First Blood

Nov 14, 2012 — Jean Luc Godard’s exuberant, multipronged attack on the bourgeoisie is both theater of the absurd and political horror.

Sep 19, 2012 — Marcel Carné’s tale of love and devilry in medieval France was a sensation during the German occupation.

Aug 29, 2012 — With humor and melancholy, Franc Roddam’s coming-of-age drama, based on the Who’s iconic album, shows us a g-g-generation on the edge.

Jul 24, 2012 — Trained as a musician, Jean Grémillon became one of French cinema’s most lyrical artists. His most beloved films were made during World War II.

Dec 6, 2011 — One of the delights of Alfred Hitchcock’s comic thriller is the wit with which it pins down a distinctly British insular mindset.

Oct 17, 2011 — Scratch the surface of a contemporary J-horror classic like Ringu (1998) or any of the Ju-on films (2000–03) and you’ll glimpse Yabu no naka no kuroneko (Black Cat from the Grove), released in the U.S. as simply Kuroneko (1968). Shot...

Oct 4, 2011 — Vilified, censored, banned, denied commercial distribution, and long unavailable, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s infamous film lives more in reputation and rumor than in memory.

Aug 9, 2011 — Gillo Pontecorvo’s incendiary epic commemorates the popular uprising that had succeeded in ousting the French from Algeria in July 1962.

May 3, 2011 — French auteur cinema has increasingly been exploring themes of sex through scenarios whose explicitness verges on the pornographic. Along with Patrice Chéreau (Intimacy, 2001), Léos Carax (Pola X, 1999), Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi (Baise-moi, 2000), and Gaspar Noé...

Apr 25, 2011 — Brian De Palma brought hip, freewheeling funkiness to the American film renaissance of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Wised-up, cinema-savvy audiences across the country knew to seek out his movies for their scruffy wit, showmanship, and aesthetic innovation, not...