The Call to Arms

Jun 24, 2019 — A work of rapturous energy, John Cameron Mitchell’s beloved debut feature is a freewheeling rock-and-roll musical suffused with heartbreak and pleasure.

Jul 2, 2018 — Josef von Sternberg may have been one of cinema’s original micromanagers, but his films are testaments to longstanding collaborations with brilliant artists and technicians.

Aug 12, 2015 — Director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter’s brilliant adaptation of John Fowles’s novel focuses on the experiences of women in two radically different eras.

Jul 24, 2014 — Everyday life gets a musical makeover in Jacques Demy’s tale of chance and love, a film of exquisitely sad happiness.

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.

Apr 17, 2006 — Another movie, another cause célèbre: this mysterious film by Orson Welles has been dismissed as a disaster and hailed as a masterpiece.

May 27, 2025 — A landmark of independent cinema, Charles Burnett’s debut feature captures daily life in Watts, Los Angeles, with a depth and precision that evokes the history of Black American music.

Aug 21, 2024 — This month brings a new biography of Agnès Varda, collections from Phillip Lopate and Jonathan Rosenbaum, and some hefty coffee-table accessories.

Feb 3, 2023 — This week: Jean-Luc Godard, Sara Driver, Kira Muratova, Joyce Chopra, and a new Senses of Cinema.

Mar 15, 2022 — The story of queerness in American cinema isn’t complete without the unusual case of These Three (1936) and The Children’s Hour (1961). Both films are based on Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play The Children’s Hour, inspired by an incident in which...