It’s a Free World

Feb 16, 2024 — This week brings fresh writing on Edward Yang and David Cronenberg, a talk with Wim Wenders, and a bundle of lists.

Jun 7, 2023 — Here’s a quick guide to filmmaker profiles and critics’ recommendations.

May 31, 2017 — New Taiwan Cinema master Edward Yang’s sophomore feature explores the conflict between tradition and modernity reflected in a relationship on the rocks.

Jun 12, 2026 — We’re hunkering down with an oral history of Steven Spielberg and reading about Mary Harron, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Radu Jude, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Sep 21, 2021 — Johnnie To pays homage to Akira Kurosawa in this martial arts drama about the virtue of struggle and self-improvement.

Oct 20, 2020 — Despite the preponderance of tales of coming of age and sexual awakening in American independent cinema, it’s still rare to encounter a movie that deals with experiences of intimacy between young LGBT characters in a way that feels honest, candid,...

Feb 18, 2018 — “Nymphetmania has a long and hoary pedigree in Hollywood, and flourished years before Nabokov gave us the Lolita syndrome,” writes Molly Haskell in the Guardian. “D. W. Griffith’s child-woman ingénues such as Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh were ‘pseudo-nymphets’ (critic...

Feb 1, 2011 — This essay was originally published in the booklet accompanying the 2006 DVD release of The Double Life of Véronique. A new life experience is in the air today, a perception that explodes the form of the linear narrative and renders...

Oct 4, 2004 — Jack tanner, perhaps the most logically consistent presidential candidate ever to grace our fair nation’s airwaves, is blown in the bottle. Like a genie granting the wishes of all who fear that our fledging democracy is on the brink of...

Apr 22, 2022 — Cannes tops off its lineup, and we’re reading about Rivette, Resnais—and more.