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Movies encompass the length and breadth of the human experience, making any Best Of list hopelessly subjective. Comparing, say, The Silence of the Lambs to Fantasia to determine which is "better" actively insults both movies. Similarly, scholarly lists — like the British Film Institute's once-a-decade model which sets the pace on this front — tend to overlook "base" genres like horror and comedy, which often prove more influential. If a reader isn't already inclined to seek arthouse fare like The 400 Blows or The Passion of Joan of Arc, their inclusion in a given list means very little.

Influential films, however, can be measured a little more objectively, as well as encompassing popular movies that find the sweet spot between art and commerce. While it can be difficult to separate the true game-changers from the flashes in the pan, time has a way of revealing. Below is a list of the greatest films — subjective,...

From Agatha to Elphaba, it’s been a season of witches on film and television. But whatever charms witches conjure in the narratives that entertain us, the Mubi documentary “Witches” shows how ideas about too powerful, too magical women have variously defined and reinforced the contradictions of femininity; and yet also helped women make sense of themselves.

Director Elizabeth Sankey does this using the medium of film itself, telling her own story of a post-partum depression severe enough to require psychiatric treatment through speaking directly to camera, through talking-head interviews with friends and experts alike, and through an archive’s worth of relevant film clips. The more montages Sankey weaves together of girls, mothers, psychiatric patients, and, of course, witches, the easier it is for us to see how our media archetypes cast a spell that can settle deep into our bones.

The process of pulling footage and organizing the...

The New York Choral Society chorus member Craig Schoenbaum with music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman on Richard Einhorn’s oratorio Voices of Light and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc: “It’s intense.”

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent film La Passion De Jeanne d'Arc, shot by Rudolph Maté and starring Renée Falconetti with Eugène Silvai, André Berley, Maurice Schutz, Antonin Artaud, Michel Simon, Jean d’Yd, and Louis Ravet is a cinematic masterpiece, based on transcripts of Joan of Arc’s actual trial. With a fascinating history of lost prints and numerous edits, the film still speaks to us about faith, calling, and the divine, as they clash with deception, corruption, and power.

Craig Schoenbaum with Ed Bahlman and Anne-Katrin Titze on Music Director and Conductor David Hayes: “You want to be prepared, you want to go there prepared when you're doing it with this guy.

“I thought I would have a strategy,” said Anna Kendrick as she peered around thousands of classic cinematic treasures. “And now that I’m here, I don’t. But that’s okay. Sometimes great things happen when you don’t have a great plan.”

So begins Kendrick’s venture into the beloved Criterion Closet. The Academy-Award nominated actress and now director took a stop by Criterion’s offices in New York while promoting her recently released Netflix film, “Woman of the Hour,” and found herself throwing plans out the window, instead letting her experience be driven by chance. Having a musical background herself, Kendrick started with a classic in the genre, Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical “All That Jazz.”

“You always want to say that you saw all these movies, like, at least a decade ago, right? But I just saw this a few years ago,” said Kendrick. “‘All That Jazz.

An announcement of a new major film may indicate that Jenna Ortega can get her dream role fulfilled. Ortega's career has seen a meteoric rise in recent years. Though she has been acting for a while, beginning her career on Disney Channel and more, the 2022 Netflix series Wednesday really boosted the actor's career, making her a more household name. In addition, the actor has also fashioned herself a horror scream queen, contributing her talents to projects like X and the Scream reboot.

As Wednesday season 2 continues developing, Ortega continues to be a strong working actor. This year, she starred in the Tim Burton sequel film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which has become immensely successful at the box office. As more and more of the actor's films and TV shows become popular, the rising star will have more and more of her pick at high-caliber projects. With one major movie announcement recently,...

Elvis director Baz Luhrmann is officially reuniting with Warner Bros. for his next film: an epic retelling of real-life French heroine Joan of Arc. Though the project is still in its early stages, a casting call was sent out earlier today for the eponymous protagonist a young girl transformed into a national icon due to her incredible resilience and determination in the face of the Hundred Years' War.

While celebrating his 62nd birthday, Luhrmann revealed his intention to tackle the extraordinary French epic an announcement initially disclosed by Deadline, and later confirmed by Warner Bros. The film has two potential titles, either Jehanne or Jehanne d'Arc, and will tell "the ultimate teenage girl coming of age story, set in the Hundred Years' War." Reportedly in the midst of his creative process, Luhrmann has declined to share further details about the project, but given that the casting process has already begun,...

Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann will direct a new movie telling the story of Joan of Arc. Warner Bros. Discovery approved the project, called “Jehanne d’Arc.” It will focus on the life of the French heroine who helped lead military forces at a young age.

Luhrmann wants to show Joan of Arc’s perspective as a teenage girl during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. The long conflict between the two countries formed the backdrop for her actions. Casting agents are looking for a young actress to portray Joan of Arc, who began her military efforts as a teenager.

Luhrmann is known for epic historical films like “Australia” and his most recent movie “Elvis.” Starring Austin Butler, “Elvis” was critically acclaimed and earned over $288 million worldwide. Rising actress Jenna Ortega expressed interest in the role and said Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” is one of her favorites.

Baz Luhrmann has officially confirmed his next film: an epic about Joan of Arc.

The auteur is reuniting with Warner Bros. after 2022’s “Elvis” for the upcoming feature centered on the real-life French woman who believed she was divinely led to captain an army during the Hundred Years’ War. The feature is slated to be titled either “Jehanne” or “Jehanne d’Arc.”

Deadline first reported the news, which IndieWire has confirmed. Warner Bros. had no comment.

“Jehanne d’Arc” will cast a young woman in “the ultimate teenage girl coming of age story, set in the Hundred Years’ War,” as the casting announcement read in Deadline.

Interestingly enough, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” star Jenna Ortega recently told Letterboxd that Joan of Arc is among her dream roles. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is also a Warner Bros. film.

Ortega selected “The Passion of Joan of Arc” among her four favorite films. “Renée Falconetti’s performance in that is absolutely insane,...

Someone needs to get Chappell Roan on the phone Asap. What did she know, and when did she know it? Just six days ago, the ascendant star charged onto the VMA stage in full Joan of Arc regalia for a fiery performance of "Good Luck, Babe!" complete with flaming arrows and armored dancers.

You know that Wednesday is one of the hottest television shows right now, and it is that series that helped launch a young actress’ career into orbit. Today, Jenna Ortega is, without a doubt, one of the most popular and influential actresses in Hollywood. Thanks to the acclaimed yet quirky interpretation of Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s hit series, Ortega is now a young voice with a lot of influence.

While some people are worried that Jenna Ortega is being typecast, as her recent roles have been very similar, she is pursuing her own path and pushing the boundaries of what she can do, and it seems that it is working for her.

In a recent interview as part of the promotion of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Jenna Ortega revealed some of her favorite performances of all time, and she also revealed the major role she would like to take on at one point.

Election season is in the air and Turner Classic Movies is here to celebrate. Starting on September 6 and continuing every Friday up until this year’s general election, TCM will be running a nine-week limited series entitled “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” This cinematic showcase is inspired by The New Republic rankings released in June 2023 and includes selections such as “All the King’s Men,” “Germany, Year Zero,” and “High and Low.”

To introduce the upcoming series, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz took to Washington D.C. for a trailer highlighting some of the films featured, as well as special guests like Stacey Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and John Turturro.

“I grew up here in Washington D.C.,” Mankiewicz said, the Capitol Building behind him. “My father’s life was politics — capital P politics. Though I went in a different direction, I understood at an early age,...

In the run-up to Election Day, TCM is going after the movie lovers’ popular vote by showing 50 films over nine successive Fridays under the banner Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.

The series runs Sept. 6 to Nov. 1 — four days before America votes for its next president — and features TCM host Ben Mankiewicz in conversation with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Lee Grant, Sally Field, Andy Garcia, Melissa Etheridge, John Turturro, Bill Maher, Alexander Payne, Diane Lane, Josh Mankiewicz, Barry Levinson, Maureen Dowd, Stacey Abrams and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Watch the trailer here.

Making Change showcases half of the movies unveiled by The New Republic in the rankings it released in June 2023. The films on TCM span the years 1915 to 2016 (from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro); the whole thing kicks off with the No.

Most audience members probably haven't sat down to watch a film and thought, "Wow, imagine if this film weren't here anymore." Sadly, that can be the case, particularly with older films. The Mountain Eagle, the second film Alfred Hitchcock made, has been lost to the scourge of time. So, too, has The Patriot, an Ernst Lubitsch film from 1928 that was nominated for Best Picture. The most famous example is Jerry Lewis' 1972 Holocaust film The Day the Clown Cried, unseen by audiences not by luck but because Lewis was ashamed of his work and refused to let the film see the light of day. Then, there are films presumed lost but that have eventually been found. Carl Theodor Dreyer's totemic The Passion of Joan of Arc of 1928 was an incomplete film until a full, original copy was found in 1981 by a cleaner in a Norwegian mental institution. Metropolis, the magnificent...

These are some of the most notable religious movies that have been released over the years, each offering a unique perspective on faith and belief: Ben-Hur by William Wyler told the story of a betrayed Jewish prince sent into slavery in 1st century Jerusalem In The Last Temptation Of Christ, Martin Scorsese explored spiritual conflict through the story of Jesus.

Filmmaking and spirituality have gone together since the birth of cinema, and over the years, some truly awe-inspiring Christian movies have been released. From retellings of biblical stories to more modern narratives that were imbued with Christian ideology, films have long been a place where actors, directors, and writers have examined probing theological questions that got right to the heart of why faith and belief have been so instrumental in the lives of countless people. These releases acted as celebrations and investigations into theology, as the medium became a vessel for artists' spiritual yearnings.

Viggo Mortensen did not plan to be in The Dead Don’t Hurt but had to dust off his cowboy boots and appear in the movie when another, unnamed, actor dropped out. That meant Mortensen added starring in, to writing, producing, directing and creating the music for the Western.

“I had not planned to act in the movie,” Mortensen said at the Munich International Film Festival. “The actor who had the part decided at one point late in preparation stages, after being with us for many months, to do something outside. So we tried to replace him with an actor who was younger than me, an actor the age as it was written originally, and was well-known enough for the financiers to say ok.”

Having failed to find the right person with the right availability, Mortensen had to add starring in The Dead Don’t Hurt to his to-do list. “In the...

Every time a presumed-lost silent film is rediscovered, it’s cause for celebration. When elements were found to restore complete versions of “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and “Metropolis,” the resulting restoration premiere was a major cinematic event. For his part, the silent film historian Kevin Brownlow told me he thinks a treasure trove of lost silents is just awaiting rediscovery in the archives of the Cinemateca de Cuba.

One major new find occurred right in the United States, however. Filmmaker Gary Huggins was hoping to buy a celluloid reel for a cartoon as part of the auction of films an Omaha-based distributor had held, after the distributor folded. He had to purchase a number of other films as well in order to get the one he wanted, and among those other titles? A presumed-lost 1923 movie with silent film megastar Clara Bow called “The Pill Pounder.”

A fun broadcast...

Ingrid Bergman shone as a versatile actress in acclaimed movies like Stromboli and Murder on the Orient Express. Bergman portrayed iconic roles like Joan of Arc and Sister Mary Benedict with passion and depth. Known for her luminous beauty, Bergman delivered powerful performances in classics like Casablanca and Anastasia.

The Swedish actress turning Hollywood icon Ingrid Bergman starred in some of the greatest movies ever produced. From historical epics to intimate family dramas and everything in between, Bergman’s career was one categorized by acclaimed directors, compelling performances, and the occasional Hollywood scandal. With three Academy Awards to her name, Bergman stood as one of the most successful actresses of all time and her name has become synonymous with luminous radiating beauty, strong and enduring characters, and a range that saw her excel in comedy, drama, film noirs, and period pieces.

With a willingness to step outside her comfort zone,...

Mickey Mouse, the iconic fi – oh, you don’t need a refresher on who Mickey Mouse is? Well, the Disney mascot is now officially in the public domain…under certain specifications. In short, you won’t be seeing him and Goofy slashing their way through Disney World anytime soon…

As U.S. copyright law says a work can enter the public domain 95 years after its publication, a form of Mickey Mouse will be made available for use by anyone. This chiefly concerns Steamboat Willie, which is generally considered the debut of Mickey Mouse, although Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were both produced prior to the landmark short. As such, those films will also be in the public domain.

But the Mickey Mouse of Steamboat Willie is most definitely not the same as the Mickey Mouse we all identify. The 1928 version has more rat-like features, with an elongated nose, smaller...

Today, Jan. 1, isn’t just New Year’s Day — it’s also Public Domain Day, where thousands of cinematic treasures, literary classics, Great American Songbook selections, and works of art see their copyrights expire and enter the public domain.

The headliner this year is the fair use of Mickey Mouse — at least, the Steamboat Willie version of the beloved character — as that copyright expiration has been anticipated for years. However, there’s much more than just Mickey entering the public domain in 2024.

Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke’s Center for...

The name Carl Theodor Dreyer is probably not familiar to the average moviegoer. A Danish auteur whose almost 50-year career produced only a dozen movies, he was an ambitious pioneer of early cinema who always wanted to push the limit. In a letter he wrote to prospective backers in his early career, he said, “I will make it my goal to produce a work of art which will set a standard for future films,” and in his own unique way, he achieved this. As film historian Casper Tybjerg has lengthily chronicled, Dreyer was a determined artist who would do whatever it took to bring his ideas to life. Following his now-classic but contemporaneously disappointing run with The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer wanted to do something different, and through a number of interesting twists, ended up delving into the horror genre with his silent masterpiece, 1932's Vampyr. What he...

Pablo Larraín’s primary mode is deconstruction, of everything from genre to myth to ideology. But given its intensely subjective point of view, El Conde shares more in common with Spencer and Jackie than the filmmaker’s earlier investigations into Chile’s tumultuous past, Post Mortem and No. The film seeks to dispense with the historical record and imagine what happens behind closed doors. Of course, there’s one important difference here: El Conde is certainly no stickler for verisimilitude, as the Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) of this film is a morose vampire fasting from blood in order to ease himself into death.

That premise might suggest that Larraín has sympathy for the devil, but El Conde is no hagiography. The film renders Pinochet as an aging, ever-prattling child of sorts, who no longer wants to live in a Chile that has no appreciation for all his “great work,” nor...

Cinema as we know it took shape around the late 19th century, starting with the iconic Lumière brothers in the 1890s. Some of the earliest films ever made include Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902), Alfred Clark's The Execution of Mary Stuart (1895), and William K.L. Dickson's Carmencita (1894).

Related: 15 Movies Where The Villain Is The Main Character

Movies have come a long way since then, transforming from mere side-show attractions to a global entertainment industry. Every film has some effect on its viewers, although very few movies can claim to have influenced society in a culturally significant manner.

Updated on May 17, 2023 by Ajay Aravind: As a reflection of the world, the impact of cinema on popular consciousness cannot be understated. When people talk about subjectivity, they don't mean that everyone experiences art differently. On the contrary, it is our collective experience that defines how films change us in...

The Hollywood Ten (Howard J. Biberman is third from right wearing bow tie) Photo: AVClub Salt Of The Earth is a movie that sees around corners. Partly—but only partly— because of the current Hollywood writers’ strike, it also speaks loudly to our time. A strike movie about labor unrest in a mining town,...

Salt Of The EarthPhoto: Public Domain

Salt Of The Earth is a movie that sees around corners. Partly—but only partly— because of the current Hollywood writers’ strike, it also speaks loudly to our time. A strike movie about labor unrest in a mining town, Salt Of The Earth was...

It’s the hardest thing to wait to see them after hearing about the movies that debuted at Sundance. But if you live in the Southeast, there’s no better way to cut that wait short than a trip to the Sarasota Film Festival, running this year from March 24 to April 2. Want to see the moving doc “A Still Small Voice”? Or the near-future pregnancy satire “The Pod Generation” with Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor? Not to mention the Alexandria Bombach Indigo Girls documentary “It’s Only Life After All,” “Aum: The Cult at the End of the World,” “Judy Blume Forever,” and “Fairyland”? This festival’s got you covered.

Some titles not yet available to the public from the fall festivals will screen as well, such as Paul Schrader’s “Master Gardener,” Daniel Goldhaber’s Neon title “How to Blow up a Pipeline,” and Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” as...

While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.

Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.

Check out the list below,...

This piece contains major spoilers for "Knock at the Cabin."

"Knock at the Cabin" simultaneously feels like classic M. Night Shyamalan and something completely new for him. While he's certainly tackled difficult and heavy topics in his work before, none have arguably been as explicit about unexplainable acts of God as this one. It will certainly be a divisive piece of filmmaking, but is it really a Shyamalan movie if it isn't divisive?

One thing about the director, however, is that he has a poignant and genuine love for the medium of film. He's gone on record numerous times about his wide range of influences, and he's one of the few filmmakers who can take classic genre tropes and turn them into something uniquely compelling. "Knock at the Cabin" is no different, as it flips the home invasion thriller on its end by making its intruders not only sympathetic, but...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

As the 4K restoration of Keane opens (read our interview with Lodge Kerrigan here) and Three Colors: Blue continues alongside Three Colors: White, the series “Animating Funny Pages” shows the inspiration of Owen Kline’s new feature—work by Robert Downey Sr, Frank Tashlin, and more.

Film Forum

To mark the great Alain Resnias’ centennial, a massive retrospective continues with Marienbad, Hiroshima, Je t’aime, je t’aime, and some of his lesser-seen (but no less great) features—Mélo, Stavisky, Love Unto Death, and Life is a Bed of Roses.

Bam

“Intimate Epics” continues with Happy Hour, Barry Lyndon, Andrei Rublev, and Sátántangó.

Museum of the Moving Image

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Licorice Pizza, and Sleeping Beauty all play on 70mm this weekend, while one of cinema’s most unsung heroes—women in Australian cinema—get...

For the festival poster for Jerzy Skolimowski's Eo, it is all focused on the 'melancholy eyes.' It's inspired by Robert Bresson's classic Au Hazard Balthazar, one of cinema's finest acts of pure empathy, rivaled only by Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, Elem Klimov's Come and See, and Takahata Isao's Grave of the Fireflies. The pure red field, and tiny typesetting and low-centre credit block, leave all the work to the donkey's face. And what a magnificently sad face it is. But consider the red a warning; that this will be a difficult film. I am intrigued by the choice of doing the title itself in a child's scribble. I am guessing, without having seen the film, that children are involved (see also...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "The Passion of Joan of Arc"

Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max, The Criterion Channel

The Pitch: "The Passion of Joan of Arc" is one of those films that pitches itself right at the outset, as text informs the viewer that a library in Paris "holds one of the most extraordinary documents in the history of the world" -- a record of the trial of the 15th-century French martyr Joan of Arc, who was...

The post The Daily Stream: The Passion Of Joan Of Arc Is Potent As Ever appeared first on /Film.

“It’s humbling, to tell you the truth,” exclaims production designer Stefan Dechant about receiving his first career Oscar nomination for his work on “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” This adaptation the classic Shakespeare drama, written and directed by Oscar winner Joel Coen, stars Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as the murderous title couple. Along with Dechant’s nomination, the film also Oscar nods for Actor (Washington) and Cinematography. Check out our exclusive video interview with Dechant above.

SEEDenzel Washington movies: 21 greatest films ranked from worst to best

Dechant says his designs for the film were driven by Coen’s desire to create a “Macbeth” that was both theatrical and cinematic. “He wanted to abstract it, but he didn’t want to be filming a theatrical event,” he explains. “He very much wanted it to be cinematic. So the question was how do we abstract it. How do we...

Last Updated March 7: Dune,” “Nightmare Alley,” and “No Time to Die” were the big film winners March 5 at the 26th Art Directors Guild Awards (held at the Intercontinental Los Angeles Downtown). However, the production design race now comes down to “Dune” and “Nightmare Alley.”

Last Updated February 9: The production design Oscar nominees — “Dune” (Warner Bros.), “Nightmare Alley” (Searchlight/Disney), “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), The Tragedy of Macbeth” (Apple TV+), and “West Side Story” (20th Century/Disney) — are all creative examples of world building which defy genre expectations.

However, the ambitious and imaginative world building for Denis Villeneuve “Dune” is the frontrunner for production designer Patrice Vermette and set decorator Zsuzsanna Sipos. They oversaw an assortment of large-scale sets at Origo Studios in Budapest. There’s the castle of the Atreides family on the ocean planet Caladan and distinguished by its Norwegian vibe with mottled hues. The...

Some of the most indelible performances in cinema seem to come from a place beyond acting. One of the greatest ever committed to film was from Renée Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," which gives us an unbearable intimacy with the young martyr as she faces her cruel inquisitors. For all the director's severe stylistic choices, it is Falconetti's raw emotion that lingers the most. To look upon her face at a distance of almost a century, her intensity is so vital that it gives the sense that she is still alive and suffering in the same room as you. The screen ceases...

The post How Possession Changed Isabelle Adjani Forever appeared first on /Film.

When production designer Stefan Dechant (Disney’s upcoming hybrid “Pinocchio”) got a surprise call to meet with Joel Coen on the spur of the moment to discuss “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” his noir-like Shakespeare adaptation of murder, madness, and mayhem, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, Dechant was immediately hooked.

The look and design were explicitly laid out in a photo album that Coen shared with Dechant, after the director spent a year refining his black-and-white vision with cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. It cried out German Expressionism, with images from movies, architecture, photography, and theater (modernist stage designer Edward Gordon Craig’s use of large geometric blocks). Inspired by the blueprint, the production designer went to work on the very spare Shakespearean world building, shot on sound stages in L.A.

“When we sat down, Joel had a very strong vision [for the look and choreography]: black-and-white, Academy ratio [1.37:1], German Expressionism, and it was abstracted...

Acclaimed writer/director David Lowery joins Josh and Joe to discuss the films that inspired The Green Knight.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Green Knight (2021)

Peter Pan & Wendy (2022)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The Old Man And The Gun (2018)

A Ghost Story (2017)

Pete’s Dragon (1977)

Pete’s Dragon (2016) – Glenn Erickson’s review

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Ghost Story (1974)

Sword of the Valiant (1984)

Gawain and the Green Knight (1973)

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Masters of the Universe (1987) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Andrei Rublev (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s Muriel Awards blurb

War And Peace (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Devils (1971)

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Conjuring (2013)

Jubilee (1978)

Benedetta (2021)

Dune (1984)

Dune (2021)

Hard To Be A God (2013)

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

Moby Dick (1956) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary,...

Above: English-language festival poster for There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse. Design by Marcelo Granero.So another nine months have gone by since I last did one of these round-ups. As I’ve been doing for many years, I have tallied up the most popular posters featured on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram (previously Tumblr). The biggest surprise, not least to its designer, was the popularity of a festival poster for an experimental Argentinian film There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse which has racked up some 2,335 likes to date and was the third most popular design I posted in the whole of 2020 (after the two Parasite posters that topped my last round-up). When I say it’s surprising it’s because film recognition tends to play a big part in the popularity of posts,...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

by Cláudio Alves

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of my favorite filmmakers. I'll never forget the first time I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen and was transported, how experiencing Vampyr felt like witnessing a projected nightmare, the ecstasy of Ordet's ending or Gertrud's stern ruminations on love. It's to my great shame that I'm not familiar with the Danish director's early works, having mostly ignored them until now. The centennial of Dreyer's second feature, Leaves from Satan's Book, makes this a great time to start correcting these cinephilic lacunas…...

Always bold to some degree, seldom less than ambitious, William Friedkin’s career as a filmmaker has seen countless awards won; box offices records broken; and left us with more than a few classics. While the director can tell a story behind the camera, he’s also a knowledgeable, entertaining personality in front of one. Gifted with a voice worthy of sports broadcasting, he manages to appear even larger than his resume–in the same way his contemporary Peter Bogdanovich often does, another director who kept a foot in both “New Hollywood” and the gilded past of cinema history. Yet Friedkin is perhaps the only filmmaker so intrinsically linked with both the birth of New Hollywood and, unwittingly, with its ideological demise.

This irresistible combo of charisma, auteurism, and historical clout has inspired a number of documentary filmmakers in recent years. Francesco Zippel’s 2018 movie Friedkin Uncut provided a rollicking career overview,...

Bruno Dumont’s movies linger somewhere between deadpan comedy and bleak existential yearning, an uneasy combo that often makes them hard to classify. From the nomadic supernatural traveler who haunts the French countryside in “Outside Satan,” to the bumbling cops investigating a seaside community in the miniseries “Li’l Quinquin,” Dumont excels at absurdist storytelling that wanders down strange pathways that either end in oddball punchlines or take a sharp turn into profundity. Not every curveball lands, but Dumont’s eerie, dreamlike storytelling has made him one of France’s most endearing and unpredictable filmmakers of the past 20-odd years.

All of which means that “Joan of Arc,” the filmmaker’s , benefits from a working familiarity of the vision behind the camera. Technically, it’s as much a part of a growing Dumont franchise as “Li’l Quinquin,” as “Joan of Arc” follows his 2017 “Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc,...

The Head

DVD – Region 2 Only – No English Audio or Subtitles

Delta Music & Entert. GmbH & Co. Kg

1959 / 1.33:1 / 97 min.

Starring Michel Simon, Horst Frank, Karin Kernke

Cinematography by Georg Krause

Directed by Victor Trivas

A scientist who operates out of a starkly Modernist laboratory of glass and steel, Dr. Ood comes from a long line of German crackpots with a flair for the theatrical. Rotwang, the bug-eyed inventor of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, springs to mind along with Dr. Gogol, the lovelorn psychopath of Karl Freund’s Mad Love. And not to forget the omniscient Dr. Mabuse. Each man had style to burn and was obsessed with possessing desirable – and controllable – women.

The protagonist of Victor Trivas’s The Head, Ood was the most hands-on of the bunch, satisfying his lust by transplanting the head of a beautiful but misshapen doctor’s assistant to the body of a burlesque queen. Trivas...

A stark contrast from triumphalist Allied narratives of World War II, Elem Klimov’s spellbinding Belarus-set masterpiece Come and See–now playing in a beautiful new restoration from Janus Films–tells a harrowing story of the Eastern Front from the perspective of those for whom victory against the Nazis came at far too steep a price.

Based on Ales Adamovich’s painstakingly researched historical novel I Am from the Fiery Village (the author also co-wrote the screenplay with Klimov), Come and See follows Flyora (Aleksei Kravchenko), a young boy from rural Belarus seeking to enlist with the Soviet Partisans, eager for martial glory even as he ignores warnings of impending doom. Once war breaks out, Flyora’s reality begins to warp and fold in on itself as he bears harrowing witness to the Nazis’ war crimes and the existential horror of total war.

Klimov’s technique, and thus the film...

With a new restoration of Béla Tarr’s 1994 opus Sátántangó now playing in theaters, today we’re taking a look back at the Hungarian maestro’s favorite films. It may not be quite as immersive as attending his recent film school in Sarajevo, but watching these ten films may give one greater insight into his vision of the world.

As voted on in the latest Sight & Sound poll, selections include Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (a film that’s about double the length of Sátántangó), fellow Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó’s break-out drama The Round-Up, and more.

We recently spoke with Tarr at Berlinale, where he gave some lively advice about filmmaking and the state of the industry, “Go and shoot something with your phone and find your own way and that’s all. Who cares? Fuck off this shitty film industry.

The very idea of a modern reworking of a classical text itself gets a modern reworking in Sophie Deraspe’s supple and impassioned “Antigone,” Further electrified by a performance of immense self-possession and dignity from revelatory new star Nahéma Ricci, the clever screenplay (the film is also written and crisply shot by Deraspe) injects these ancient archetypes directly into the bloodstream of the modern-day immigration debate. So while the up-to-the-minute Quebecois setting ought to guarantee significant Francophone interest, its selection as Canada’s Oscar entry should by rights ensure it finds an audience in other territories divided by the immigration issue: namely, almost every developed nation on the planet.

But justifiable rage at the callous institutional mistreatment of foreign-born citizens and residents is only one of “Antigone’s” topical concerns. Deraspe’s last film was the documentary “The Amina Profile,” which investigated the global catfishing incident that was the...

Adapted from Steve Erickson’s brilliant and hypnotic 2007 novel of the same name, this is a story about someone who thinks that movies are the most precious things in the universe; someone who believes that cinema reveals the work of God, and that celluloid hides the secrets of all creation in the space between sprocket holes. Franco, on the other hand, has always maintained a somewhat messier “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” approach to artistic creation. Prolific to the point of self-parody before reports of sexually exploitative behavior slowed him down, he’s been emboldened by a digital culture that rewards volume and encourages disposability.

That isn’t meant to be a criticism so much as a statement of fact. Franco is a creature of the 21st century, far better equipped to pay homage to “The Room” than to solve the hidden mysteries of George Stevens’ “A Place in the Sun.

University of Chicago professor Jacqueline Stewart has been announced as host of “Silent Sunday Nights,” the 25-year-old Turner Classic Movies (TCM) block that offers iconic movies from the silent era as well as forgotten gems and international classics. Stewart is a professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, specializing in the history of African American cinema from the silent era to the present. She is also a three-term appointee to the National Film Preservation Board (Nfpb), which advises the Librarian of Congress on policy, and is the Chair of the Nfpb Diversity Task Force working to ensure the films chosen for the National Film Registry reflect diversity and inclusion.

For Stewart, hosting TCM’s “Silent Sunday Nights” is an opportunity that meshes harmoniously with the kind of work she’s been doing throughout her career.

“It’s an incredible alignment of my expertise as a scholar across my career,...

Shot using a 1970s wind-up Bolex camera and on 16mm film, Mark Jenkin’s Bait is somewhat of a glorious visual anomaly in a world dominated by big budget blockbuster action thrillers and endless superhero franchises.

Set within a small community of an undisclosed Cornish fishing village (the shoot itself took place in Charlestown and Penzance), Bait presents an eerily enchanting expressionist aesthetic which owes a lot to the early films of French cinema pioneer Jean Epstein (The Fall of The House of Usher) or even Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc).

Bait tells the story of Martin Ward (played brilliantly by comedian Edward Rowe aka Kernow King), a gruff and taciturn cove fisherman who no longer has a boat at his disposition to fulfil a job he loves. His brother Steven (Giles King) has turned their father’s vessel into a pleasure boat for tourists, and...

When Jeannette world premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2017, Bruno Dumont’s acolytes were left grappling with a taxonomical head-scratcher. Lo and behold, a director whose filmography had by and large consisted of austere and somber ruminations on life, death, and the divine, homing in on a historical figure that promised more of the same, and heralded a rebranding of sorts. For a martyr who’d been sanctified on the silver screen as far back as Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc, Jeannette looked like nothing that came before it. A musical rendition of the Maid of Orleans’ childhood and early teenage years, it framed the heroine’s spiritual awakening through the least likely rubric imaginable: heavy metal music. It was reckless, bonkers, and delightfully original.

Where Jeannette had effectively represented a stylistic and tonal departure from old Dumont, Joan of Arc is a detour to familiar,...

The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critic Leonardo Goi and editor Daniel Kasman.JeanneDear Danny,The day I first met Bruno Dumont, a blistering hot August afternoon in a hotel perched atop the hills of Locarno, was also the day before production for his latest film, Jeanne (Joan of Arc), was due to kick off. A sequel to his 2017 Jeannette, a musical period-piece on the childhood of Joan of Arc which had world premiered in Cannes and had continued its festival tour with a bow in the Swiss Alps, Jeanne had big shoes to fill. Scored by French electro-musician Igorrr and choreographed by Philippe Decouflé, Jeannette dwelled into the formative years of the 15th century French martyr through the most unlikely—and original—rubric imaginable: heavy metal music. For a heroine incessantly dissected and celebrated by decades of cinema history (from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc...

In the category of culture-driven documentaries that focus on film history, a particularly enjoyable subset of that subset is the kind made by noteworthy artists themselves. There’s Martin Scorsese waxing luxuriously on Italian cinema (“My Voyage to Italy”), Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow fanboy-interviewing Brian DePalma for “DePalma,” and now, German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta (“Hannah Arendt”) taking us on a personal tour of her lifelong admiration for Sweden’s hallowed grandmaster in the playfully inquisitive “Searching for Ingmar Bergman.”

Von Trotta’s connection to Bergman started when she was a young, New Wave-enamored film lover who responded deeply to his 1957 chess-with-Death masterpiece “The Seventh Seal”; she even opens her valentine of a documentary visiting its famed rocky beach setting, narrating the impact of its establishing shots.

When she blossomed as an artist herself as part of West Germany’s own exciting crush of post-war filmmaking talent alongside...