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Every so often, the work of a filmmaker is given a major critical and public reassessment, allowing them to enter the pantheon of great directors.

It happened in the 1950s, when French critics declared that Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller were not only skillful helmers of genre flicks, but auteurs with distinct personal visions. Later, John Ford was revisited by Peter Bogdanovich and Lindsay Anderson, in books claiming he was more than just a maker of great Westerns. In the 1990s, the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and the Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, both of whom had been working steadily in their homelands since the 70s, were finally celebrated abroad. More recently, the filmography of Agnès Varda was excavated in retrospectives and festivals, shining a light on a forgotten member of the New Wave.

It’s time the same thing happened for Frederick Wiseman.

First off, let’s not kid...

Will Hutchins, the star of ABC’s Sugarfoot, thought to be a contender for TV’s first comedy western series, died Monday, April 21, at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. He was 94.

His death was announced by Western film and TV historian Boyd Magers.

Running on ABC for 69 episodes from 1957 to 1961, Sugarfoot starred Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Wild West of the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. His lack of cowboy skills, which the show played for laughs, earned him the nickname Sugarfoot. The show’s lighthearted approach to the TV western genre preceded that of Maverick starring James Garner, which debuted five days after Sugarfoot.

Born Marshall Lowell Hutchason in Los Angeles on May 5, 1930, Hutchins served in the United States Army Signal Corps during the Korean War, and subsequently enrolled as a graduate student at UCLA to study cinema arts. His...

Exclusive: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights on the restored films of French filmmaker Luc Moullet.

Cinema Guild will mount a touring theatrical retrospective of Moullet’s work starting at Film at Lincoln Center in New York in August. Moullet, one of the last remaining members of the French New Wave, will attend the opening.

The films included in the acquisition are Brigitte and Brigitte, The Smugglers, A Girl is a Gun, Anatomy of a Relationship, Origins of a Meal, The Comedy of Work, and Parpaillon.

Often dubbed the “prince of shoestring cinema,” Moullet was one of the later filmmakers associated with the pioneering generation of French New Wave artists.

At the age of 18, Moullet joined the ranks of Cahiers du Cinéma, where he was the first to champion Hollywood B-directors like Samuel Fuller and Edgar G. Ulmer. Following the footsteps of other Cahiers alums like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut,...

A dog is a man's best friend, but do we really deserve them? It's a rhetorical question. Of course we don't deserve dogs, cats, geckos, or any other animal you can think of -- just look at the state of the world we're giving them! Let's forget about that for now, though, and simply appreciate the joy that our canine friends bring, both in the real world and on the screen. They're our companions, guards, workers, friends, and occasional arbiters of our own demise, and we love them for it.

Dogs have been a part of the movies since the early days of cinema, and it might surprise you to learn that it was a dog who won the very first Oscar for Best Actor! While they're usually mere supporting players, plenty of movies have had the wisdom to feature our canine friends in leading roles for comedies, thrillers, dramas,...

Mark Hamill will always be best known for two iconic roles: Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars saga, and The Joker from a series of DC projects, starting with Batman: The Animated Series. Either one of them would be a staggering legacy on their own, but their prominence overshadows what has been a staggeringly prolific career. Hamill's IMDb page lists over 350 credits, with more on the way. Much of it is voice over work, but includes projects both big and small, making him a staple of pop-culture for almost 50 years.

Hamill's lengthy resume includes a classic war movie that came out in the wake of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. Sam Fuller's The Big Red One covers the exploits of a decorated US Army unit during World War II, based on the director's own experiences in combat. Hamill plays a foot soldier in the company,...

Ghosts is still waiting for a Season 5 renewal from CBS. Luckily for fans, actor Utkarsh Ambudkar, who plays Jay Arondekar in the hit sitcom, believes one is on the way.

Speaking with Screen Rant, Ambudkar shared that he believes Ghosts has a better shot at being renewed than being canceled, noting that the sitcom has struck a chord with audiences. "It's one of those things where we are beloved by people, and I haven't experienced anything like it. Everywhere we go, especially if we're together, we're stopped by people out in the streets whose entire family watches Ghosts together," he explained. "We've struck the right chord with viewers, where they wanted something that they could sit down and watch with their whole family, which wasn't sugarcoated or saccharin and still had some edge; it has a lot of comedy and is still taking chances."

RelatedDick Wolf's FBI Calls in the...

Quick Links What is The Steel Helmet About? The Steel Helmet's Complicated Critical Reception

One of the best things about film as a hobby is that there is a seemingly endless supply of fantastic gems to discover. Hundreds of films are released in theaters every year, with thousands more floating around somewhere on streaming, hard drives, and television. Some cinephiles with thousands of films under the belt may feel like they've "seen it all," but that could not be further from the truth. If legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese are still on the quest of discovery at the age of 82, then there is undoubtedly something out there for everyone to discover. The sheer number of masterpieces that have yet to be seen is simultaneously a blessing and a curse because no one film fan can catch everything on their watch list before their time expires. Every subgenre has its fair share of hidden classics,...

Michael Schlesinger, who for more than 25 years worked as a studio repertory executive for divisions at United Artists, Paramount and Sony as a champion of film classics and forgotten B-movies alike, has died. He was 74.

Schlesinger died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a bout with cancer.

The popular Schlesinger was a fixture at screenings, lectures and events like the TCM Classic Film Festival and Cinecon in Los Angeles, where he conducted interviews. He also offered commentary for DVD releases of movies like Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), perhaps his favorite film, and for the website Trailers From Hell.

“People think I live in the past. No, I live in the present. I just vacation in the past,” he often said.

The Ohio native came to L.A., found a job with United Artists Classics and was involved in the 1988 theatrical reissue...

Friends will tell you Michael Schlesinger’s biggest passion among his many movie loves was for Stanley Kramer’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” or as he called it, “The Greatest Movie Ever Made.” But fortunately for cinephiles, his efforts elevated or brought about many important films during his career at United Artists Classics, Paramount, and Sony Repertory.

He died January 9, 2025 in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where he was being treated for a rare and aggressive form of cancer only recently diagnosed. Though he was a behind-the-scenes executive little known by the public, he made a big impact professionally before he retired in 2012. He then began another career as a director, initially of comedy shorts, then last year with his feature debut “Rock and Doris (Try to) Write a Movie,” which premiered at the Palm Springs International Comedy Festival.

His passing has brought out an outpouring of grief and remembrances,...

Paris, Texas, spine #501, is now available on 4K in the Criterion Collection.

Wim Wenders sprawling masterpiece receives a well-deserved 4K update this month from the Criterion Collection. Part mystery, part neo-western and part road trip movie, Paris, Texas is a beautiful depiction of love, loss and the American west.

Related The 100 Greatest Movies of All-Time Paris, Texas plot

Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) wonders out of the desert after being missing for years. He seemingly has no idea who he is or where he’s been. He’s reunited with his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), whose been raising Travis’ young son. Travis’ surprising reappearance causes the lives of those around him to be thrown into disarray as he slowly begins to piece his former life back together.

The review

The cinematography, consisting of wide shots, vacant landscapes and minimalist imagery, gives Paris, Texas a distinct visual style that perfectly compliments...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News The Scarlet Drop.John Ford’s The Scarlet Drop (1918), presumed to be lost for over 100 years, has been found in a warehouse in Santiago, Chile, that was slated to be demolished. “I think there are some films that decide to live,” says Jaime Cordova, who rescued and digitized the film, which stars Harry Carey as a defector from the Union Army who joins a gang of marauders.The Berlin government’s decision to slash its cultural funding budget by 13 percent (€130 million) has prompted widespread backlash from the city’s arts community. Roughly 450 institutions rely upon state subsidies and Berlin cultural workers predict closures and mass layoffs will be the inevitable result of this budget reduction. Sinema Transtopia...

Silvia Pinal, an actress in Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema, has died. She was 93.

Pinal had been hospitalized earlier this month for a urinary tract infection. Mexico’s Secretary of Culture confirmed Pinal’s death.

“The Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico regrets the passing of leading actress Silvia Pinal,” read the statement posted on X. “With a career spanning more than six decades, she participated in more than 60 films and plays. Her legacy lives on as a fundamental pillar of cinema, theater and television in Mexico. May she rest in peace.”

Pinal was born in Guaymas, Sonora, México on September 12, 1931. She studied acting at the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature. Pinal’s acting debut was in 1949 with the comedy Dos pesos la dejada.

Making her debut during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, Pinal got to star opposite legendary actor Pedro Infante in La...

Silvia Pinal, the revered film and television actress who left an indelible mark on Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema, has died. She was 93.

Mexico’s culture secretary, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, as well as the Asociación Nacional de Intérpretes announced Pinal’s passing on social media. The Associated Press reported that Pinal had been hospitalized for a urinary infection several days ago.

During a prolific acting and producing career that spanned seven decades, Pinal gained international fame for toplining three 1960s classics written and directed by Luis Buñuel: the Palme d’Or co-winner Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962) and Simon of the Desert (1965).

Pinal got her start in the theater in the late 1940s working with Cuban-born director Rafael Banquells, who would become the first of her four husbands. Her breakthrough in cinema came in 1950 when at 18 she landed back-to-back leading roles opposite two of Mexico’s biggest film stars,...

Rue the Christmas blues no more — the Criterion Channel has you covered with plenty of great films to stream this holiday season thanks to the platform’s December lineup.

As announced on Wednesday, Criterion Channel starting December 1 will host a greatest-hits collection of “Pope of Trash” John Waters’ most iconic movies. Divine-starring classics such as “Multiple Maniacs” (1970), “Female Trouble” (1974), “Hairspray” (1988), and “Polyester” (1981) fit the bill, while you shouldn’t miss a camped-up Kathleen Turner as a murderous suburban matriarch in “Serial Mom,” a role her agents told her would ruin her career. Well, the rest is history. For a bonus, John Waters also provides interview commentary on a selection of some of his own favorite movies, including Ingmar Bergman’s 1958 “Brink of Life,” Samuel Fuller’s 1964 “The Naked Kiss,” and Barbara Loden’s influential 1970 classic “Wanda.”

Elsewhere, Criterion Channel celebrates five decades of Alfred Hitchcock’s career with a murderer’s row of all-timers,...

Now that they’ve set the year’s best film for a December 10 debut, the Criterion Channel have unveiled the rest of next month’s selection. John Waters’ films are inseparable from John Waters’ presence, making fitting Criterion’s decision to pair an eight-film retrospective (Multiple Maniacs to Cecil B. Demented) with his own “Adventures in Moviegoing” wherein the director extols virtues of Bergman, Chabrol, Barbara Loden, and Samuel Fuller. His own Polyester will have a Criterion Edition alongside the Bob Dylan doc Don’t Look Back, an iconic film in its own right and, I think, fitting companion to The Unknown with Lon Chaney, also streaming on Criterion. No Country for Old Men and Election receive likewise treatment; the latter appears in “MTV Productions,” a series featuring Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, The Original Kings of Comedy, and (coming close to Freddy Got Fingered for least-expected 2024 addition) Jackass: the Movie.

Samuel Fuller directed many war films throughout his long career, calling upon his own experiences during WWII to dramatize combat as realistically as possible. Although many of his subsequent war movies were more technically polished, few had the raw power of his first one: The Steel Helmet. Shot on a shoestring budget and cut together with stock footage, it was the first American feature centered on the Korean War, which had started in 1950. It could have easily faded into obscurity after hitting theaters in 1951, as more expensively mounted depictions of the conflict were released by major studios. Yet, The Steel Helmet remains a gritty, brutal portrayal of warfare that's also a surprisingly ahead-of-its-time exploration of racism.

There's nothing quite like The Naked Kiss. Directed by Samuel Fuller and starring Constance Towers, it's a tumultuous explosion of mood, style, and anger. Debuting in 1964 on a shoestring budget, it's a reflection of its time and the rocky decade that was the 1960s. Featuring a cast of richly written women full of contradictions and dreams, The Naked Kiss is a vastly underrated '60s film that shattered barriers of portraying sex work in film.

Purists will argue that film noir was born in 1941 with the release of John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon and died in 1958 with Marlene Dietrich traipsing down a long, dark, lonely road at the end of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil. And while this period contains the quintessence of what Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank originally characterized as film noir, the genre has always been in a constant state of flux, adapting to the different times and cultures out of which these films emerged.

Noir came into its own alongside the ravages of World War II, with the gangster and detective films of the era drastically transforming into something altogether new as the aesthetics of German Expressionism took hold in America, and in large part due to the influx of German expatriates like Fritz Lang. These already dark, hardboiled films suddenly gained a newfound viciousness and sense of ambiguity,...

With Janus possessing the much-needed restorations, Catherine Breillat is getting her biggest-ever spotlight in November’s Criterion Channel series spanning 1976’s A Real Young Girl to 2004’s Anatomy of Hell––just one of numerous retrospectives arriving next month. They’re also spotlighting Ida Lupino, directorial efforts of John Turturro (who also gets an “Adventures In Moviegoing”), the Coen brothers, and Jacques Audiard.

In a slightly more macroscopic view, Columbia Noir and a new edition of “Queersighting” ring in Noirvember. Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy and Miller’s Crossing get Criterion Editions, while restorations of David Bowie-starrer The Linguini Incident, Med Hondo’s West Indies, and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue make streaming debuts; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park arrives just in time for another grim election day.

See the full list of titles arriving in November below:

36 fillette, Catherine Breillat, 1988

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat,...

As one of the worst horror movie sequels ever made, youre forgiven if youve managed to wipe the memory of A Return to Salems Lot from your brain. Directed by Larry Cohen, the film is an unremarkable follow-up to Tobe Hoopers 1979 TV miniseries, and features an anthropologist and his son making their way to Salems Lot only to discover that its been taken over by vampires. This jumbled continuation received a limited theatrical release in 1987 before hitting VHS a year later, and now its yours to rediscover this Halloween when it makes its way to its new streaming home.

Per Max, A Return to Salems Lot will begin streaming on October 1, just two days before the premiere of Gary Daubermans long-awaited remake of the original. Starring Michael Moriarty, Ricky Addison, Samuel Fuller, and Tara Reid in her feature film debut, the sequel was a critical failure on every level, not even reaching camp status.

Cinema lovers are spoiled in just how many places are on their bucket list. We think of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, the steps of the Palais in Cannes, Mount Rushmore We can visit all of these, but one that is out of reach is the famed Criterion Closet, a tiny room packed wall-to-wall with the catalog of The Criterion Collection. But now, you may have your chance…with a twist.

The Criterion Collection has announced that they are taking their Closet out on the highway, posting on their website that this comes at just the right time. “In celebration of our fortieth anniversary, Criterion has built a replica of our famous film closet inside an eighteen-foot delivery van, and later this month, we’ll be taking our Criterion Closet Picks show on the road. Stocked with more than 1,500 of the greatest films from around the world, the Criterion...

While his work might not enjoy the iconic status of the Columbia Pictures classics that formed a key part of the retrospective programming at the 72nd Locarno Film Festival, Samuel Fuller is a director who’s nevertheless had a significant influence on the kind of independent cinema that the event seeks to champion. However, a screening of Fuller’s penultimate feature, Street of No Return, which formed part of this year’s Histoires de Cinema section at Locarno, couldn’t help but seem like an outlier in today’s film landscape.

After its visually striking opening sequence sees a gang war waged in the streets of an absurdly rundown, almost post-apocalyptic city, the 1989 film follows a homeless man (Keith Carradine) as he tracks down a former lover (Valentina Vargas) and seeks revenge on the drug dealer (Marc de Jonge) who cut his throat and ended his career as a chart-topping,...

About 40 minutes into Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, Raymond Lam cracks a smile. Hardly a momentous development out of context, but for Lam’s protagonist, Chan Lok-Kwan—a refugee in Hong Kong’s notorious Kowloon Walled City who’s spent every preceding moment of the film desperately clawing for survival—it marks a point of no return.

Sharing a game of mahjong with three newfound allies, Chan forges the kind of emotional bond that represents both a lifeline and a liability in the unforgiving world of Walled In. It’s one of the many small moments of humanity that dot Soi Cheang’s action epic, and evidence of the director’s capacity for personal expression even at the largest of filmmaking scales.

Though it’s been in the making for over a decade now, there’s still something hard to believe about Soi’s ascent to the top of the Hong Kong film industry.

Stephen King shares that he found Netflix's Under Paris surprisingly good despite initial skepticism, especially praising the last 25 minutes. Under Paris' success reflects the unpredictable nature of shark movies, often balancing between hits and flops. Despite mixed reviews, Under Paris is Netflix's current top movie globally.

Renowned author Stephen King admits he was surprised by Under Paris, the shark movie that has soared to the top of Netflixs viewership charts. Originally titled Sous la Seine in the movies original French, the story of Netflixs latest action-horror sees the city of Paris facing an unexpected threat when a giant shark enters the Seine. Despite being the streamers number 1 movie worldwide, the film is currently attracting mixed reviews with 35% audience and 67% critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes, hinting at significant divides between viewers.

Among the viewers weighing in on the merits of Under Paris, novelist King offered his own assessment of the French shark-survival movie.

There’s always the risk of misusing 15 tightly mandated minutes on a director’s junket day. One imagines it increases twofold when the subject’s been of interest nearly your entire film-watching life, with whom you’d sooner exchange questions about a 2019 short produced for the Pompidou Centre than, say, what it’s like working with Glen Powell.

It was under these circumstances I had the fortune to interview Richard Linklater, who’s been on a major press jag for Hit Man, his biggest crowdpleaser in several years that arrives on Netflix this Friday, June 7. In a tight frame we managed to cover the strange connections it bears with his other recent premiere, and––an issue about which he clearly feels passionate––why the culture is asking us to remain 13 years old forever.

The Film Stage: I watched Gabe Klinger’s Double Play, and I loved seeing the many, many posters in your editing room.

Although he's revered today, Samuel Fuller wasn't exactly considered an important director while he was making films. Working largely outside the Hollywood studio system, the WWII-vet and former crime reporter churned out a number of cheaply-made westerns, noirs, and war films, often centering around controversial topics. As the leaders of the French New Wave pointed out in the pages of "Cahiers du Cinema," Fuller dealt with sensitive subject matters with more nuance than most of his "important" contemporaries. One of the best examples of this is The Crimson Kimono, a little-seen 1959 crime thriller that broke new ground in terms of representation of Asians in films.

David Leitch's The Fall Guy is a highly anticipated action comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Loosely based on the 1980s television show of the same name, The Fall Guy is a tribute to stunt performers, the unsung heroes of action movies. Leitch began his career as a stuntman, doubling for major movie stars such as Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Over the last decade, Leitch has established himself as a prominent action director, making movies such as John Wick, Deadpool 2, and Bullet Train.

Although not as well known to mainstream audiences, stuntmen such as Yakima Canutt, Dar Robinson, and Vic Armstrong played significant roles in the development of action cinema, inventing many stunt practices used in the moviemaking process. While stunt performers are an invaluable component of action films, some actors throughout history have transcended their craft by performing their own stunts. Movie stars such as Jackie Chan,...

Samuel Fuller was an American filmmaker who directed 24 movies between 1949 and 1990. Before getting into the director's chair, he worked as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter, and had also served in World War II. These experiences informed his approach to storytelling. He excelled at Westerns, crime dramas, and war movies, which he told with grit and cynicism and a focus on ordinary troops.

While it was fascinating to see the results of the 2022 Sight & Sound poll, we’re just as curious to see what lies outside the established canon. As part of a comprehensive project at the essential resource They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, Ángel González polled nearly 839 critics on the best films that didn’t receive a single vote on the Sight & Sound poll, which they’ve now compiled into a massive Beyond the Sight & Sound Canon, which initially features 1,030 films but expands to a whopping 14,558 total films.

As a preview, we’ve collected the films that received at least 20 votes in this new poll, which is 263. It’s led by Spike Jonze’s Her, and they’ve also noted the directors that were most represented. Fritz Lang leads the pack with eight films mentioned, while François Truffaut has seven, and Anthony Mann, Clint Eastwood, Eric Rohmer, John Ford, Samuel Fuller,...

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

Museum of Modern Art

A massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films begins; “To Save and Project,” continues.

Film at Lincoln Center

“Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s” brings films by Tati, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray (x2), Godard, Straub-Huillet, Pasolini, and more.

Film Forum

“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Ulrike Ottinger, Yvonne Rainer, Celine Sciamma, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and The Third Man continue; a print of Calamity Jane plays on Sunday.

IFC Center

As Francis Ford Coppola’s latest recut, One from the Heart: Reprise, continues, Bertrand Bonello’s masterpiece Coma gets a New York premiere and a Dario Argento series begins; Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar plays late.

Roxy Cinema

Cronenberg’s Crash and Keith McNally...

An American filmmaker, Steven Spielberg has several high-quality and well-known films under his belt, like Jaws (1975) and Jurassic Park (1993). He's dabbled in various genres throughout the years, making several historical dramas and even a few fantasy films. He's arguably the greatest director to ever work in science fiction, thanks to movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Minority Report (2002), and more.

But from 1941 (1979) and Empire of the Sun (1987) to Saving Private Ryan (1998) and War Horse (2011), this director has also mastered the art of war films. And while he's the most popular name to do so — he's arguably the most famous filmmaker, in general — plenty of other directors throughout cinema history have perfected the war genre. Their work is entirely worth noting before delving into the greatness of Steven Spielberg.

Other Directors Known for Their War Films

Off the bat, there's one name most prominently worth...

The broad beats of a courtroom drama are simple and finite; any procedural fan would know. And French film “Anatomy of a Fall” has everything you would expect from a taut crime thriller: a mystery that runs deeper than our initial understanding, cops trying to prove different theories, warring lawyers in the courtroom, a piece of new evidence that throws the case into confusion, a major scene on the witness stand. But the film does not approach those moments in an expected fashion, neither emotionally nor formally. Director Justine Triet is more interested in pushing back on genre tropes wherever she can to create a messier, but more involving, picture of the many narratives we use to explain a fall.

The titular fall — and possible murder — is of frustrated writer and stay-at-home dad Samuel (Samuel Theis). The main suspect is his wife, a successful author named Sandra (Sandra Hüller). “Anatomy of a Fall...

Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.

November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...

The 80th annual Venice Film Festival launches on the Lido on August 30. This edition features a slew of Oscar hopefuls including Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” David Fincher’s “The Killer,” Yorgas Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.” They’re all vying for the top prize, the Golden Lion.

Seventy years ago, there were four now-classics in competition: William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday,” for which Audrey Hepburn would win Oscar, John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge,” Samuel Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” which had recently picked up five Oscars. But the Golden Lion didn’t roar at the 14th edition of the international film festival.

The jury headed by future Nobel Prize laureate in literature Eugenio Montale just couldn’t decide on the best of the fest because according to the New York Times “the quality...

The following interview was originally published in the second issue of Outskirts Film Magazine, an independent print magazine on the past and present of cinema. Issue two is now available from the Outskirts e-shop.At 189 pages, Outskirts Nº2 is made up of original essays, interviews, reviews, translations, and a single large dossier dedicated to Japanese filmmaker and actress Tanaka Kinuyo.Forever a Woman.During the last edition of the Locarno Film Festival, a retrospective dedicated to Douglas Sirk took place, organised by Bernard Eisenschitz and Roberto Turigliatto. Among the many incredible guests invited to introduce Sirk’s films, such as Miguel Marías, Jon Halliday, Olaf Möller, Martina Müller, was Laura Mulvey. In speaking to her several months later, what started out initially as a conversation between myself and Mulvey about Sirk, unexpectedly morphed into a broader investigation that included the work of Tanaka Kinuyo, the subject of our dossier.The...

“The Vanishing Soldier” is a coming of age story, as breathless as its protagonist: the kind of film that will make cinephiles of seventeen-year-olds. Which is one of the reasons that Dani Rosenberg, the film’s 43-year-old director, is delighted to be in Locarno, where the film, sold by Intramovies, is screening in main competition, and has just got a trailer, and poster, shared in exclusivity with Variety.

“We had options for other festivals,” Rosenberg told Variety at the Swiss fest.

“But Locarno is the best place because it’s a festival that admires films and not topics. We want the film to be first seen as cinema; not as an Israeli story about conflict.”

So what cinema inspired you?

“My first image when I was writing the script was Buster Keaton. I imagined the chases like slapstick chases, like “Cops,” from his era. And obviously, the ‘70s paranoia films,...

U.S. director and artist Harmony Korine, whose films include “Gummo,” “Spring Breakers” and “Beach Bum” – which stars Matthew McConaughey as a stoner poet named Moondog – is being honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

Born in Bolinas, California, in 1974, Harmony Korine broke out in the filmmaking world in 1995 when he wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark’s controversial “Kids.” In 1997 he made his directorial debut with “Gummo,” a realistic look at youth alienation in America, for which he won awards at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and at the Rotterdam fest.

In 1998, he directed his first music video for the song “Sunday” by Sonic Youth, starring Macaulay Culkin. The same year Korine published his debut novel “A Crack-Up at the Race Riots.”

Korine’s second feature “Julien Donkey-Boy,” the experimentally told story of a schizophrenic, went to Venice in...

It is my experience that one gets a far richer, stranger cinema education in pursuing the careers of actors, that group defined first by (assuming luck shines upon them) two or three era-defining films and then so much that dictates their industry—pet projects, contractual obligations, called-in favors alimony payments, auteur one-offs, and on and on. Few embody that deluge of circumstance better than Michelle Yeoh and Isabelle Huppert, both of whom are receiving spotlights in March. The former’s is a who’s-who of Hong Kong talent, new favorites (The Heroic Trio), items we can at least say are of interest (Trio‘s not-great sequel Executioners), etc.

Huppert’s series runs longer, and notwithstanding certain standards that have long sat on the channel it adds some heavy hitters: Hong’s In Another Country, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come. And, of course,...

Iconic composer Burt Bacharach has passed away at 94. Bacharach penned hundreds of songs throughout his storied career, including "That's What Friends Are For," "Wishin' and Hopin'," and "(They Long to Be) Close to You," which was later popularized by The Carpenters. He and his frequent collaborator Hal David also wrote many songs for Hollywood films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's iconic theme "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head."

Per Deadline, yesterday the three-time Oscar Award winner Bacharach passed away of natural causes at his L.A. home. He is survived by his wife of three decades Jane Hansen and his children Cristopher, Oliver, and Raleigh. Already, tributes have come pouring in from friends, collaborators, and fans. Read select posts honoring his legacy below:

Related: Star Wars: Interview With Clone Wars Composer Kevin Kiner

burt bacharach created so much joy and beauty with his music. his partnership with...

The most striking aspect of the commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings on 6 June 2019 was the testimony of the veterans who participated in the conflict and who spoke eloquently and movingly about the events of 6 June 1944.

These interviews should be compulsory viewing so people understand the courage and sacrifice of a generation of men and women who displayed the “unconquerable resolve” the Queen spoke about during her speech in Portsmouth.

The film world has, of course, brought us many depictions of the Normandy landings and the subsequent battles. You will find a number of those titles in this list of the 20 greatest Second World War films.

These 20 movies only scratch the surface of the countless number made about the momentous event, but remind us of the horrors and sacrifices made during the devastating global conflict.

Scroll through the gallery below to see the 20 greatest war films:...

Wally Campo, the Roger Corman regular who did his best Det. Joe Friday impersonation as Sgt. Joe Fink — and also served as the narrator — in the original The Little Shop of Horrors, has died. He was 99.

Campo died Jan. 14 of natural causes in Studio City, his son, musician Tony Campodonico, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Campo also played a goofball in Monte Hellman‘s Beast From Haunted Cave (1959) and appeared for director Burt Topper in Hell Squad (1958), Tank Commandos (1959) — where he was top-billed — and the Victor Buono-starring The Strangler (1964).

Campo showed up in the Corman-directed Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), Ski Troop Attack (1960) and Tales of Terror (1962) and in the Corman-produced Devil’s Angels (1967). Many of his movies were made at the filmmaker’s low-budget American International Pictures.

His acting credits also included Edward Dmytryk’s Warlock (1959), the Vincent Price-starring Master of the World (1961) and Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Sam Fuller.

Born...

Harrison Ford has had such a long and varied career, it might be difficult to discern what he might be best known for. Many might cite the science fiction and adventure films he made in the late '70s and early '80s. Films like "Star Wars," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and "Blade Runner." Others might be more fond of his intense, adult dramas like "Witness," "The Mosquito Coast," or "Regarding Henry." Others still might prefer his thrillers like "The Fugitive," "Patriot Games," and "Air Force One." Currently, Ford appears to be a nostalgic mood, reprising roles from his sci-fi/adventure era. 

The point being, Ford has enjoyed a great deal of texture and variation in the roles he's played over the years, and has proven time and again that he is capable of moving comfortably throughout genres. Ford tends to play confident, righteous, and forthright characters -- he...

Kim’s Video was a grungy movie rental empire and cinephile paradise in downtown Manhattan that grouped its tapes and DVDs by director. Started in 1987 out of a dry-cleaning business by Yongman Kim, who was a little-seen and mysterious figure to even his employees, Kim’s Video eventually expanded to five stores and became a way of life for both the customers and the people who worked there.

(I worked at the Kim’s farthest west on Bleecker Street one summer and we all gorged ourselves on movie classics, cult films, outsider art, bootlegs of rarities, and shelves and shelves of unclassifiable ephemera.)

Video stores started to close by 2008 when the near-mythical Mr. Kim offered his collection of 55,000 movies to any institution that would keep it intact. The town of Salemi, Sicily, acquired the archive, and in 2012 there was an article in The Village Voice by Karina Longworth that attempted...

Back in 1953, 20th Century Fox released the Sam Fuller film Pickup On South Street. It's a Cold War noir. The FBI are trailing a courier, hoping she will lead them to her commie masters. Enter Skip McCoy, a pickpocket, whose fingers go wandering through the courier's handbag and make off with the microfilm. The plot progresses sensationally and, more importantly, logically, with enough twists and turns to fill a few TV episodes. It never relies on cheep devices like deus ex machina or withholding information from the audience to generate a big reveal.

What has an old film got to do with a 21st Century TV series? Dough uses the same underlying plot structure. Replace the FBI and commies with criminals, Skip with a bankrupt businesswoman, and the microfilm with a bag of money, and you've got pretty much the same thing. Where Dough differs is in the...

This article was originally published as "Life Is Nothing But Glances" in the Spring 2021 issue of Trafic. It is being presented here through the generosity of the author, newly retitled at his request, and in a new translation by Ted Fendt. It is preceded by a short note shared by Moullet after the death of Jean-Luc Godard:Godard represents, first of all, a search for novelty, one defined by risk and an openness to the possibility of making mistakes over the course of many experiments (over 100 films). For him, a failed film was not a serious matter.Godard made films against: against the milieu from which he came, against dominant rules, and also against himself and his previous films.Godard’s thinking can only be defined by seeing his films, and not through his statements which are often not worthwhile for what they say but for his desire to provoke.

Actor / Filmmaker Alex Winter joins Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss movies featuring a cog in the machine – the individual struggling to exist within the system.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill and Ted character power rankings

Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)

The Game (1997)

Showbiz Kids (2020)

The Panama Papers (2018)

Zappa (2020)

200 Motels (1971)

Modern Times (1936)

Metropolis (1927) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Avatar (2009)

Things To Come (1936) – Jesus Trevino’s trailer commentary

M (1931)

M (1951)

The Last Laugh (1924) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Brazil (1985)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness

City Lights (1931)

Goin’ Down The Road (1970)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Young And The Damned (1950)

Shock Corridor (1963) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

The Naked Kiss (1964)

Stroszek (1977)

Even Dwarves Started Small (1970)

Ikiru (1952) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSacheen Littlefeather: Breaking the Silence.Sacheen Littlefeather, Native American actress and activist, has died at 75. At the 1973 Academy Awards, she declined Marlon Brando’s Oscar for The Godfather on his behalf to condemn the treatment of Native Americans by the film industry and bring attention to the Wounded Knee protests.After five years in charge of BFI Flare and the London Film Festival, Tricia Tuttle has stepped down from her role as Festivals Director at the British Film Institute.Feminist film journal Another Gaze has announced a publishing imprint. Another Gaze Editions launches in late 2022 with My Cinema, a collection of writings by and interviews with Marguerite Duras, and a new translation of The Sky Is Falling, Lorenza Mazzetti's first novel.Recommended VIEWINGHunt, the directorial debut from popular South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game), has a trailer.

Once the biggest staple of Hollywood filmmaking, the Western has seen ebbs and flows through the history of cinema. In recent decades you’d be hard-pressed to find many examples in multiplexes near you—especially ones that fit the traditional mold of the genre, rather than tongue-in-cheek revisionist takes. It’s fitting, then, that it would be Walter Hill who would deliver a new gift onto audiences eager for a journey into that gunslinging world.

Hill has said that all his films are Westerns, which can certainly be seen for anyone familiar with his oeuvre—from his directorial debut in 1975’s Hard Times through 1987’s neo-Western Extreme Prejudice, his own revisionist streak of Westerns in the early ‘90s with Geronimo: An American Legend and Wild Bill, and even into 21st century actioners like Bullet to the Head. Whether he’s in the traditional milieu of the genre or not, those...

Though their “’80s Horror” lineup would constitute enough of a Halloween push, the Criterion Channel enter October all guns blazing. The month’s lineup also includes a 19-movie vampire series running from 1931’s Dracula (English and Spanish both) to 2014’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the collection in-between including Herzog’s Nosferatu, Near Dark, and Let the Right One In. Last year’s “Universal Horror” collection returns, a 17-title Ishirō Honda retrospective has been set, and a few genre titles stand alone: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The House of the Devil, and Island of Lost Souls.

Streaming premieres include restorations of Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’amour and Ed Lachman’s Lou Reed / John Cale concert film Songs for Drella; October’s Criterion editions are Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns, Bill Duke’s Deep Cover, Haxan, and My Own Private Idaho. Meanwhile, Ari Aster has curated an “Adventures...

Jean-Luc Godard, the French-Swiss director who was one of the most revolutionary filmmakers of the 20th century, died in Rolle, Switzerland at the age of 91. His family said that he died peacefully in an assisted suicide procedure surrounded by his loved ones.

In Memoriam 2022: 100 Great Celebrities Who Died This Year!

The family did not specify what conditions Godard had been suffering from, and he has indicated his interest in assisted suicide in previous interviews. He was an influential film critic for the Cahiers du Cinéma through the 1950s while also shooting short films, and established himself as an exciting new film director with the 1960 film Breathless.

Jean-Luc Godard was born on December 3, 1930, in Paris, France to a wealthy family and quickly moved to Switzerland at the age of four after the outbreak of the Second World War. He was educated at a young age in Nyon, Switzerland and returned...