The Criterion Collection
May 26, 2017 — Let’s take a quick break from the Cannes Film Festival to make note of a bit of reading we might take into the holiday weekend. There’ll be much more in a roundup to come, but for now, this entry will...
May 19, 2014 — As in his other films, the world of Abbas Kiarostami’s latest is one of simulation, not-quite-realness, and unexpected tenderness.
Sep 4, 2012 — Umberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. Critics today tend to like the astringent parts: the long, deliberately undramatic sequences full of mundane activity (such as a housemaid’s morning...
Mar 28, 2011 — Topsy-Turvy is both an anomaly among the films of Mike Leigh and, contrary as it may seem, a Rosetta stone. On the one hand, it is Leigh’s only costume picture and only biopic—a far cry from the bittersweet, realistic films...
Aug 14, 2006 — “Some people think rohmer is in league with the devil,” wrote cinematographer Nestor Almendros in his book of autobiographical reflections on the cinema, A Man with a Camera. He was describing his working experience on My Night at Maud’s (1969)....
May 20, 2025 — A film about and against everything, this astonishingly original comedy attacks Big Brother, the bomb, and the incipient collapse of our planetary ecosystem, along with the lies that stop us from recognizing all of the above.
May 21, 2021 — Known for her resilient heroines, the prolific Japanese actor finds agency through moments of hesitation in one of her seventeen collaborations with Mikio Naruse.
On the Channel
May 3, 2018 — Two of the earliest films to depict the bombing of Hiroshima show how politics shapes national mourning.
Apr 8, 2016 — Ten years ago, with the release of his debut film Reprise, a spirited drama about two young aspiring novelists, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier emerged as one of the most interesting new voices in European cinema.
Dec 13, 2011 — Seijun Suzuki’s delirious, absurdist deconstruction of the crime genre is the strangest film the director made at Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest film company.