The Film Stage

Paweł Pawlikowski’s Joaquin Phoenix- and Rooney Mara-led The Island was, as cinematographer Łukasz Żal told us, “just two-and-a-half weeks before shooting” when the 2023 strikes shut down production. While it seems less and less likely we’ll ever see the film...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 TIFF coverage. Eden opens in theaters on August 22. On paper, there are few filmmakers who seem less-suited to the rigors of a project like Eden than Ron Howard....

Has it become a bit clichéd and too-smart-for-your-own-good to say Eyes Wide Shut is a Christmas movie? Of course. Is Eyes Wide Shut not only a Christmas movie, but one that weaves the holiday’s atmosphere, spirit, and symbolism into an...

Writing about another great Locarno film a few days ago, I lamented the critical inclination to always bring up Éric Rohmer and Hong Sangsoo. Regardless, it would be wrong not to note the echoes of their work in Sho Miyake’s...

Radu Jude is one of the great filmmakers of the decade. His latest, Dracula, is ostensibly a satire on Vlad The Impaler––the most famous Romanian of all, who appears throughout in all sort of guises––but its main target is AI...

Never underestimate the critical desire to cite Éric Rohmer––spend enough days at a film festival and you’ll start noticing illusions to the director’s work in your breakfast cereal. Still, I’m struggling to think of a recent film that’s done so...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. IFC CenterFilms by John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam screen in Hong Kong Cinema Classics; The Lovers on the Bridge plays in a new restoration while In the Mood for Love and In...

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. Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison) There is a scholarly theory that proposes films...

Cinema Guild’s release of Shinji Sōmai restorations stands among the great projects in modern cinema. Shortly after debuting Love Hotel, they’ll be giving The Friends a theatrical run that begins at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center on August 22....

One of the great films about movie love, failed ambition, and personal destruction, Carlos Reichenbach’s aptly titled Movie Dementia (or the more evocative Filme Demência in Portuguese) really stunned me when I saw it in 2023. Because it has remained...