Dec 20, 2019 — This week we’re spotlighting directors’ and writers’ appreciations of other directors and writers, plus Céline Sciamma and Agnès Varda.

Dec 11, 2012 — The climate change expert discusses how Godfrey Reggio’s films presaged widespread concern about global warming and warned about the dangers of consumerism.

Jun 2, 2014 — One Scene When I first heard about The Human Condition (1959–61), I was already familiar with director Masaki Kobayashi’s irreverent Harakiri (1962), a favorite film of mine where samurai are scum of the earth and honor is equivalent to dirt....

Aug 16, 2017 — French New Wave icon Jeanne Moreau possessed a stillness, a way of surrendering to the camera, that made her utterly unique among modern actors.

Mar 16, 2026 — Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another wins six, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners wins four.

Jun 4, 2019 — The great Hollywood portrait photographs are like close-ups that never end. Cinema is an art of faces, and the chance to gaze at them, to get lost in them, may be the deepest thrill movies offer. In the darkness of...

Feb 25, 2020 — In these times of Trumpidation, thirty years after its auspicious release, Paris Is Burning seems even more relevant than it did in early 1991, when I wrote the following for Black Film Review about Jennie Livingston’s phenomenal documentary on New...

Aug 30, 2017 — “Can there be any clearer signal of reality warping as we hurtle toward imminent apocalypse than the fact that Alexander Payne has made a life-affirming film?” asks Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. “Venice opener Downsizing takes the long road getting...

Jul 16, 2025 — Opening in New York this week, the program is heading next to Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.

Jul 2, 2019 — Father-child relationships come into focus in this week’s Short and Feature pairing on the Criterion Channel, which examines the trauma of coming of age with an emotionally unstable parent. Presented with Víctor Erice’s El Sur, Charles Williams’s All These Creatures follows...