There’s something confounding about Mountains May Depart, the latest film from Chinese master Jia Zhang-ke (Platform, Unknown Pleasures). In spite of its promising premise and formal expressiveness, there’s a tonal awkwardness that is hard to pin down as inten...

It has been five long years since Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s last feature, the stunning masterpiece Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, won the Palme d’Or in Cannes. Now his much-anticipated follow-up has finally arrived, though, to everyone’s surpri...

Everything seems perfectly in place for Todd Haynes to deliver a great film in Carol. Excellent source material, strong actors, a period setting and milieu he proved himself adept at depicting in Mildred Pierce—a classical, straight up piece to show the other ...

A modest speaker despite his 50-year career, Sidney Lumet was never one to overstate his role as an auteur. In an extensive interview by David Anker, edited by Nancy Buirski into a new episode of the American Masters series, Lumet reveals his insights into fil...

In the hollow world of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, society forces people to be with a romantic partner. Should you find yourself without a significant other, you check into a hotel where you have 45 days to find a lover. If you don’t succeed, you are turned...

It's not a spoiler to say that, in One Floor Below, a young woman living alone suffers a violent death, or that the prime suspect is Vali (Iulian Postelnicu), a married neighbor with whom she was having an affair. Director Radu Muntean delivers all these detai...

In a career that has been intermittently prolific, French filmmaker Philippe Garrel seems to have moved into his so-called “late period”, after 2005’s Regular Lovers, and an ensuing six-year absence from the silver screen. His last three films, released over t...

One has to admire Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales for its sheer audacity. It’s an ambitious attempt to bring the fairy tales of Giambattista Basile to life; stories which are among the oldest fairy tales on record, dating back to 1634. The earnestness that driv...