Can “Babygirl” Breathe New Life Into a Retrograde Genre? Can “Babygirl” Breathe New Life Into a Retrograde Genre?
The movie, starring Nicole Kidman, operates at the level of the female gaze. Its inversion of erotic thriller tropes leads to fascinating but, at times, tepid results.
Jan 16, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story? What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story?
In James Mangold's film A Complete Unknown, we get a cautious and reverent story of a musician who has always sought to transcend the limits imposed upon him.
Jan 9, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Sam Adler-Bell
Robert Eggers’s “Nosferatu” Is a Modern Gothic Triumph Robert Eggers’s “Nosferatu” Is a Modern Gothic Triumph
The latest adaptation of the silent film classic evokes anxieties at once eternal and contemporary, using one of horror’s ur-texts to dissect race, sex, and power.
Jan 7, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Kelli Weston
Blake Lively’s Suit Exposes the Twisted World of Hollywood Misogyny Blake Lively’s Suit Exposes the Twisted World of Hollywood Misogyny
The complaint revisits the same gaslighting tactics in the Amber Heard case, and has produced much the same social media fallout.
Dec 31, 2024 / Ray Epstein
The Brutalist and the Hidden Work of Architecture "The Brutalist" and the Hidden Work of Architecture
A film about survival, creativity, the hypocrisies of high art, The Brutalist tells a story about an architect who does not exploit and manipulate others to achieve his grand visi...
Dec 18, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Kate Wagner
The Illusory Beauty of “Nickel Boys” The Illusory Beauty of “Nickel Boys”
An avant-garde adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel careens between questions of style and substance.
Dec 17, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
What Comes After the Apocalypse? A Q&A With Joshua Oppenheimer What Comes After the Apocalypse? A Q&A With Joshua Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer’s latest film, The End, is a Golden Age, postapocalyptic musical crying out from the depths of the earth.
Dec 14, 2024 / Peter Sellars
Warning From the Past Warning From the Past
In a new film, journalists confront a dictator.
Nov 20, 2024 / Elizabeth Becker
“Anora,” an American Fantasia “Anora,” an American Fantasia
In Sean Baker's tragicomic film of a sex worker’s brush with wealth, he evokes auteurs of yore, who focused on the social realities of the country's outcasts.
Nov 7, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Beatrice Loayza
“No Other Land” and the Brutal Truth of Israel’s Occupation “No Other Land” and the Brutal Truth of Israel’s Occupation
The unsparing documentary—one of the year’s most powerful films—has still not found a distributor in the US.
Nov 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Ahmed Moor