A Year of Essential Reading on the Current
From deeply researched surveys of great filmmakers’ careers to idiosyncratic takes on under-examined corners of cinema history, the writing we published this year offered an array of entry points into the art form we all love. Here’s a selection of some of our favorite articles to tide you over until we get back to posting in the new year!
JANUARY
Opening the Aperture: Women Cinematographers on Their Craft
By Bárbara Alvarez, Ashley Connor, Michelle Crenshaw, Ellen Kuras, and Iris Ng
Five acclaimed directors of photography open up about the pleasures and challenges of pushing the envelope in a changing industry.
FEBRUARY
This entry in our Songbook series explores how the ’20s jazz hit “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby” throws the screwball classic’s nonchalant attitude toward wealth into relief.
MARCH
Ghost Town: Nights on Bunker Hill
By Imogen Sara Smith
This Dark Passages column explores the shadows and seedy corners of a once-exclusive area of downtown Los Angeles featured in films like Kiss Me Deadly, Somewhere in the Night, and Act of Violence.
APRIL
Kazuo Hara’s Dedicated Lives
By Markus Nornes
In his uncompromising chronicles of modern Japanese society, the celebrated filmmaker shows a deep understanding of both larger-than-life individuals and collectives of ordinary citizens.
MAY
The Eyes That Fascinate
By Lucy Sante
Louis Feuillade’s binge-worthy serial Les Vampires reflects the French national subconscious in the early twentieth century by depicting a world of anarchy and violent spectacle.
JUNE
The Melancholic, Joyous Soul of Guru Dutt
By Mayukh Sen
The director-actor-producer has long been considered a tragic icon due to his early death. But there is more to his art than misery.
JULY
Cinema Pugilistica: A Century of Boxing on Film
By Christina Newland
Films like The Set-Up, Raging Bull, and The Harder They Fall use the microcosm of the ring to tackle political tensions and inequalities in American society.
AUGUST
The Mancini Touch
By Nate Chinen
The Oscar-winning composer brought the freedom and anxiety of postwar America to life in an eclectic array of Hollywood classics.
SEPTEMBER
James Wong Howe’s Way with Light
By Walter Chaw
Throughout his prolific career, the legendary cinematographer mixed technical ingenuity with the vulnerability and longing of an outsider.
OCTOBER
Playing the Vampire: Six Performances That Draw Blood
By Michael Atkinson, Angelica Jade Bastién, David Cairns, Phoebe Chen, Beatrice Loayza, and Geoffrey O’Brien
Six writers explore how the role of the vampire has given talented actors throughout film history—from Bela Lugosi to Catherine Deneuve—the chance to embody physical and moral extremity.
NOVEMBER
The Daughter of Dawn’s Vanished World
By Adam Piron
After glimpsing his great-great-grandfather on-screen, a writer searches for the history of a landmark silent film.
DECEMBER
Irene Goes Wild
By Benjamin Dreyer
The great but underrated Hollywood star Irene Dunne made her transition to screwball comedy by playing the scandal-courting author at the heart of Theodora Goes Wild.
More: Features
Unforgotten Ancestors: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024
This year, Bologna’s annual feast of restorations and rediscoveries showcased one of the most ambitious masterpieces of the silent era, the melodramas of Japanese filmmaker Kozaburo Yoshimura, and other treasures of film history.
Neza Calling: Punk at the Margins of Mexico City
In the late 1980s, filmmakers Gregorio Rocha and Sarah Minter set out to capture the rebellious subculture of youth in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a slumlike suburb synonymous with the worst failures of urban expansion in Mexico.
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Human-Scaled Artistry in The Savages
The great actor creates an unforgettable portrait of a man worn down by the world in Tamara Jenkins’s darkly funny and deeply moving family drama.
The Criterion Closet 40
The monumental forty-film box set CC40 celebrates forty years of the Criterion Collection with an electrifying mix of classic and contemporary films, and presents them with all their special features and essays.