The Last Stage

Sep 29, 2003 — Fassbinder had long dreamed of a “German Hollywood film.” He sought not only success with the audience, but also professionalism. The auteur film in its purest form is an attempt to abolish the division of labor: the filmmaker represents in...

Apr 2, 2019 — Mike Leigh’s endless fascination with human behavior is palpable in every one of the films he’s made over the course of his nearly fifty-year career. With an acute sensitivity to rhythm, character, and setting, he extracts extraordinary moments from the...

Jun 30, 2008 — The idea of self-fashioning—of deliberately taking the raw materials of one’s body and mind and transforming them into a work of art—has been with us at least since the Renaissance. Yet no one, not even Oscar Wilde, has so rigorously...

Apr 30, 2024 — Jacques Rivette, Marguerite Duras, and Luis Buñuel—more than thirty features and shorts will screen in the monthlong series.

Dec 13, 2022 — A pioneering feminist artist drawn to universal themes, the Swedish director mined the complexity and humor of human behavior in films that courted controversy and cultivated a sense of detachment.

Sep 3, 2021 — Faya Dayi opens, Sight & Sound revives the Black Film Bulletin, and Tsai Ming-liang and Tony Leung Chiu Wai look back—and ahead.

Feb 26, 2021 — There would be no Indonesian cinema without Usmar Ismail (1921–71). His third feature, The Long March (Darah dan doa, 1950), was not only the first film to be produced by a fully Indonesian crew and production company but also one...

Jan 16, 2013 — Both sparkling and suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock’s benchmark thriller is the perfect getaway, and it set the scene for much of the master’s later work.

Nov 20, 2023 — This month brings new books on Godard and Bergman, novelists moonlighting as film critics, and biographies of Lena Horne and Elizabeth Taylor.

Apr 14, 2023 — This week: Interviews with Rob Tregenza and Ari Aster and new writing on Lubitsch, Jarmusch, and Laura Citarella.