Break Out

Feb 11, 2020 — The universal success of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is undoubtedly due to a skill that the director has demonstrated over the course of several decades and many enduring pieces of work. But it is also a sign of our times. What...

Mar 12, 2026 — A selection of fine writing on this year’s Academy Award nominees.

Jun 18, 2019 — In his idiosyncratic, award-winning second film, Bruno Dumont uses the story of an alienated police detective to investigate the most elemental aspects of human experience.

Sep 4, 2012 — Umberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. Critics today tend to like the astringent parts: the long, deliberately undramatic sequences full of mundane activity (such as a housemaid’s morning...

Jul 21, 2025 — Summer offers new biographies and memoirs, expansively big ideas, and more than a few curious fictions.

Oct 30, 2018 — Ridiculous on the outside but full of truth on the inside, Rob Reiner’s fairy-tale classic is a childhood touchstone for generations of movie lovers.

Jun 10, 2022 — This week: Sarah Maldoror and Wayne Wang, plus new issues and features and the return of Film Studies for Free.

Nov 11, 2002 — Continued from Anatomy of a Love Festival - Part One The real turn-on, though, was the music—twenty-two hours of it, divided into solid chunks that usually ran more than thirty minutes. Friday night was the epitome of what San Francisco...

Apr 25, 2011 — In 1981, the legendary critic went all out for Blow Out, which she thought was De Palma's most mature work to date.

Jun 17, 2025 — Mitchell Leisen’s marvelously chic and brilliantly constructed screwball classic revolves around a heroine who flounders through a succession of complications but always manages to come out ahead.