Set It Off

Jul 30, 2015 — It is now thirty years since the release of Stephen Frears’s film, which was both a product of and a response to the social and political landscape of 1980s Britain and depicted the lives of Pakistani immigrants with wit and...

Sep 11, 2025 — For J. Hoberman, the film “more than makes the case for Fonda’s centrality in the American imaginary.”

Sep 25, 2024 — At a time when women were understood to be the primary audience for movies, Hollywood studios built vehicles for actresses that doubled as showcases for the industry’s many brilliant female screenwriters.

May 22, 2023 — Drawing freely from the novel by the late Martin Amis, Glazer emphasizes the horror of what we do not see.

Apr 13, 2022 — Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard, Cahiers du cinéma’s radical years, and Todd Haynes are among this month’s highlights.

Oct 13, 2021 — 1. In spite of Melvin Van Peebles’s well-earned reputation for being a provocateur and a disrupter, he was also known for his kindness and generosity toward others. Over the course of working on the Essential Films box set, I observed...

Oct 5, 2021 — Kaneto Shindo’s visceral erotic-horror film centers on a dangerous duo of women fighting to survive while men are away at war.

Sep 17, 2018 — Critics pick their favorite premieres of the season, and Toronto audiences vote up a surprise winner.

Dec 7, 2017 — In the new issue of Film Quarterly, editor B. Ruby Rich argues that cinema and television “are lagging behind those offscreen realities known as world events or, in online parlance, IRW (In Real World). And yes, this is a film...

Sep 11, 2017 — “Brace yourselves,” warns Leonardo Goi, writing for Cinema Scope: “after the American sojourn that brought the likes of Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2 and a detour into Chinese historical-blockbuster mode with Red Cliff, John Woo has returned to the Asian...