Look for a Star

Feb 22, 2011 — It wasn’t intended. No one could have predicted it. But Sweet Smell of Success turned out to be a terminus where several movie genres and subgenres converged and curdled, producing a uniquely delicious perfume of everlasting cynicism. Inhale deeply. And...

Jan 24, 2011 — A character-driven tale of driven characters whose professional triangle trumps their romantic one, Broadcast News (1987) takes place after the fall of the Equal Rights Amendment and before the fall of the Berlin Wall—a time when gender wars and cold...

Jan 21, 2008 — The feminist politics of Agnès Varda’s marital drama were ahead of their time, but it is on the level of form that the film is so unsettling and calls up contradictory interpretations.

Feb 12, 2007 — Bicycle Thieves is truly one of my favorite films. I could watch it over and over again, and in truth, I have.

Nov 7, 2005 — Often appearing on lists of the ten greatest films of all time, called one of the most beautiful films ever made, or the most masterful work of Japanese cinema, Ugetsu comes to us awash in superlatives. No less acclaimed has...

Dec 9, 1990 — Michael Powell’s war thriller ranks alongside Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent as one of the two finest amalgams of suspense and propaganda to grace the big screen during the years 1939-45.

May 24, 2016 — “I always thought of musicians as being the saints of our time,” says documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker in a recent interview for the New York Times on the subject of his 1967 vérité portrait of Bob Dylan Dont Look...

Oct 7, 2013 — René Clair, Fredric March, and Veronica Lake cast sensational spells in this screwball supernatural treat.

Apr 5, 2024 — Léa Seydoux is the star of the week, and we’re also reading about Marguerite Duras, Juraj Herz, and Kinuyo Tanaka.

Feb 28, 2020 — Bong Joon-ho picks twenty directors to watch. Also in the spotlight this week are Jennie Livingston, Jerome Hiler, Dušan Makavejev, and Ritwik Ghatak.