Clad in his now-iconic fedora and trenchcoat, Alain Delon’s sangfroid assassin attempts to elude both the police and his disgruntled clients after his latest murder-for-hire. Part underworld procedural, part existential hang, Jean-Pierre Melville’s elegant neo-noir codified a certain category of cinema cool, with an assist from more »
In pursuit of a serial killer, an FBI agent uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree. more »
A woman taking a cab ride from JFK engages in a conversation with the taxi driver about the important relationships in their lives. more »
A man seeks to break free from his predetermined path, a cop questions his wife's demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searches for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide. more »
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past. more »
A 21-year-old construction worker in New Mexico joins a community of queer rodeo performers in search of their own version of the American dream. more »
It tells the story of two friends who travel to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend. more »
When 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her. more »
A romantic and thrilling story that spans several decades and continents; Touch follows one man's emotional journey to find his first love who disappeared 50 years ago, before his time runs out. more »
A young musician, tormented by an abusive situation at home, must contend with a rival singer, a burgeoning romance, and his own dissatisfied band, as his star begins to rise. more »
The story of a man who has started a new hip-hop/rap label called Krush Groove. more »
John Waters made films that prodded the funny bone and gag reflex more than his second feature, but there’s an anarchic, unhinged energy here that outstrips everything else in his cinema. Divine and the rest of the Dreamlanders kill, steal, commit sacrilege, kill again, cannibalize, and kill some more in lurid black and white. more »
The story behind the Veuve Clicquot champagne family and business that began in the late 18th century. more »
“Epic” is overused, but it’s hard to get around it here. Akira Kurosawa drew the blueprint for action cinema with his vastly influential tale of hastily recruited ronin defending a village full of farmers from marauding bandits. Along the way, he limns indelible character moments not only for the stoic warriors but for the haple more »
A nasty piece of work. Susan George and Peter Fonda star as the title lowlife dimbulbs, whose kidnap-for-ransom scheme leads to reel after reel of vintage Detroit muscle speeding down rural backroads, totaling cop cars, and ducking helicopters. For some reason, every major character in this drive-in exemplar se more »
Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents' relationship. more »
James Stewart rebooted his career and nice-guy image with the first of eight oaters he made with Anthony Mann, justly admired for their tortured psychology (at least by 1950s standards). The title firearm, won by and stolen from Stewart’s deadeye, links together a panoply of characters as it passes from hand to hand. A nearly pe more »
It’s as if this restored gem was concocted in a lab to delight 21st-century kitsch hounds. A playboy war photographer gets mixed up with underworld shenanigans that involve a squad of perky but deadly women operatives in matching mod outfits. Got a pedestrian people-talking-in-a-car shot? Why not make the street-scene behind the more »
Knuckle-faced Lino Ventura plays a hood on the run trying to make his way from Milan back to Paris with his family without getting pinched. Heists, police ambushes, and old-pals-turned-frenemies complicate matters. Shoved aside by the French New Wave, Claude Sautet’s headlong crime flick still lacks the cult it deserves, but we more »
A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. more »
Is this still Quentin Tarantino’s best film? There’s something to be said for the relative leanness of his tricksy tale of the fallout from a heist gone wrong, not to mention its lack of pretensions to genius and spectacle. It even has noir veteran Laurence Tierney giving it two-fisted bonafides. Drink every time the characters more »
Powell and Pressburger regular David Farrar plays a WWII bomb expert in constant pain from an amputated leg who self-medicates with booze. Can he solve the mystery of the Nazi booby trap killing his fellow Englishmen? Can he save his relationship with his long-suffering girl (fellow P&P regular Kathleen Byron)? Can he preserve h more »
Alongside the budding slashers of the early ‘80s arose a film that shamed them with its gushing creativity and unruly wit. Sam Raimi was all of 20 when he took the college-kids-on-a-trip horror trope and flooded it with giddy energy and fake bodily fluids, inaugurating a franchise and a career that have more than delivered on th more »
Martians have invaded Earth, and there’s absolutely no way to stop them. That’s the complete plotline of this vintage sci-fi classic, which is both more gorgeous and way more of a downer than you probably remember. Its effects may not measure up to raised-on-CGI standards, but the imagination behind its design still captivates. more »
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife. more »
John Carpenter responded to the box-office failure of his 1982 masterpiece The Thing in part by making its precise opposite. Here, Jeff Bridges’ extraterrestrial is a benign tourist who grows on (not in) Karen Allen’s earthling widow by taking on the form of her dead husband. Carpenter shot his oddball sci-fi romance on location more »
As American as racism and violence. John Ford’s national landmark includes all the silly side quests endemic to a studio film of the era, including a song and a romantic subplot. But the monomaniacal focus of John Wayne’s damaged avenger as he tracks down his kidnapped niece lends it a terrible power. And if you’re looking for a more »
Wim Wenders’ camera dwells on the deserted contours of the American Southwest for most of the first hour, but the landscape that stays with you is that of Harry Dean Stanton’s face. Watching his haunted wanderer slowly come back to life, reconnect with people, and confront what set him adrift in the first place constitutes one o more »
The late Alec Guinness has been retconned into a kindly screen eminence thanks to his Star Wars canonization as Old Ben Kenobi, but he was a wily actor full of dark currents. Exhibit A: this Ealing Studios heist comedy, which benefits enormously from his ability to telegraph complex motives from behind a milquetoast expression a more »
Flair. TPS reports. The red Swingline stapler. Mike Judge’s takeout on work in general, and the cube-farm culture of white-collar labor in particular, was so dead-on and scathing that it provided a whole new set of terms and concepts to mock and undermine them. Since it was famously a failure at the box office and only became be more »
Oscar Micheaux’s landmark debut is no mere curio of cinema history. The oldest surviving feature film by a Black director jumps back and forth over the Mason-Dixon line as our heroine (Evelyn Preer) works to uplift the race and faces love and family troubles of her own. Micheaux captures many startling moments of century-old hum more »
David Cronenberg’s breakout leveled-up artistically as well as at the box office. Despite an inert lead performance from Stephen Lack, Scanners depicts a reality full of weaponized psychics at war but also disturbingly recognizable corporate conspiracies and house-of-mirrors paranoia. While the director’s work is best known for more »
