The Way to the Heart

Aug 11, 2008 — Every Guy Maddin movie creates the illusion of a secret history. His willfully primitive cut-rate spectacles seem like artifacts, reanimated bits of cultural detritus, but also like hauntings, the return of the cinematic repressed. From the start, Maddin’s sensibility was...

May 12, 2008 — Today it may be hard to understand the shock waves that Louis Malle’s romantic drama created with its “frank” depiction of a woman’s sexual pleasure, but in the context of late-1950s France, it was a bombshell.

Mar 12, 2001 — This first-rate action thriller by Michael Bay is a triumph of style, tone, and energy.

Jun 26, 2000 — Kevin Smith writes about his third feature as a sort of penance/valentine for the woman who made him grow up.

Apr 9, 1990 — Few motion pictures have ever matched the 1938 Warner Bros. production of The Adventures of Robin Hood for sheer entertainment. Even today this film ranks high on any list of all-time favorites. Warner Bros. first considered filming The Adventures of...

Jul 24, 2026 — Names on our minds this week: Mike Mills, Jean Renoir, Ronee Blakley, and Luchino Visconti.

Mar 13, 2026 — SXSW opens, Another Gaze returns, and Juliette Binoche is on tour with her directorial debut.

Feb 5, 2026 — In a collection of behind-the-scenes documentaries now playing on the Criterion Channel, legendary female performers assert their agency over their screen personae and find freedom in the glamour and artifice of their profession.

Oct 24, 2025 — It is hard to conceive of a film more dazzlingly, dizzyingly divided against itself—or one more appropriately so—than this delirious creation of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and director Ken Russell.

Apr 22, 2025 — Adaptations, Hollywood histories, and Satyajit Ray’s cover designs feature in this month’s roundup.