Under the Influence
The Movie Miranda July Knows by Heart
When the Kajillionaire director saw sex, lies, and videotape as a teenager, she was transfixed by its exploration of desire mediated by technology, a theme that would later emerge in her own boundary-pushing work.
Ira Sachs Finds a Model of Artistic Courage in Je tu il elle
The director of Frankie and Keep the Lights On opens up about how the emotional and sexual candor of Chantal Akerman’s feature debut has inspired his own deeply personal approach to cinema.
How The Qatsi Trilogy Gave RaMell Ross a New Way of Seeing
The Oscar-nominated director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening finds an expansive political vision in the mind-altering work of Godfrey Reggio.
Morgan Neville Goes Through the Looking Glass with F for Fake
The Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker unpacks the wild inventiveness of Orson Welles and the late-career masterpiece that inspired his own approach to his new movie They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.
Margarethe von Trotta Found Her Cinema Gateway in The Seventh Seal
The great German director reflects on her first experience with Ingmar Bergman’s classic meditation on mortality, a film that opened her eyes to the possibilities of cinema.
What Damien Chazelle Learned from Maurice Pialat’s Stumbled-Upon Cinema
The Oscar-winning director of La La Land explains how an early encounter with À nos amours taught him to mix spontaneity and surprise into his own highly stylized worlds.
Joachim Trier Grapples with the Fractured Time of Don’t Look Now
The acclaimed Norwegian filmmaker talks about Nicolas Roeg’s richly suggestive, nonlinear approach to time in his masterpiece Don't Look Now.
Chloé Zhao Discovers Uncharted Territory in The New World
The award-winning director of The Rider explores the deep respect for nature and subjective human experience in Terrence Malick’s masterful vision of early seventeenth-century America.
David Simon Unravels the Moral Twists of Paths of Glory
The creator of The Wire takes inspiration from the narrative and moral complexity of Stanley Kubrick’s war masterpiece.
David Lowery’s Career-Long Kinship with George Washington
The director behind one of the most acclaimed films of the year, A Ghost Story, explains how David Gordon Green’s poetic vision of adolescence opened his eyes to the possibilities of cinema.
Steve James Explores the American Tapestry of Nashville
The veteran documentary filmmaker behind Hoop Dreams and the recently released Abacus: Small Enough to Jail discusses the ways in which Robert Altman’s masterpiece combines epic scope with intimate detail.
Anna Biller Celebrates Jacques Demy’s Candy-Colored Darkness
The director of The Love Witch talks about French master Jacques Demy, whose mix of candy-colored imagery and psychological darkness has made a lasting impact on her filmmaking approach.
How Mike Mills Found Comfort in Ermanno Olmi
What Wong Kar Wai Taught Barry Jenkins About Longing
In the first installment of our new video series Under the Influence, the Moonlight director waxes rhapsodic about Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love.