In the aftermath of World War II, Britain cultivated its own form of film noir with a distinctly English accent. Marked by fatalistic wit, visual lyricism, and a pronounced concern for working-class lives, British crime dramas reflected an era of turbulent change, as generational and class confli...

As the daughter of two legendary film artists, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, Isabella Rossellini grew up immersed in cinema before making her own indelible mark on the medium through her brilliant performances for auteurs like David Lynch and Guy Maddin and her own acclaimed projects lik...

A founder of Italian neorealism, Roberto Rossellini brought to filmmaking a documentary-like authenticity and philosophical stringency that changed the course of film history. Rossellini broke out with ROME OPEN CITY, a shattering and vivid chronicle of the Nazi occupation of Italy’s capital, fol...

Born one hundred years ago this month, Japanese New Wave renegade Seijun Suzuki combined a deliriously inventive approach to filmmaking and a fast-and-loose attitude toward genre expectations to make some of the most thrillingly stylish movies of all time, frequently transcending narrative logic ...

The comedian and actor presents a selection of his favorite films, and talks about watching movies with his dad, fart jokes in Ozu pictures, and why Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING is hilarious. Be warned—some introductions contain plot spoilers!

As she reaches new heights of acclaim for her dazzling, Oscar-nominated performance in the breakout smash EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, now is the perfect time to revisit the sensational career of Michelle Yeoh. Before conquering Hollywood, the Malaysian-born actor established herself as one...

One hundred years ago, Harold Lloyd gave the movies one of their most meme-able moments—the anxious, thrilling, clock-hanging climax of SAFETY LAST!, a film that still stands as a high-water mark of slapstick invention. Though often overlooked in favor of his more famous silent-clown contemporari...

With the indelibly disturbing nightmares HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR, Ari Aster has already established himself as one of twenty-first-century cinema’s most audacious auteurs. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Aster sits down to discuss the unforgettable films that have shaped his life an...

Seemingly ageless even as she turns seventy this March, the incomparable French actor Isabelle Huppert is something of a paradox: an enigma who lives in front of the camera, inviting our gaze while maintaining a sense of deep, unknowable mystery. Specializing in portrayals of complex women who tr...

One of the key, unsung visionaries of the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s and early ’70s, Ester Krumbachová left an indelible imprint on some of the movement’s defining films—including A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS, DAISIES, and VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS—through her inimitable work as...

In the 1960s, filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic spilled into the streets in search of cinematic truth, armed with lightweight cameras that allowed for an unprecedented level of intimacy and liberated documentary from the conventions of voice-over narration and talking-head interviews. Toda...

In the seventeen years between his first two theatrical features (1971’s BLEAK MOMENTS and 1988’s HIGH HOPES), Mike Leigh, the great humanist of British cinema, sharpened his distinctive voice and famously improvisatory process at the BBC, where he directed a string of striking, bittersweet slice...

Long before he became one of the most renowned artists in world cinema, the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami began his cinematic career at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (a.k.a. Kanoon) in Tehran, where he honed his distinctive style and themes and...

Once every decade, “Sight and Sound” magazine has polled film critics from around the world and issued a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. Ever since the first poll in 1952, the “Sight and Sound” list has played a central role in film culture, sending movie lovers on obsessive viewing q...

Alongside its legendary once-a-decade critics’ poll, “Sight and Sound” magazine conducts a parallel survey of filmmakers to produce a collective list of the 100 greatest films of all time. 2022’s edition polled 480 directors, producing a selection that includes many surprises not present on the c...

Anchoring both high-profile blockbusters like the CREED and THOR franchises and acclaimed, adventurous indies like SORRY TO BOTHER YOU and PASSING, actor and producer Tessa Thompson has emerged as one of the most intriguing and versatile performers of her generation. In this edition of Adventures...

The man who gave the world Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and more, Ishiro Honda was the wizard behind the Japanese monster-movie (kaiju eiga) craze that thrilled legions of international fans in the 1950s and ’60s. Turning the trauma of nuclear attack into larger-than-life pop spectacle, Honda created...

Reality and fantasy, dreams and memories flow freely into one another in the haunting, layered works of iconoclastic auteur Carlos Saura, arguably the most important Spanish filmmaker to emerge between Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar. Achieving international renown during the repressive years of ...

At the vanguard of international filmmaking for six decades, French New Wave titan Jean-Luc Godard exerted an incalculable influence on modern cinema that refuses to wane. With his groundbreaking 1960 debut feature, BREATHLESS, Godard merged elements of high and low culture with an anything-goes ...

There was cinema before the French New Wave, and there was cinema after. The explosion of creative innovation that emanated from France in the late 1950s and early ’60s forever altered the course of film history by opening up new avenues of stylistic experimentation and trumpeting the concept of ...

Of the myriad cinematic revolutions that swept the globe in the 1950s and ’60s, the British New Wave stood out for the raw immediacy and intense realism with which it rendered working-class lives and experiences. Emerging alongside the “angry young men” of England’s literary scene, filmmakers lik...

No actress represents the golden age of Japanese cinema more fully than Setsuko Hara, whose radiant, compassionate presence made her nothing less than the living symbol of the changing role of women in Japanese society. Beginning her career at age fifteen, she appeared in more than one hundred fi...

The thinking man’s movie star, Ethan Hawke has moved seamlessly between mainstream hits and acclaimed passion projects for directors such as Richard Linklater and Paul Schrader ever since breaking into Hollywood at age fourteen, garnering Academy Award nominations for both acting and screenwritin...