The author of “The Hours” on a lifetime of moviegoing

Directed by Jean Renoir • 1939 • France

Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis' country château lays bare some ugly tr...

Directed by John Ford • 1939 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine

This is where it all started. John Ford’s smash hit and enduring masterpiece STAGECOACH revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list and establishing the genre as we know it today....

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville • 1950 • France
Starring Nicole Stéphane, Edouard Dermithe

Writer Jean Cocteau and director Jean-Pierre Melville joined forces for this elegant adaptation of Cocteau’s immensely popular, wicked novel about the wholly unholy relationship between a brother and sist...

Directed by Max Ophuls • 1955 • France, West Germany
Starring Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov

LOLA MONTÈS is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the ...

Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1955 • India
Starring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee

With the release in 1955 of Satyajit Ray’s debut, PATHER PANCHALI, an eloquent and important new cinematic voice made itself heard all over the world. A depiction of rural Bengali life in a style insp...

Directed by François Truffaut • 1962 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre

Hailed as one of the finest films ever made, JULES AND JIM charts, over twenty-five years, the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession. The legendary François Truffau...

Directed by Roman Polanski • 1962 • Poland
Starring Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz

Roman Polanski’s first feature is a brilliant psychological thriller that many critics still consider among his greatest work. The story is simple, yet the implications of its characters’ emotio...

Directed by Federico Fellini • 1963 • Italy

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand e...

Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1973 • Sweden
Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE chronicles the many years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) through matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partners. Shot in intense, i...

Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer • 1976 • United States

Meet Big and Little Edie Beale: mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, and reclusive cousins of Jackie Onassis. The two manage to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton...