during the Reagan era.

Aug 25, 2026 — The pioneering husband-and-wife duo transformed the field of Japanese nonfiction cinema with their portraits of spectacular, edgy personalities and collectives under duress.