And While We Were Here

Jul 6, 2026 — Karlovy Vary hosts the world premiere of a new restoration of the Czech director’s 1988 tragicomedy.

May 19, 2026 — Elevator doors open onto a warehouse floor bathed in red light, high above downtown Manhattan in early May 2024. Exposed concrete and visible ductwork frame a room where artists in green aprons, cosplaying as waiters, circulate among guests in suits...

Apr 28, 2026 — As the 1950s began, Kinuyo Tanaka found herself at a turning point. She had been acting in films since she was fourteen, becoming one of Japan’s most beloved, admired, and prolific women stars. Now in her early forties, she saw...

Apr 17, 2026 — From a distance—looking down, say, from a penthouse office in a glass-paned downtown skyscraper—the U.S. economy of the 1990s and early 2000s could feel almost boring. Between Black Monday in 1987 and the Global Financial Crisis twenty years later, growth...

Jun 26, 2025 — One of the defining independent films of its era, François Girard’s provocatively splintered portrait of the great pianist finds playful ways of toying with the cultural mythologization of its subject.

Oct 29, 2024 — From Kaneto Shindo to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the masters of the genre over the past half-century have tapped into a deep well of cultural anxiety, exploring everything from the sins of their nation’s feudal past to the dangers of new technologies.

Mar 8, 2024 — This week calls for notes on some of the best writing on each of the ten nominees for Best Picture.

Dec 12, 2023 — In the history of cinema, French director Albert Lamorisse is a unique figure. His intense focus on three subjects—children, animals, and flight—is distinctive, and the fact that all of his works clock in under ninety minutes (and most under an...

Nov 21, 2023 — What stuck with me most after watching La cérémonie (1995) for the first time was the chewing gum.It’s not the scene most often cited in discussions of this late-career classic from French thriller master Claude Chabrol. Don’t get me wrong:...

Sep 19, 2023 — Franz Kafka’s The Trial, the unfinished tale of a man living under arrest and prosecution for an unspecified offense, is perhaps the iconic author’s most paradigmatic text. Following its posthumous publication in 1925, and its translation into English by Willa...