The Film Stage

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Venice coverage. April opens in theaters on April 25. In this year’s diverse line-up of Venice competition titles, there is one that stands out. A film without any predecessors...

Making movies is hard. This is not a revelatory observation, though a film like The Legend of Ochi underlines how much most of us take the art of filmmaking for granted. There is so much impossible skill involved in creating...

In what may be among the quickest production-to-premiere turnarounds for a feature film, Succession creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong’s next project Mountainhead wrapped shooting earlier this month and will now arrive on Max at the end of May, just in...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Tribeca coverage. Emergent City opens in theaters on April 25. Full transparency: I’ve been to Sunset Park’s Industry City. I walked around the shops and restaurants, ate lunch at...

After shifting from his comedy days in The Whitest Kids U’ Know to his horror debut Barbarian, Zach Cregger’s next project has been highly anticipated and highly secretive. Led by Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher,...

One thing I like to do at a film festival is go for a run. Maintaining the sense of a bubble at these things can be crucial: once entered, it’s best to remain in its unusual hold or risk forgetting...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 TIFF coverage. On Swift Horses opens in theaters on April 25. It’s been some time since we’ve had such a ridiculously attractive lineup of buzzworthy young actors as the...

The most essential, vital documentary of the last year, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor’s No Other Land, is now finally available to watch at home for a limited time. The Indie Film Site Network Advocate Award winner...

His first narrative feature in six years, featuring footage collected over some two decades, Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides is one of the filmmaker’s greatest achievements. A summative piece in a career-spanning project of capturing China’s transformation, the Cannes,...

The Legend of Ochi, written and directed by Isaiah Saxon, is a lovely adventure built on imagination and skill. It certainly feels like the kind of film that will last a good long while. Short on dialogue and long on...