If I Were a Spy

Jun 25, 2015 — German director Bernhard Wicki proved his uncommon cinematic skill with his heartbreaking tale of teen soldiers sent off to die near the end of World War II.

May 5, 2009 — Every second of David Fincher’s uncanny drama—every shot and every cut, every gesture and every facial expression, every turn in its narrative and every visual effect—is devoted to the contemplation of time’s passing.

Oct 21, 2002 — The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of the great works of art in the history of film, and yet, except for some recent television screenings, this British production is largely unknown in the United States. This is...

Oct 24, 2005 — The hero in Masahiro Shinoda’s popular samurai movie is both a genre figure and an ordinary character, both killer and savior, both larger than life and lost in the mists.

Dec 18, 2020 — From Marlene Dietrich to Tsai Ming-liang, it’s a varied and wide-ranging bunch this week.

Sep 19, 2019 — Reteaming with Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish star delivers a performance all the more powerful for its restraint.

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.

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:...

Oct 23, 2018 — Brian De Palma found his home in the psychological thriller with this chilling tale of murder, which twists genre conventions to investigate the perils of looking and the pitfalls of subjectivity.

Feb 27, 2018 — “Orson Welles, a boy from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was one of the most audacious Shakespearians who ever lived,” writes Robert Horton. “He recited soliloquies as a child, wrote a book on the plays as a teenager, and at age seventeen roamed...