The Film Stage

Cannes Review: Oliver Laxe’s Desert Trance Sirat Is a Grand, Adventurous Achievement
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For the French-Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe, a competition berth in Cannes has been a long time coming. Laxe was here in 2010 (You All Are Captains), 2016 (Mimosas), and 2019 (Fire Will Come) without once going home empty-handed, and he...
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Cannes Review: The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is a Deeply Affecting Queer Drama
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As reminders that ignorance, bigotry, and hate can literally kill, stories about the AIDS epidemic will always be relevant. The latest, beautiful example arrived courtesy of Chilean writer-director Diego Céspedes, whose feature debut The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo premiered...
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Cannes Review: A Useful Ghost Tells a Peculiar, Humorous Paranormal Tale 
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While ghosts and spirits have long been the conduit for cinematic scares and jolts, from The Innocents to Poltergeist to The Ring, a relatively recent wave of films exploring the supernatural has been more concerned with the tangible, emotional effects...
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First Trailer for Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague Brings Cinema History to Life
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After releasing two films last year with Hit Man and the rather-overlooked God Save Texas: Hometown Prison, the ever-prolific Richard Linklater returns in 2025 with two more features. Earlier this year he premiered Blue Moon at Berlinale, which has been set for an October release....
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The Criterion Collection’s August Lineup Includes an Edward Yang Double-Feature, Kon Ichikawa, Compensation & More
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If Criterion’s influence from the last 15-or-so years must distilled to one figure, a good candidate might be Edward Yang. The near-instant canonization of Yi Yi, A Brighter Summer Day, and Taipei Story––not quite tailor-made for constant sell-out screenings or...
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Leos Carax, Albert Serra, David Lowery, Alexander Payne & More Plan Next Features
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Kicking things off with a small but enticing update, following last year’s incredible cine-memoir It’s Not Me, Leos Carax is finally prepping a 2026 shoot for his first narrative feature since Annette. While not much is known about the project,...
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Bring Her Back Review: An Anxiety-Inducing Triumph of Horror
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Horror movies explicitly tackling grief are hardly a recent development, but it’s difficult to argue against the fact that we’ve seen this theme exploited at an increased output to less-satisfying results in the previous decade, adding unnecessary weight to even...
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New to Streaming: The Brutalist, The Wedding Banquet, Deaf President Now!, I’m Still Here & More
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Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet) Brady Corbet’s long-gestating architecture epic looks and feels as painstakingly...
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NYC Weekend Watch: Cymbeline, Malcolm X, Kira Muratova, Fury Road on 35mm & More
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NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. Brooklyn Center for Theatre ResearchMichael Almereyda’s Cymbeline screens on Friday with the director present for an intro and Q&A. BAMA celebration of Malcolm X’s centennial brings Spike Lee’s biopic, Black...
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The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire Trailer: Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s Striking Debut Arrives in June
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A directorial debut as hypnotic as it is narratively destabilizing, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich was one of my favorite discoveries of last year’s New York Film Festival. A post-biopic about Caribbean surrealist Suzanne Césaire, deconstructing the process of bringing an actually-lived life...
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