Flicks with The Film Snob

Hong Sang-soo’s wry film about a novelist who decides to make a short movie is a clever illustration of the Korean filmmaker’s own narrative methods.

I’ve had occasion before to praise the work of Ko…

A comedy from the inimitable Nicole Holofcener about the things we say to loved ones in order to support them that may not reflect what we really think or feel.

You Hurt My Feelings is the satirical…

Jean Renoir’s 1938 classic about prisoners in World War One was a plea for peace on the eve of yet another war.

Here’s an Oscar trivia question. What was the first non-English language film to be nom…

A single mother in Chad defies patriarchal authority to help her teenage daughter get an abortion.

How far will a mother go to protect her daughter? Lingui, a film by writer-director Mahamat-Saleh Ha…

An introverted sculptor (Michelle Williams) has trouble dealing with people while preparing for a show, in Kelly Reichardt’s amusing study of the relationship between art and ordinary life.

Kelly Rei…

Ari Aster’s disturbing drama about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who is afraid of everything all the time, bursts through the limits of the horror genre. American director Ari Aster staked out a claim for…

A charismatic but demanding gay man starts an affair with a woman, while trying to hang on to his husband.

American director Ira Sachs makes films that explore relationships—of all kinds, although he…

In 1931 and ’32, the gangster genre broke through in Hollywood with three great films: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface.

The gangster movie has been a durable genre, along with the weste…

An Iranian film tells four stories courageously exposing the effects of pervasive state violence on ordinary people. There Is No Evil, a film by Iranian writer and director Mohammad Rasoulof, consis…

Christopher Nolan presents an account of Robert Oppenheimer’s career as the “father of the atomic bomb,” and the controversy surrounding him.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American physicist who was a…

American director Wes Anderson has crafted a film about the fictional process itself, through an elaborate evocation of 1950s America and its science fiction.

Wes Anderson has a consistent style. It’…

This 1959 film starring Audrey Hepburn is a rare example of Hollywood taking the rigors and struggles of religious faith seriously.

Religious stories go wrong in the movies so often, it’s enough to s…

A portrait of a normal seeming American family, with a subversive style revealing its inherent dysfunction.

The Cathedral, the remarkable sophomore feature by Ricky D’Ambrose, is a subtle drama of a…

A hidden gem from 1973 tells of an alcoholic country singer’s much too complicated life.

Often in discussions of that brief period in the early 1970s when there was the promise of a new kind of Ameri…

A family peach farm in Catalonia must face its end, in this gorgeous evocation of people’s bond with the land.

Our connection to the land is one of the central facts of human existence. It’s also tru…

Mike Leigh’s comedy of lower middle class English characters became a template for much of his later work.

Mike Leigh, the British writer and director, came on the scene in the late ‘80s and early ‘9…

The fictional account of a Chinese opera troupe covers, in epic and satiric style, the course of Chinese history from the 1920s through the 1970s.

A friend once teased me, calling me “the boy who cri…

A group of young people plan to blow up an oil pipeline in Texas, in this climate activism thriller.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline takes its title from a book by Andreas Malme. It’s not really a “how to”…

The great director, known for his versatility, was an independent who jumped to whatever studio would hire him at the moment, never with a long-term contract.

There’s a story that after a certain Ame…

The true story of a Japanese officer who stayed on a small Pacific island for thirty years, believing that the second World War was still going on.

Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese officer stationed on Lub…