Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad) A Film by Alain Resnais (1961)

"...The spectator will let himself be carried along by the extraordinary images in front of him, by the actors' voices, by the soun...

Amarcord (1973) A Film by Federico Fellini

To watch Federico Fellini's Amarcord is to step inside someone else's mind as they flip through old photo albums from their youth. ...

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) A Film by Wes Anderson

Pushed along by the onslaught of sophisticated computer technology, animation as an artistic medium has lost some of its charm in recent yea...

Best Films of The First Decade of the 21st Century

( UPDATED 8/15/12 ) I'm not one for assigning much meaning to end-of-the-year lists and other games, but I do think they're always a...

There Will Be Blood (2007) A Film by Paul Thomas Anderson

It is difficult to pinpoint the variety of motivations that led me to kick this blog off last year. There have been a great number of films ...

World of Glory (Härlig är jorden) A Short Film by Roy Andersson (1991)

During an aggressively confrontational scene of mass genocide that inaugurates Roy Andersson's essential short film World of Glory , a l...

The Road (2009) A Film by John Hillcoat

I'll come right out and admit that I have not read Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road , the basis of John Hillcoat's new film adap...

Pickpocket (1959) A Film by Robert Bresson

It's easy to miss narrative details of Robert Bresson's Pickpocket . So much becomes of so little. The story, that of a compulsive t...

Ponyo (2008) A Film by Hayao Miyazaki

All of Hayao Miyazaki's animated films are ostensibly "for children", but never has that element been as pronounced as it is i...

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) A Film by Wim Wenders (1987)

If you have ever wished you could fly, see Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire on the big screen. This may mean suspending your disbelief howe...

35 Shots of Rum (35 Rhums) A Film by Claire Denis (2008)

Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum - like Hirozaku Kore-Eda's recent Still Walking - uses a beloved Yasujiro Ozu film as a jumping off ...

Dogville (2003) A Film by Lars Von Trier

Lars Von Trier's Dogville is a remarkably dense film unafraid to put forth a discursive string of unsettling questions about the basene...

Liverpool (2008) A Film by Lisandro Alonso

It is a curious thing to be so thoroughly moved by a film that is less an authorial work of art than it is a fact of life, a spontaneous cre...

The Brood (1979) A Film by David Cronenberg

A conversation between a father and a son begins casually. The two figures wear robes are engulfed in black space. Before any verbal indicat...