Mark Danner has reported on war and politics for three decades, from Central America to Bosnia to Iraq. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bard College and is the author of The Massacre at El Mozote, Torture...

Feb 1, 2022 — Douglas Sirk’s 1956 masterpiece is a visceral tragedy that lays bare the spiritual malaise of the ruling class.

Nov 17, 2021 — Decades after Peter Lorre’s knife-toting creep Hans Beckert prowled the Berlin streets in search of little girls in Fritz Lang’s M (1931); after Robert Mitchum’s silver-tongued Harry Powell cut down all the “smooth and curly-haired things” he could get his...

Mar 24, 2026 — In this true-crime epic, Martin Scorsese combines his career-long exploration of amoral gangsterism with a sobering meditation on what it means to live on American soil.

Oct 21, 2025 — Set in a postcard-perfect American town, David Cronenberg’s provocative take on the old-fashioned crime thriller examines the pleasure we derive from cinematic violence and the construction of patriarchal impunity.

Mar 15, 2024 — Brussels celebrates Chantal Akerman, Hirokazu Kore-eda remembers Ryuichi Sakamoto, and there are some intriguing projects in the works.

Mar 16, 2022 — The dark shadow of Putin’s war hangs over much of this year’s program.

Sep 29, 2021 — Luchino Visconti’s scandalous antifascist melodrama envisions the liquidation of desire with expressionistic panache.

Jan 6, 2021 — “Of the various insects that like to make their home in our houses, certainly the most interesting, for her beautiful shape, her curious manners, and her wonderful nest, is a certain Wasp called the Pelopaeus. She is very little known,...

Sep 11, 2020 — As Toronto opens, here’s an overview of early critical response to some of the festival’s titles arriving directly from their premieres in Venice.