The Criterion Collection
Sep 22, 2008 — With their rotating casts of sourpuss Finns and their stringent compositions, Aki Kaurismäki’s films would seem the least likely candidates for laughs, yet his black-comic precision has made him one of the most warmly embraced filmmakers on the international art-house...
The Daily
Mar 31, 2025 — The first five days of New Directors/New Films, the showcase of new talent copresented by FLC and MoMA, are packed.
Short Takes
Oct 22, 2009 — The eighty-one-year-old Ennio Morricone has been composing hypnotic music for film since the early 1960s, for projects ranging from spaghetti westerns (his whistling, woodwindy five-note theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of the most recognizable...
Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...
Mar 31, 2026 — Claude Lelouch’s Palme d’Or–winning breakout hit combines elements of a classic Hollywood love story with dynamic photography, an edgy editing style, and a naturalistic sense of character and location.
Nov 13, 2018 — Turning to theater for inspiration, Kenji Mizoguchi transformed a popular eighteenth-century play into a spiritually charged meditation on forbidden love and societal oppression.
Oct 9, 2018 — In a world vulnerable to authoritarianism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s television epic stands as an example of how an artist can speak to a broad audience about revolutionary politics.
Feb 25, 2013 — When an ethnographic filmmaker and a sociologist joined forces, they helped change the course of nonfiction cinema.
Jan 22, 2026 — Ryan Coogler’s genre mashup now leads what has become a genuine race.
Aug 28, 2024 — United by a meditative approach that captures the spiritual bounty of the natural landscape and the tolls of physical labor, this Mexican director’s films challenge stereotypical depictions of his country’s rural communities.