The village band pounds out an oompah-pah tune, as police march four disreputable characters across the square. Already we’re smiling. One is tall and round, one is tall and cadaverous, one is short and round and the fourth is a little rat face with a bristling mustache. On the soundtrack, Humphrey Bogart tells us they…

Hitchcock and railways go together like a locomotive and tender. He loved them, they figure significantly in his work and never more so than in The Lady Vanishes. Much of what happens could only take place on a railway line – passengers delayed together by an avalanche; classes compartmentalised; strangers trapped together as they’re transported…

In The Boys from Brazil, Barry Kohler stumbles upon a secret organization of Third Reich war criminals holding some meetings in Paraguay. He learns that  Dr Josef Mengele the infamous Auschwitz doctor, is part of them. When he phones Ezra Lieberman, an old Nazi hunter, with this information, he’s pretty skeptical of the news. Lieberman replies…

“Meet Joe Black” is a movie about a rich man trying to negotiate the terms of his own death. It is a movie about a woman who falls in love with a concept. And it is a meditation on the screen presence of  Brad Pitt. That there is also time for scenes about sibling rivalry…

Luis Buñuel’s first color film, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, is also his only film written entirely in English. Fulfilling his father’s prophecy of disaster, Robinson Crusoe (an Oscar-nominated Dan O’Herlihy) is stranded on a deserted island along with his cat Sam and his dog Felix while on a trip to purchase African slaves. His curiosity…

Poor little Nell Trent, sweet thing. At 13, she is the soul of innocence as she keeps house for her grandfather in dangerous, dark London of 1839, a ray of sunshine on the bleak and seedy streets. Her older brother, Fred, who mistakenly thinks she will inherit a fortune accumulated by a miserly man, already…

Grave and somber, Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles” opens. Where in 1892 New Mexico, a family of homesteaders—mom, dad, three kids—are going about their business when Comanche warriors thunder toward their ranch. Grabbing a rifle to defend his family, the father is cut down and scalped first. Before setting fire to the ranch, the Natives go after the…

“You’re tearing me apart! You say one thing, he says another, and everybody changes back again.” James Dean shouts these words in an anguished howl that seems to owe more to acting class than to his character, the rebellious and causeless Jim Stark in “Rebel Without a Cause.” Because he died in a car crash a…

Out of Sir Walter Scott’s gloriously panoramic novel, “Ivanhoe,” which also contains an ample measure of twelfth-century social overtones, Producer Pandro S. Berman and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have fetched a motion picture that does them, Scott and English history proud. The credits should redound in that order, for it must be ungrudgingly agreed that those who emerge…

There’s not a soft or sentimental passage in Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole” (1951), a portrait of rotten journalism and the public’s insatiable appetite for it. It’s easy to blame the press for its portraits of self-destructing celebrities, philandering preachers, corrupt politicians or bragging serial killers, but who loves those stories? The public does….

“Contact” is a film that takes place at the intersection of science, politics and faith. Those are three subjects that don’t always fit easily together. In the film, an alien intelligence transmits an image of three pages of encrypted symbols. It is clear where the corners of each page are. It is also clear that…

WITH “The Guns of Navarone,” Carl Foreman is beginning to blast himself a niche in the hall of fame of adventure-film producers that is surmounted by the bust of Cecil B. DeMille.This big, robust action drama, which boomed into the Criterion last night and will begin a simultaneous engagement at the Murray Hill today, is…

  The switch from black and white to color would have had a special resonance in 1939, when the movie was made. Almost all films were still being made in black and white, and the cumbersome new color cameras came with a “Technicolor consultant” from the factory, who stood next to the cinematographer and officiously…

By 1952, movie-goers knew exactly what to expect from a Western: a clean-cut, self-assured hero facing down a good-for-nothing villain in a climactic shoot-out, lots of action, gorgeous scenery, and not much in the way of thematic depth. This was a time when the Western was at the height of its popularity, and when stars…

“It wasn’t a message that stirred the audiences, nor was it a great performance…they were aroused by pure film.” So Alfred Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut about “Psycho,” adding that it “belongs to filmmakers, to you and me.” Hitchcock deliberately wanted “Psycho” to look like a cheap exploitation film. He shot it not with his usual expensive feature crew (which…

How should we live? That’s the not unimportant question posed by Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece. War and Peace is one of the greatest stories ever told. A story that encompasses almost the whole of humanity, and which collapses the space between ink and paper and flesh and blood so completely that you seem to be living…

Millions of tourists every year visit Paris. Some to see the sights, the famous locations. Some come to sample the French cuisine. Other to dance, drink and indulge. Then there are those looking for passion, desire and sexual satisfaction at the Hotel Casanova. At least they do in the world of Billy Wilder and Alexandre…

At the time of its first release in 1960, “Spartacus” was hailed as the first intellectual epic since the silent days – the first Roman or Biblical saga to deal with ideas as well as spectacle. Even the ending was daring. The crucified hero is denied a conventional victory, and has to be consoled with…

The abiding terror in Alfred Hitchcock’s life was that he would be accused of a crime he did not commit. This fear is at the heart of many of his best films, including “Strangers on a Train” (1951), in which a man becomes the obvious suspect in the strangulation of his wife. He makes an…

Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably the most frequently dramatized of all the Sherlock Holmes stories. From its opening scene at the inquest of Sir Charles Baskerville (introduced with a quick shot of Baskerville’s dead, contorted features) it’s plain this is as much a horror film as a mystery. The inquest…

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Everybody knows the first sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But the chapter ends with a truth equally acknowledged about Mrs. Bennet, who has five daughters in want of husbands: “The business of her…

This will not do. It is like taking up the story of Salome after she has put the veils back on. Another problem is that there is not much action in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, except inside the minds and souls of the characters. A third is that the Rev. Dimmesdale, who impregnates poor Hester, is…

“Dog Day Afternoon” runs a little longer than the average feature, and you think maybe they could have cut an opening montage of life in New York. But no. These shots, stolen from reality, establish a bedrock for the film. It’s “naturalistic,” says the director, Sidney Lumet. I think he means it has the pace and…

Patrice Leconte’s “Monsieur Hire” is a tragedy about loneliness and erotomania, told about two solitary people who have nothing else in common. It involves a murder, and the opening shot is of a corpse. Monsieur Hire is a scrawny, balding middle-aged tailor who lives by himself. Alice is a beautiful, tender-hearted 22-year-old blonde who lives…

Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” begins when it seems his protagonist’s career is ending. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a Nevada police detective whose retirement party is interrupted by news of the brutal murder of a young girl. Across the noisy room he senses a shift in tone, and joins a conversation between his chief and the…

Luis Bunuel’s “Belle de Jour” (1967), the story of a respectable young wife who secretly works in a brothel one or two afternoons a week. It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best. That’s because it understands eroticism from the inside-out–understands how it exists not in sweat and skin, but in…

The soldiers assigned to find Pvt. Ryan and bring him home can do the math for themselves. The Army Chief of Staff has ordered them on the mission for propaganda purposes: Ryan’s return will boost morale on the homefront, and put a human face on the carnage at Omaha Beach. His mother, who has already…

  Emphasizing brawn over brain and spectacle over intimacy, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator nevertheless is an impressive accomplishment in its re-creation not only of the golden age of the Roman Empire but of the unspeakable brutality with which one of the world’s greatest states conducted its business. Following up on his recent best actor Oscar nomination, Russell Crowe…

The title of the film by Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” is meant to recall Sergio Leone’s masterpiece “Once Upon a Time in the West.” It’s a nod to the Western genre influence on Tarantino’s latest—both structurally and in the actual plot—and the way movies about the Old West play with actual history….

“Everything I do is not going right.” So sobs Howard, the adrenaline-junkie diamond dealer gambling addict played by Adam Sandler in “Uncut Gems.” Taking place over the course of a couple of days, “Uncut Gems,” hurtles along a narrow track over a yawning abyss, following Howard as he attempts to pay down his huge gambling debts…

“Jojo Rabbit” adapts the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens into a coming-of-age story that just happens to be set in the fading days of World War II Germany. There is where we meet Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), a sweet German boy headed off to Nazi camp, where young men learn to throw grenades and young women learn the…

The movie is focused on a Lionel Essrog (Norton), a detective with Tourette’s Syndrome posing as a reporter to investigate the murder of his boss and surrogate father (Bruce Willis’ Frank Minna), who plucked him and several other boys from a Catholic orphanage and trained them to be hard-boiled gumshoes. Along the way, Lionel uncovers…

“Bombshell” depicts, with equal parts bemusement and outrage, the explosion that occurred when the women of Fox News Channel dared to expose the culture of sexual harassment that had prevailed for so long at the cable television juggernaut. More than a year before allegations of abuse and harassment against Harvey Weinstein would spark the #MeToo movement and…

The Pope and a Jesuit cardinal walk into a park. As they stroll the grounds of the Papal summer home, the cardinal, Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) attempts to serve his resignation papers. Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) either ignores his request or amusingly deflects it by involving Bergoglio in a conversation about their personal differences….

In “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” co-written and co-directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, Zac (Zack Gottsagen) is a man with Down Syndrome who has been placed in a nursing home by the state since he has no family and no resources. He has befriended every elderly resident, as well as Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), a kindly young…

“Togo” is a smart, affectionately made tale about an underdog and his musher. “Smart” because it shows the dog as both a puppy who’s too small for mushing and then 12 years later as a proven leader, steering his sled master Seppala (Willem Dafoe) and other dogs on a journey to bring back a serum…

In “Downton Abbey” the movie, roughly four dozen major and minor characters, constituting both nobility and servants, bustle about the screen for two hours, planning and executing grand schemes and dropping juicy bits of gossip, but mostly taking care of the little details: arranging plates, utensils and stemware; fixing a damaged boiler; completely altering a…

Jennifer Lopez struts onto the main stage of a cavernous strip club in “Hustlers” to the blaring tune of Fiona Apple’s late ‘90s anthem “Criminal”—the first line of which, “I’ve been a bad, bad girl,” suggests the knowing, playful tease to come. Lusty men in musty suits immediately begin throwing money at her legendary derriere—not Lopez’s,…

Robert De Niro excels at playing closed-off, unreachable characters—hard men who might seem a bit dull if you met them for the first time, but have inner lives that they rarely let anyone see, and are mysteries to themselves. De Niro was 75 when he played yet another of those characters in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” which feels like…

If “Casablanca” famously told the story of a love triangle set against the backdrop of World War II, in which the star-crossed lovers realized that they needed to separate for the greater good because “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” then “The Aftermath” presents…

Take a breath. Take a deep breath. Those of us who have the luxury of taking breathing for granted get to choose when we think about drawing air into our lungs—to center our thoughts, to relax, to sing, to blow up a balloon, to run. For people with lung diseases like cystic fibrosis (CF), every…

  I watched Anthony Maras’ searing, startlingly confident debut “Hotel Mumbai,” where every fatal bullet fired out of the ruthless terrorists’ semi-automatic weapons hit me at my core. I must admit: this skilled, historical action film was one of the toughest, most disquieting sits I can remember in a while. So much that I almost…

In the series finale of “Game of Thrones,” the killing was minimal, the writing of books maximal, and the primacy of “story” questionable. “There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story,” Tyrion says at one point. “Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.” By the end, a leader is chosen because…

Olivia Wilde’s electric feature debut, “Booksmart,” is a high school comedy with witty dialogue, eye-catching cinematography and swift editing.  Molly, a type-A bookworm obsessed with being the top of her class, and her best friend Amy, a quieter if no less driven feminist activist, worked hard to get into good colleges. When Molly finds out…

What is your story about ‘death’. Is it a tragic one? The story begins with the Creed family—husband Louis (Jason Clarke), wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), eight-year-old daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence), two-year-old son Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie) and beloved house cat Church—arriving in the quaint rural town of Ludlow, Maine to move into a charmingly rustic…

    Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” (1973) attacks film noir with three of his most cherished tools spontaneity and narrative perversity. He is always the most youthful of directors, and here he gives us the youngest of Philip Marlowes, the private eye as a Hardy boy. Marlowe hides in the bushes, pokes his nose…

It is almost always raining in the city. Somerset, the veteran detective, wears a hat and raincoat. Mills, the kid who has just been transferred into the district, walks bare-headed in the rain as if he’ll be young forever. On their first day together, they investigate the death of a fat man they find face-down…

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. This statement by Karl Marx admirably serves two functions: (1) It describes the difference between the two times the teaching of Darwin’s theories were put on trial in this country, in Tennessee in 1925 and in Pennsylvania in 2005; (2) Because it…

Mike Figgis’ “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995) is not a love story, although it feels like one, but a story about two desperate people using love as a form of prayer and a last resort against their pain. It is also a sad, trembling portrait of the final stages of alcoholism. Those who found it too…

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d. — Alexander Pope, “Eloisa to Abelard” It’s one thing to wash that man right outta your hair, and another to erase him from your mind. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” imagines…