Back to the Past

Jan 9, 2023 — The films in the Criterion Channel collection Free Jazz chronicle the development of a deeply experimental music that has baffled and enthralled listeners in equal measure.

Sep 28, 2022 — Sarah Maldoror’s only completed narrative feature tracks the Angolan struggle for independence from Portugal and reckons with the interlocking systems of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy.

Feb 22, 2022 — In centering the perspectives of refugees, Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui created a work of political solidarity that stands in contrast to the dehumanizing cinematic depictions of Vietnam from the period.

Dec 1, 2021 — So far, most critics have been gung ho, but a few are expressing reservations.

Oct 20, 2020 — Despite the preponderance of tales of coming of age and sexual awakening in American independent cinema, it’s still rare to encounter a movie that deals with experiences of intimacy between young LGBT characters in a way that feels honest, candid,...

Jun 9, 2020 — A couple walk down a cacophonous street in New York. They’re bundled in coats—wrapped up in their own worlds. She is incandescent with joy, talking about her cadre of close friends and their regular meetings. He wears a resigned face,...

Oct 29, 2018 — Supporting roles bring potent flavor to classic Hollywood’s darkest genre. In the first installment of a series, Imogen Sara Smith pays tribute to the queen of character actors: Thelma Ritter.

Apr 17, 2018 — The seventeenth Tribeca Film Festival opens tonight in New York with Love, Gilda, Lisa D’Apolito’s portrait of beloved comic actress Gilda Radner, and screens around one hundred more features before wrapping on April 29. Throughout the festival’s run, I’ll be...

Mar 28, 2018 — “Forty-seven years young,” writes the staff at Slant, “New Directors/New Films—programmed by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art—is an eclectic, geographically far-flung survey of bourgeoning filmmaking talent, and more than ever, this year’s lineup...

Mar 9, 2018 — Ryan Coogler is on the cover of the new March/April 2018 issue of Film Comment, and Devika Girish writes about how “the mythology of Black Panther is keenly attuned to the present even as it undoes the past: it is...