The Film Stage

Two decades ago, stop-motion animator Adam Elliot burst onto the scene with his wonderful short Harvie Krumpet. Following a man cursed with lifelong bad luck, it earned him an Oscar and introduced the world at large to Elliot’s wicked sense...

French director Léonor Serraille’s third feature Ari is the portrait of an über-sensitive young man who ponders his place in the world while looking up people from his past to hold conversations that were never had. If this sounds like...

Some images have become metonymic by nature, reflecting the political problems of today with little to no context needed. Such a shot opens Michel Franco’s newest offering, Dreams, and it is one of a huge truck abandoned next to a...

Is Mark Ruffalo giving a Trump impression? It’s early into Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 when the actor struts into the frame in a velvety blazer, wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) in tow, gloating as a crowd stands and claps like...

A mother-daughter relationship is rarely a love story, at least not in any of the ways art has dramatized it thus far. Sure, a mother loves her daughter deeply (and vice-versa), but it is a sentiment defined by ambivalence and...

Marking one of their biggest upgrade months yet, the Criterion Collection is consecrating May 2025 with new 4K editions for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, In the Heat of the Night, and (reaching well back into the library) Withnail and I,...

Happy Valentine’s Day from The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Today we appreciate one of the great, under-appreciated Hollywood...

Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’ve reviewed every short film in each category: Animation, Documentary, and Live Action. Below are the Best Animated Short nominees: Beautiful Men | Belgium/France/Netherlands | 18 minutes Three brothers. One appointment. A lot of fog....

Carving out a fascinating filmography with his uncompromising, intimate character studies, Canadian director Denis Côté returns this year with Paul, a new documentary premiering at the Panorama Dokumente section of Berlinale 2025. Capturing the submissive “Cleaning Simp Paul,” who embarks on...

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 Adamant Girl (P. S. Vinothraj) While rural stories have become a topic du...