Piece by Piece

Sep 11, 2019 — Following his landmark collection of photographs, The Americans, Frank made essential films about the Beats, the Stones, and his own personal tragedies.

Sep 10, 2019 — The comedic murder mystery in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie has scored an outstanding round of early reviews.

Sep 6, 2019 — This week we revisit the work of the late critic Gilberto Perez, novelist W. G. Sebald, and filmmakers Alice Guy Blaché, Wong Kar-wai, and Agnès Varda.

Aug 27, 2019 — In 1986, having made a number of child-centered films in his position as the head of the filmmaking division at Iran’s Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (an organization Iranians call Kanoon), Abbas Kiarostami accepted a...

Aug 14, 2019 — A week into this year’s edition, a few critical favorites are emerging from the competition.

Aug 8, 2019 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Paul Schrader, and Gus Van Sant tackle tales of love for sale in a new series on the Criterion Channel.

Aug 6, 2019 — Once, in 1977, Werner Herzog read a news item about a volcano that was supposed to erupt in Guadeloupe and one man living there who refused to evacuate with the rest of the island’s population. Herzog being Herzog, he immediately...

Aug 2, 2019 — 1. Spike Lee was inspired to write Do the Right Thing by what is now known as the Howard Beach incident. On December 20, 1986, a mob of twelve angry white men chased down and beat three black men who...

Jul 30, 2019 — One Scene Though he works in the highly stylized realm of the horror genre, Ari Aster’s acute attention to the fraught dynamics of intimate relationships—evident in his psychologically penetrating new film Midsommar—makes it easy to see how he draws inspiration...

Jul 18, 2019 — With its picturesque Provençal village, florid theatrical dialogue, and cast of familiar southern-French actors, dominated by the formidable Raimu, The Baker’s Wife is classic Marcel Pagnol territory. In 1938, when the film was released, the feted author and playwright was...