The Stories

Dec 20, 2019 — The following account was scratched together in August 1990, when Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World was still taking shape in the editing room. Apart from a basic rinse of copy editing, I’m offering it up essentially as is,...

Jul 5, 2019 — This week, we look back on the making of If...., black filmmakers in the 1990s, and the golden age of Mexican cinema.

May 10, 2018 — The followup to Mrs. Fang is an oral history of China’s “Anti-Rightist Campaign” in the late 1950s.

Nov 13, 2017 — Two of the most lucrative franchises in the history of franchises are being revamped, one for theaters, the other for home screens. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson [above] has been set by Disney and Lucasfilm to write...

Aug 2, 2017 — Writer-director Michael Almereyda spoke with us about his two latest films and the passions that continue to fuel his creative life.

Oct 19, 2015 — Last week, Joel and Ethan Coen accompanied T Bone to Criterion to talk about the music on Inside Llewyn Davis.

Nov 27, 2008 — An enormous welter of insoluble problems is on display in Luis Buñuel’s classic—the ending solves nothing; the story just begins again.

May 22, 2006 — Luis Buñuel’s merciless satire concerns the smallness of our vision of progress and our narrow attempts to achieve it through rational or moralistic planning.

Aug 25, 2025 — In such provocative delights as Jamón jamón and Golden Balls, one of Spain’s most original directors celebrates the sensual pleasures of food and sex while capturing the rapid changes his country experienced at the turn of the millennium.

Aug 19, 2025 — Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece captures the indifference and hostility of the adult world through the eyes of two young boys who share a bond stronger than that of family.