Akira Kurosawa’s 20th-century-set masterpiece comprises at least two films. In one, Takashi Shimura’s inert bureaucrat receives a terminal diagnosis and faces the fact he hasn’t really been alive for the past 30 years. In the other, those around him reckon with his final extraordinary burst of spirit. Heart-crushing, clear more »
In an era of great change and great beauty emerged the character of James McNeill Whistler. Considered by some to be one of the great innovators of 19th century art, he was a contemporary of the Impressionists, much admired by Van Gogh and Manet. Boldly experimental and famously witty, Whistler disrupted the strict conventions o more »
Follows Frances Haugen, a young Facebook engineer, who enlisted the help of Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to blow the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets more »
The feature-length season-2 opener is the penultimate episode of the original series’ run directed by David Lynch himself and, appropriately, introduces the mysterious giant (Carel Struycken) who calls on the (not dead) Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) from time to time. Cooper survived last season’s cliffhanger, but so did Leo more »
In France, “cinq à sept” isn’t just a time of day, but a liminal zone between workaday concerns and the more intimate evening. Corinne Marchand’s young blonde pop singer spends those minutes wandering Paris while awaiting a doctor’s diagnosis, trying to outpace existential dread. Agnès Varda’s second feature outcla more »
he Met: Live in HD season continues with Mozart’s satirical comedy of fickle young love. Phelim McDermott’s “colorful, inventive” (The New York Times) staging, inspired by Coney Island in the 1950s, sets the uproarious story at a boardwalk amusement park, where the two pairs of lovers at the heart of the tale find themselves on more »
Three sisters experience love and heartbreak after they're forced to leave their family estate with their widowed mother and move to a humble cottage. more »
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier's protection of the city of Loudun from the corrupt Cardinal Richelieu is undermined by a sexually repressed nun's accusation of witchcraft. more »
A film so far ahead of its time we still haven’t caught up. A flailing politician shames the Civil Rights era CIA into hiring Black agents, which brings them more than they bargained for in Lawrence Cook. Cook’s cool customer soon tires of the agency’s bullshit and takes his training to Chicago to form an underground guerilla ar more »
The Leopard director Luchino Visconti reteams with its star Burt Lancaster for another tale of an old-school gentleman confronting a new age. A crass bougie gaggle (led by Sillivana Mangano and Helmut Berger) browbeat Lancaster’s oldmoney scholar into renting them rooms, whereupon they upend his life. But this is no wacky comedy more »
Two of opera’s most extraordinary artists return to The Met: Live in HD for Verdi’s thrilling take on the immortal Shakespearean tale of the scheming couple determined to seize power at any cost. Baritone Quinn Kelsey is the Scottish king haunted by the ghosts of his murderous ascent to the throne, opposite soprano Lise Davidsen more »
Quentin Tarantino fetish object Michael Parks shows up as villain Jean Renault, and oddball character actor Lenny Von Dohlen pops up as an agoraphobe with a secret Laura Palmer diary. Subplots involving Meals on Wheels and a disability-payment scam telegraph the series’ puddling sprawl. People more »
Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait becomes a mind-bending three-year journey. more »
Stolid Yank skeptic Dana Andrews just can’t buy that there’s a devil cult bustling in the tidy hedgerows of Merrie Olde England until it comes for him. There’s no real reason this vintage Brit creeper/thriller should work as well as it does except for, well, somehow everything about it. Kate Bush fans absolute more »
After years in the “cult” ghetto, Andrzej Żuławski’s film seems to have crept into the broader consciousness—so much so that there’s a prestige remake in development. It’s nearly impossible to imagine any other filmmaker or cast getting anywhere close to the sweaty desperation, the loony energy, the quite-literally-le more »
Once they die, ordinary Japanese report to a disheveled office to pick one memory from their lives that they will carry with them through eternity. That’s the premise behind Hirokazu Kore-eda’s deceptively simple classic. While the recently departed compile their highlight reels, the folks who staff the office (Arata Iura and Er more »
Widely considered Britain’s most popular artist, David Hockney was a global sensation with exhibitions in London, New York, Paris and beyond, attracting millions of visitors worldwide. Featuring intimate and in-depth interviews with Hockney, this revealing film focuses on two blockbuster exhibitions held in 2012 and 2016 at the more »
Set in 1949, the Shikishima family confronts a fresh catastrophe two years after surviving their previous ordeal with the legendary monster. more »
Things start getting really coconuts. A secret-shopper food critic (!) visits Twin Peaks, and Nadine (Wendy Robie) suffers a TV illness. A character believed dead returns in an obvious disguise. David Lander (Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley) shows up in one scene for a gag worthy of a Jerry Lewis flick. Capers of varying levels more »
Alfred Hitchcock did his part to push back against the rise of fascism with this tale of a sinister foreign agent (Oscar Homolka) up to no good in pre-World War II London behind the back of his unaccountably lovely wife (Sylvia Sidney). Sabotage unfolds light on the suspense set pieces that made the master famous, but it builds more »
Ever wanted to hang at Andy Warhol’s Factory in the ‘60s? This is as close as you’ll get. The underrated Mary Harron peers through the eyes of Valerie Solanas (Lily Taylor), an aggro lesbian writer who pursues Warhol (Jared Harris) as a benefactor before making him a target. Taylor delivers chunks of Solanas’s more »
If you think about it, parts of Vertigo are kind of silly. “The Mad Carlotta”? The level of coincidence involved? The jump scare at the end? But typically you’re not thinking about it, because the rest of Alfred Hitchcock’s film (aided by Bernard Herrmann’s score) taps into a relentless frisson of obsession that pulls James Stew more »
The old bellhop at the Great Northern? That’s Hank Worden, who was in a bunch of John Ford’s films and has 227 acting credits on IMDb. Regardless, David Lynch returns to Twin Peaks on camera as Agent Cooper’s hard-of hearing boss. Death also returns to Twin Peaks as a couple of characters meet grim fates. A disguised character i more »
Perhaps best known for the microbudget horror landmark Cat People, Jacques Tourneur reached his true pinnacle here. Robert Mitchum plays an ex-private eye drawn back to his former associations with a ruthless gambler (Kirk Douglas) and his beautiful moll (Jane Greer), and it all goes to hell. Hardboiled pulp master James M. Cain more »
Two brothers pursue the American Dream but get entangled in a dangerous Russian mafia scheme that terrorizes their family, testing their bond as betrayal becomes possible. more »
Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel still holds up because it was made at a time when onscreen sexuality of any kind was fraught at best, allowing it to smuggle the worst implications past viewers via the formidable charm of James Mason as the title nymphet’s father-figure/abductor. The most scandalous aspec more »
In 2013 Norway celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944), one of the towering figures of modern art. This was hailed as a “once-in-a-lifetime show”. Global interest was huge – not least as a result of one of his four The Scream (pictured) paintings having recently set a public art auction recor more »
Wanna know who killed Laura Palmer? This is when you find out, as the folks running the show in David’s Lynch’s creative absence shift the show into sorta-kinda standard crime mode for a couple of episodes to wrap it up. Which is kind of weird considering the second season is only halfway over! more »
Sacred, scandalous, and irresistibly alluring, Saint-Saëns’s spectacular take on the biblical hero of legendary strength and the seductive Philistine whose beauty overpowers him returns in the Met’s larger-than-life production. Featuring a massive orchestra and chorus and some of opera’s most spellbinding tunes, this masterpiece more »
Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern playing brothers represents some minor summit of maximum ‘70s-ness. The former plays a buttoned-up radio host (picture a depressed Ira Glass). The latter plays a glad-handing hustler trying to lure his little bro to a grotty pre-revival Atlantic City and into a dubious scheme to open a casino in Haw more »
Ringo Lam is no John Woo, but they also serve who put rising star Chow Yun-fat in a series of sweet fits in a violent Hong Kong crime film. Here Chow plays an undercover detective looking for a cop killer and getting a bit too close to a crew of vicious thieves. Some observers have noticed similarities between Lam’s film and Que more »
‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer is one of the most enduring paintings in the history of art. This beautifully filmed documentary goes in pursuit of answers to the unresolved riddles surrounding this extraordinary piece. Holland’s distinguished Mauritshuis is home to the painting and is a stunning jewel of a more »
Puccini’s exhilarating drama of the Wild West returns in a new staging by Richard Jones, marking the company’s first new production of La Fanciulla del West in more than 30 years. Soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė stars as Minnie, the tough tavern owner with a heart of gold who finds love when she least expects it. Tenor SeokJong Baek i more »
Pierre-Auguste Renoir is one of the world’s favorite artists; a founding member of the Impressionist movement and a constantly evolving artist, he is unmatched at depicting human connection. The National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition brings together vibrant masterpieces which explore love in all its forms, bringing colour an more »
The story of Christ’s death and resurrection has dominated western culture for the past 2000 years. It is perhaps the most significant historical event of all time, as recounted by the gospels but, equally, as depicted by the greatest artists in history. From the triumphant to the savage, the ethereal to the tactile, some of wes more »
Following his smash-hit company debut with The Hours, composer Kevin Puts returns to the Met with his Pulitzer Prize–winning opera, inspired by the true events of the 1914 Christmas truce. A poignant depiction of shared humanity in the most inhumane circumstances, Puts’s grand, cinematic opera—with a libretto in English, French, more »
Following her radiant performance in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette—which garnered raves for “high notes that spun like liquid gold … Sierra touched the operatic firmament” (The New York Times)—superstar soprano Nadine Sierra takes on another alluring French heroine, the irresistible title character of Massenet’s passionate drama, more »
Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers are among his most famous works, and are some of the most iconic paintings in the world. The Van Gogh Museum has opened its doors exclusively to Exhibition on Screen, to go beyond the surface and explore the many questions and mysteries that surround these seminal works. Why did Van Gogh choose th more »
One of today’s leading dramatic tenors, Brian Jagde takes on the tour-de-force title role of what many consider the ultimate Italian opera, live to cinemas worldwide. Verdi’s monumental Shakespearean tragedy also features soprano Ailyn Pérez in her company role debut as the long-suffering Desdemona, alongside baritone Artur Ruc more »
Undeniably one of the world’s favorite artists and the figurehead of the Impressionist movement prepare to be dazzled by his spectacular and revolutionary use of light and color and step into one the most famous gardens in art history. Immerse yourself in iconic masterpieces and discover the incredible story of passion and re more »
A profound philosophical meditation on compassion and reconciliation, this transcendent rendering of a medieval knight’s heroic quest for the Holy Grail returns to the big screen in François Girard’s celebrated production, a “thoughtful and intrepid staging, full of striking imagery” (The New York Times). Yannick Nézet-Séguin co more »
