Both a consummate popular entertainer and an auteur so distinctive he inspired his own adjective, Howard Hawks built his movies around an exuberant, loose-limbed spirit of collaboration and improvisation, driven by the sparky banter and freewheeling interplay of charismatic stars at their best. I...

When relatives get together, anything can happen. This collection brings together all-too-relatable family portraits that capture the dysfunction, tenderness, and hilarity of holidays, weddings, feasts, and homecomings both joyous and maddening. From the somber poignancy of John Huston’s masterfu...

An artistic renegade every bit as uncompromising, fearless, and eccentric as the outsiders, oddballs, and obsessives he makes films about, Werner Herzog is a larger-than-life legend who has risked death, hypnotized an entire cast, moved a steamship over a mountain, and eaten his own shoe, all in ...

Few musicians have reshaped the sonic texture of contemporary cinema as profoundly as Trent Reznor, whose atmospheric, synth-driven soundtracks—often composed in collaboration with Atticus Ross—bristle with unease and eerie beauty. With his early contributions to Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLE...

As his Palme d’Or–winning latest IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT comes to theaters this fall, revisit the vital, self-reflexive, slyly perceptive films of the brilliant Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, whose every work is an act of resistance. In his first two films, the neorealist revelations THE WHITE BALL...

Among the most agonizingly intense films in the history of film noir are those that adopt the point of view of characters tormented by amnesia, memory holes, and drunken blackouts, leaving them to grasp in the dark in search of an often terrifying truth. Waking up unexpectedly in a stranger’s bed...

Since the birth of cinema, Indigenous people have been staple subjects of documentary—until a new generation of Native American filmmakers emerged in the 1980s who insisted on becoming its authors too. Forged in the social upheavals of the midtwentieth century and abetted by the emergence of acce...

In a career studded with acclaimed collaborations with auteurs like the Coen brothers, Denis Villeneuve, and Gus Van Sant, Josh Brolin has brought a rugged grit and grounded authenticity to his committed portrayals of complex, conflicted antiheroes. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Br...

Fiercely independent voices in American cinema, Rob Nilsson and John Hanson make films that capture the grit and resistance of ordinary Americans on the front lines of class struggle. Through their groundbreaking dramatic feature NORTHERN LIGHTS and the revelatory documentary shorts known as the ...

Graced with warmth, sensitivity, and indelible, richly realized characters, the films of Nancy Savoca eloquently evoke the inner worlds of women who challenge patriarchal norms in their quests to define themselves. Both built around luminous performances from Lili Taylor as young women on complex...

A living legend of Indian cinema, Adoor Gopalakrishnan is a major auteur whose psychologically penetrating films often take the form of parables or enigmas exploring the relationship between the individual and society—in particular the conditions of life in his home state of Kerala. Taking inspir...

In the last decade, Vicky Krieps has quietly emerged as one of contemporary cinema’s most compelling actors, a luminous presence capable of navigating the most delicate emotional terrain with precision and depth. With her breakthrough role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD, Krieps more tha...

The first decade of the early 2000s saw a chilling resurgence of horror cinema, with a wave of low-budget films proving that atmosphere, imagination, and thematic intelligence could produce profound dread with the most minimal of resources. Featuring unsettling new takes on the classic haunted-ho...

With their intricately choreographed bullet play, supercharged emotion, and hard-hitting themes of loyalty and honor in the criminal underworld, the films of John Woo jolted Hong Kong action cinema to new life. With his breakthrough, A BETTER TOMORROW, Woo set the standard for what would become k...

Transformation, infection, contagion, and mutation run rampant in these fleshy nightmares that render the human form unstable, uncanny, and sublimely grotesque. While David Cronenberg established himself as the reigning king of body horror with gloriously gooey, thematically provocative cult favo...

A master at turning B-movie premises into dazzlingly artful nightmares, horror legend John Carpenter mixes pulse-pounding thrills and subversive social commentary into some of the smartest, most stylish, and electrifying genre films of all time. From the atmospheric terror of THE FOG and CHRISTIN...

A true trailblazer of independent cinema, Charles Burnett has brought images of Black American life to the screen with authenticity, empathy, and stirring poetry. Bringing together landmarks like KILLER OF SHEEP and TO SLEEP WITH ANGER, lesser-known gems such as THE GLASS SHIELD and THE ANNIHILAT...

A master of cinematic spectacle whose genre-bending films incorporate sumptuous period detail, exhilarating fantasy, martial-arts mayhem, and theatrical artifice, Hong Kong cinema titan Tsui Hark dazzles viewers with his colorful, richly imagined worlds drawn from myth and legend. Whether blendin...

Dreamlike, hauntingly atmospheric visions of sex, blood, and existential ennui, the poetic-erotic fantasies of French art-horror master Jean Rollin exist on a hypnotic wavelength all their own. Frequently employing the figure of the female, often lesbian, vampire as a vessel for Rollin’s symbol-l...

When the feverishly over-the-top imagination of Hong Kong genre cinema meets the supernatural, anything can happen. Featuring hopping vampires (ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND, MR. VAMPIRE), demonic felines (EVIL CAT), seductive ghosts (A CHINESE GHOST STORY), and all manner of otherworldly mischie...

Few filmmakers have forged a voice as singular and uncategorizable as that of Ukrainian iconoclast Kira Muratova. Working on the margins of Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, she withstood decades of censorship to realize her uncompromising vision in fascinatingly fragmented, expressionistically heig...

At its peak in the 1980s and early ’90s, the Hong Kong film industry was unmatched when it came to action spectacle, offering up dazzlingly choreographed, operatically stylized thrill rides that electrified genre fans around the world. From the bullet-riddled underworld odysseys of John Woo (A BE...

Edward Yang made films on a monumental scale, bringing novelistic depth to sprawling stories of human connection, alienation, and self-discovery set in a rapidly changing Taiwan. Capturing intricate webs of criss-crossing social relationships with his masterful long takes, Yang’s films—including ...

Vivid, stirring portraits of San Francisco’s gay life and psychedelic counterculture, these documentaries from director David Weissman—made in collaboration with Bill Weber—tell essential stories of queer community, creativity, and resilience. A joyous celebration of the eponymous gender-bending ...