Some auteurs have periods in their work that consist of several films in a row with persistent themes or visual techniques. Just as Picasso had a Blue Period, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s filmog...

(Note: Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Park Chan-Wook’s cinematic masterpiece, Oldboy will be released in theaters, restored and remastered in stunning 4K, on August 16. This essay is a newly edit...

The Devils is the most iconoclastic film ever released by a major Hollywood studio. Director Ken Russell’s urgent masterpiece is overwhelmingly sublime, confronting standards of representation with it...

Satirical yet earnest, ironic yet heartfelt, optimistic yet never cloying, Amy Heckerling’s Clueless is the rare teen romantic comedy that lasts because of its complexity. The writer-director imbues t...

“We are simply going to have to be prepared to operate with people who are nuts.” — President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a 1957 discussion with his cabinet about nuclear strategy.  Stanley Kubrick direc...

A Touch of Zen explores the boundaries of wuxia, a subgenre of Chinese martial-arts cinema usually rooted in notions of personal honor and chivalry. King Hu’s most acclaimed film—a three-hour epic of ...

“I love your eyes,” says a character in Strange Days. “I love the way they see.” In Kathryn Bigelow’s dystopian science-fiction film, people can literally see and feel the experiences of others. But t...

In A History of Violence, David Cronenberg peels back the skin of civilization to reveal an infection underneath. The story, about an average man with a dark secret, serves the director’s grim comment...

Foreign Correspondent is about a world caught up in the rumors, mounting tension, politicized repression, and uncertainty that preceded World War II. Alfred Hitchcock’s wartime conspiracy thriller mak...