Before the Fall

Nov 27, 2018 — With The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles created a model of period filmmaking, lightly deploying historical signifiers while focusing on the haunting power of his actors’ faces.

Nov 26, 2018 — Even as he chronicles the downfall of an American family, Orson Welles brings a sense of buoyancy to this grim saga through his virtuoso storytelling.

Oct 1, 2018 — A breathtaking, rarely screened vérité document encapsulates the social and aesthetic sea change that transformed France in the spring of 1968.

Jul 12, 2018 — The French director’s English-language debut and first science fiction film is one of the first seven films selected to compete in San Sebastián.

Jun 1, 2017 — By turns gritty and lyrical, this portrait of the Syria-Turkey border brings together two pioneers of Turkish cinema.

Sep 28, 2016 — “King of the Nudies” Russ Meyer injects his transgressive exuberance into this big-studio send-up of Hollywood debauchery.

Sep 13, 2016 — Kenji Mizoguchi achieved the sublime with this structurally complex portrait of artistic ambition and female subjugation.

Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.

May 24, 2016 — In The Player, Robert Altman’s early nineties comeback film, the director brilliantly skewers Hollywood—getting all the details right, as only he could—while constructing his own kind of Hollywood Movie.

Mar 25, 2014 — Silent comedy superstar Harold Lloyd played big dreamers; few were more determined to succeed than the college football player Harold Lamb.