“Isn’t it obvious?” The question, volleyed by a PHD student at her trusted mentor, hangs in the air of a darkly lit stairwell as the…
Radu Jude is aiming for nothing less than the grand finale of vampire movies with his Dracula, and as a Romanian, why shouldn’t he lay…
Desolate, grim, and hopelessly introverted, The Boss’s album Nebraska captures a slice of America that’s as caustic and fresh today as it was in 1981.…
The bees are dying. That’s bad news for all of us, but for Teddy (Jesse Plemons), the apiarist at the center of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia,…
An 11-minute standing ovation at Cannes can’t be called a total disaster. Nevertheless, Alpha arrived at the 2025 London Film Festival trailing a, shall we…
Based on the life of acclaimed 20th century lyricist Lorenz Hart, Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon has as much in common with one of the filmmaker’s…
Despite its almost apologetic title, the latest feature from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi bears a highly incendiary load. Not quite a call to arms against…
In his 1998 monograph on gay male identification with the Broadway musical, Place for Us: Essay on the American Musical, D.A. Miller identifies the archetypal…
Raoul Peck’s latest documentary certainly has timeliness going for it. There is of course a rise of authoritarianism around the world, a set of schemes…
Of Kelly Reichardt’s many talents behind the camera, historically, she is not a filmmaker you would refer to as “a trickster” — there is little…
In the last 10 or 15 years, the micro-universe that we call the experimental film world has made a decisive shift toward a form of…
How refreshing it is to see a debut film. Movies by established directors, even directors one likes, carry the burden of expectation. “Every movie is…
Benny Safdie, formerly of the eponymous directing team the Safdie brothers, makes his solo feature-directing debut with The Smashing Machine, and at a glance, the filmmaker…
Toward the beginning of Jay-Z’s “The Story of O.J.,” the rapper-cum-boardroom fixture adlibs a lament about a missed opportunity in real estate. “I coulda bought…
“We learned punk rock in Hollywood.” – Minutemen Film culture feels at times like it’s reached a dead end in the Letterboxd generation, cinephilia no…
In Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey two attractive yet emotionally wounded people take a magical mystery tour of their complicated pasts, traversing space, time,…
For the most part, the documentaries that have made Gianfranco Rosi’s reputation have a firm basis in geography. Sacro GRA (2013) explored life in Rome…
In Neo Sora’s Happyend, Tokyo — indeed, all of Japan — is preparing itself for a 100-year earthquake. The mood of the film’s opening scene,…
Comedies don’t get more uproarious than This Is Spinal Tap. The 1984 rockumentary has transcended its modest origins and settled into cinematic Hall of Fame…
It’s been a while since the world has been treated to a new Hal Hartley film. The writer/director’s career, which kicked off with 1989’s The…