The Film Stage

As I noted in our round-up of the best cinematography of 2025, “If we were giving an award for the most varied cinematography of the year, it would surely go to Darius Khondji, who has lensed a trio of vastly...

In a major year for blockbusters, from Christopher Nolan to Denise Villeneuve, there’s none we are anticipating more than Steven Spielberg returning to the realm of extraterrestrial sci-fi. After Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and War...

After highlighting the 50 best films you may have missed this year and our overall top 50 films of 2025, today we put our spotlight on those that still need a home: movies we loved on the festival circuit––from Berlinale,...

With bittersweetness, Avatar: Fire and Ash closes a chapter on big filmmaking at a time when the maximalist spirit and cinematic frontiersmanship of James Cameron is in increasingly short supply. Few filmmakers have the dexterity to juggle a kitchen-sink approach...

Rescuing yet another auteurist item from the strange netherworld of streaming exclusivity, Criterion have announced a March 2026 date for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which will surely look better on their 4K disc than even the stablest...

As Martin Scorsese once said, “Music and cinema fit together naturally. Because there’s a kind of intrinsic musicality to the way moving images work when they’re put together. It’s been said that cinema and music are very close as art forms,...

There is an inspired moment in the middle of Ella McCay, written and directed by the great James L. Brooks, in which the titular Ella (Emma Mackey) enters her first-ever cabinet meeting as the newly-appointed governor. It’s not been three...

For our most comprehensive year-end feature, we’re providing a cumulative look at The Film Stage’s favorite films of 2025. We’ve asked contributors to compile ten-best lists with five honorable mentions––many of those personal selections will be shared in coming weeks...

Welcome to 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 celebrate filmmaker James L. Brooks! His new movie Ella...

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. 7 Walks with Mark Brown (Vincent Barré, Pierre Creton) Directed by life partners Pierre...