The Film Comment Podcast
The Film Comment Podcast, hosted by editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute, is a weekly space for critical conversation about film. It covers topical issues, new releases, and the big picture in cinema. The podcast is produced by Film Comment, a nonprofit publication that has been a home for independent film journalism since 1962.
Episodes
John Early on Maddie’s Secret
Listeners might know John Early as a very funny comedian and actor—but last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, John debuted a new role: an auteur. His first feature, Maddie’s Secret, takes cues from TV movies, PSAs, erotic thrillers, internet videos, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, and more to craft a movie that, despite all these influences and parodic touches, feels wonderfull
Cannes 2026 #9: Breaking Borders at Cannes Docs
On May 15, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel at Cannes Docs, an industry sidebar dedicated to nonfiction filmmaking. Titled "Breaking Borders," the conversation examined how, even as the film market has become increasingly globalized, traditional professional networks and production infrastructure are still structured around exclusionary ideas about countries and contine
Cannes 2026 #8, with Justin Chang, Tim Grierson, and Jessica Kiang
Cannes 2026 wrapped this past weekend, but the Film Comment crew has not slowed down one bit as we continue to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more.For our final Podcast from the Croisette, FC Editor Devika Girish gathered three of our favorite critics—Justin Chang (The New Yorker), Tim Grierson (Screen International),
Cannes 2026 #7, with Thomas Flew and Neta Alexander
Cannes 2026 is nearing its close, but the Film Comment crew has not slowed down one bit as we continue to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year’s edition has been packed with highly anticipated premieres from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmaker
Cannes 2026 #6, with Isabel Stevens and Neta Alexander
Cannes 2026 is in full swing and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, cutting through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year’s edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.For our sixth Podcast from the su
Cannes 2026 #5, with Jordan Cronk, Adam Piron, and Ruun Nuur
Cannes 2026 is in full swing, and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, ready to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year’s edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Pedro Almodóvar, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.For our fifth Podcast from th
Cannes 2026 #4, with Öykü Sofuoğlu and Inney Prakash
Cannes 2026 is in full swing, and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, ready to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year’s edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Pedro Almodóvar, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.For our fourth Podcast from t
Cannes 2026 #3, with Robert Daniels and Inney Prakash
Cannes 2026 has arrived, and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, ready to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year’s edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Pedro Almodóvar, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.For the third of our daily Podcast
Cannes 2026 #2, with Katie McCabe and Alison Willmore
Cannes 2026 has arrived, and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, ready to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year's edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.On the second of our daily Podca
Cannes 2026 #1, with Jonathan Romney and Beatrice Loayza
Cannes 2026 has arrived, and the Film Comment crew is on the ground, ready to cut through the noise with dispatches, interviews, Podcasts, a special Cannes Critics’ Grid, and much more. This year's edition is packed with highly anticipated premieres from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Valeska Grisebach, James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and many more acclaimed filmmakers.To kick off our daily Podcasts f
Boots Riley on I Love Boosters
On this week’s Podcast, Boots Riley joins to discuss his new film, I Love Boosters. The director of 2018’s Sorry to Bother You and the 2023 streaming series I’m a Virgo has returned with a movie that provides a new, invigorating riff on the theme that runs through all his work: the destruction of capitalism by an organized working class. I Love Boosters, which opens in theaters later this
In Conversation with George Clooney
Next week, on Monday, April 27, Film at Lincoln Center honors George Clooney with their annual Chaplin Award. Clooney has been a shining star in the American media firmament since the 1990s, from his breakout role on E.R., through innumerable hits, like O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Michael Clayton (2007), The Descendants (2011), just to name a few—to Noah Baumb
Melissa Anderson on The Hunger
For more than two decades, Melissa Anderson has been one of New York City’s most important film critics—and one of Film Comment’s favorite writers. From her start as a freelancer in the 2000s, through her editorships at Time Out, The Village Voice, and most recently 4Columns, she has regaled readers with her peerless wit, her attunement to desire, especially queer desire, and her facility
The Films of Peter Watkins, with J. Hoberman
On October 30 of last year, we lost one of cinema’s most daring auteurs: the British director Peter Watkins. Starting out in television in the 1960s, Watkins developed an utterly unique and militantly political mode of filmmaking. In works like Culloden (1964), The War Game (1966), Punishment Park (1971), and his magnum opus, La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000), he cast nonprofessional actors
Oscars 2026 Preview, with the Los Angeles Review of Books
It’s that time of year again: the Academy Awards are just around the corner. In anticipation of the winners being revealed this Sunday, Devika and Clint teamed up with some colleagues from Tinseltown—the writers and editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books—to scrutinize this year’s nominees. The publication’s Editor-at-Large Eric Newman, Senior Humanities Editor Annie Berke, and Contrib
Akinola Davies Jr. on My Father’s Shadow
Set in Nigeria in 1993, Akinola Davies Jr.’s elliptical, atmospheric My Father’s Shadow is a portrait of a country on the cusp of a political crisis. We experience these events through the eyes of the film’s young protagonists, two boys who spend a day in Lagos with their father. They’re thrilled at the prospect of some quality time with their often-absent old man—but they also sense that
Ashley Clark on The World of Black Film
Across his contributions to Film Comment and other publications, and his programming as the Curatorial Director of the Criterion Collection, Ashley Clark has established himself as one of the smartest, sharpest taste-makers in the film scene in New York and beyond—particularly through his championing of underseen films by people of color. So we were very excited by the announcement of his
Sundance 2026 #5, with Bilge Ebiri, Tim Grierson, and Madeline Whittle
It's late January, and the intrepid Film Comment crew has been on the ground reporting from an extra special edition of the Sundance Film Festival—the last to take place on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, the festival's home since 1981, before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. For the past week, we’ve gathered the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the
Sundance 2026 #4, with Robert Daniels, Will Tavlin, and Natalia Winkelman
It's late January, and the intrepid Film Comment crew is on the ground reporting from an extra special edition of the Sundance Film Festival—the last to take place on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, the festival's home since 1981, before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the P
Sundance 2026 #3, with Tim Grierson, Robert Daniels, and Monica Castillo
It's late January, and the intrepid Film Comment crew is on the ground reporting from an extra special edition of the Sundance Film Festival—the last to take place on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, the festival's home since 1981, before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the P
Sundance 2026 #2, with Madeline Whittle and Will Tavlin
It's late January, and the intrepid Film Comment crew is on the ground reporting from an extra special edition of the Sundance Film Festival—the last to take place on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, the festival's home since 1981, before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the P
Sundance 2026 #1, with Madeline Whittle, Robert Daniels, and Will Tavlin
It's late January, and the intrepid Film Comment crew is on the ground reporting from an extra special edition of the Sundance Film Festival—the last to take place on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, the festival's home since 1981, before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the P
New Year, New Releases, with Beatrice Loayza and Mark Asch
Every January, as we ring in the new year, we take a moment to take a look at some of the major new releases of the holiday season. This year, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited critics Beatrice Loayza and Mark Asch to focus on a select handful of titles that have recently graced the marquees of multiplexes, and which continue to stir up discourse. The group kick
The Best Films of 2025, with Amy Taubin and Bilge Ebiri
On December 11, 2025, as part our annual winter list extravaganza, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute were joined by esteemed critics Amy Taubin and Bilge Ebiri for a real-time countdown of the films topping our year-end critics’ poll. The evening featured a lively discussion (and some hearty debate) about the films as they were unveiled—and now it’s available in Podcast
Kleber Mendonça Filho on The Secret Agent
This week’s Podcast features an in-depth interview with Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose latest feature, The Secret Agent, is in select theaters now. The film was a highlight of both this year’s Cannes, where Mendonça won the Best Director prize, and this fall’s New York Film Festival. The Secret Agent is set, like many of the director’s films, in his Northeastern Brazilia
Noah Baumbach on Jay Kelly
This week, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute sit down with writer-director Noah Baumbach, whose new feature, Jay Kelly, is in select theaters now. The movie stars George Clooney as an aging Hollywood star reckoning with the choices he’s made on his way to the top. The action unfolds on a trip Jay takes to a tribute to his career in Tuscany, trailed by an entourage of ha
Tokyo International Film Festival #3, with Aiko Masubuchi
Last week, Devika returned from the Tokyo International Film Festival, which ran from October 27 to November 5 in the Japanese capital. As one of the major festivals in Asia, the event is a great showcase for new and restored films from the region, as well as Japanese specialities like animation. While there, Devika recorded three Podcasts exploring the lineup with a stellar rotation of g
Tokyo International Film Festival #2, with Kambole Campbell and Sasha Han
Last week, Devika returned from the Tokyo International Film Festival, which ran from October 27 to November 5 in the Japanese capital. As one of the major festivals in Asia, the event is a great showcase for new and restored films from the region, as well as Japanese specialities like animation. While there, Devika recorded three Podcasts exploring the lineup with a stellar rotation of g
Tokyo International Film Festival #1, with Vadim Rizov and Kong Rithdee
Last week, Devika returned from the Tokyo International Film Festival, which ran from October 27 to November 5 in the Japanese capital. As one of the major festivals in Asia, the event is a great showcase for new and restored films from the region, as well as Japanese specialities like animation. While there, Devika recorded three Podcasts exploring the lineup with a stellar rotation of g
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, with Miriam Bale and Adam Piron
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has been the talk of the town since its wide release last month—from critics to filmmakers to audiences, the reception has been nothing short of euphoric. Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, the film opens in an unspecified present, detailing the activities of a militant group led by a Black revolutionary (played by Teyana T
NYFF63 Festival Report, with Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, and Beatrice Loayza
As the 63rd New York Film Festival drew to a close last weekend, it was once again time for Film Comment’s Festival Report, our annual live overview of the NYFF that was. FC Editor Clinton Krute was joined by critics Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, and Beatrice Loayza for a spirited wrap-up analysis of the highlights and lowlights from the NYFF63 lineup. In front of a lively audience, the pan
Gianfranco Rosi on Below the Clouds
One of the highlights of this year’s New York Film Festival is the latest feature by the nonfiction master Gianfranco Rosi, known for documentaries like Sacro GRA (2013), Fire at Sea (2016), and Notturno (2020), which paint both lyrical and urgent portraits of places that function as thresholds—between land and water, life and death, heaven and hell. His new cinematic essay, Below the Clo
Stealing Time, with Kelly Reichardt, Kent Jones, and Lucio Castro
Three films in this year’s NYFF lineup explore the intersections of quotidian life and the arts, following artists whose efforts to make time and space for their creative passions are thwarted or frustrated by the grind of the everyday. In Kent Jones’s Late Fame, adapted from an Arthur Schnitzler novella, a once-upon-a-time New York poet (and now a postal worker) is intoxicated by the sud
Spinal Tap on Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
“That’s the majesty of rock / The mystery of roll / The darning of the sock / The scoring of the goal / The farmer takes a wife / The barber takes a pole / We’re in this together…and ever.” These lyrics ring as true today as they did back in 1992, when Spinal Tap penned them for their song “The Majesty of Rock,” from the classic album Break Like the Wind. Centering around the core trio of
Venice 2025 #6, with Guy Lodge and and Öykü Sofuoğlu
This week, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our sixth episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited critics Guy Lodge and
Venice 2025 #5, with Savina Petkova and Jordan Mintzer
This week, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our fifth episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited critics Savina Petkova
Venice #4, with Bilge Ebiri and Jonathan Romney
This week Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our fourth episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited critics Bilge Ebiri an
Venice #3, with Joseph Fahim and Öykü Sofuoğlu
This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our second episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited critics Jose
Venice 2025 #2, with Tim Grierson and Katie McCabe
This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our second episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited critics Tim
Venice 2025 #1, with Jonathan Romney and Jordan Cronk
This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year, and this year's edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Noah Baumbach, Luca Guadagnino, Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, and more.
For our first episode from the city of canals, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited FC contri
Locarno 2025, with Inney Prakash and Cici Peng
The Locarno Film Festival takes place every August in the Swiss town of Locarno, at the base of the Alps, with a robust mix of new discoveries, repertory selections, and premieres of films by major auteurs. Film Comment was on the ground this year, combing through the lineup for highlights, and this episode—featuring critics and programmers Inney Prakash and Cici Peng in conversation with
Alexandre Koberidze and Miguel Gomes at Locarno 2025
At this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a conversation between the filmmakers Miguel Gomes and Alexandre Koberidze. The talk took place as part of the Future of Reality conference at the festival, organized by Locarno Factory and Università della Svizzera italiana, and the subject of the conversation was “the reality of the film set.” What is the
Summer Rep Report, with Gina Telaroli, Benjamin Crais, and Michael Blair
Today’s episode is an entry in our regular Rep Report series, where we survey the best and most interesting offerings at repertory theaters in New York City. This month and next, the rep calendar is particularly packed with gems, so Film Comment Editor Devika Girish invited filmmaker, critic, and archivist Gina Telaroli, film scholar Benjamin Crais, and Film Comment’s Assistant Editor Mic
Cinema of the Rice Cooker, with Phoebe Chen, Bedatri Datta Choudhury, and Joseph Hernandez
From July 4 to July 8, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish presented a series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music called Let Them Cook: Cinema of the Rice Cooker, which spotlit movies where the humble household appliance takes on a poetics and pragmatism uniquely suited to the screen. Some of the films in the series included Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (2024), Claire Denis’s 35 Sho
Summer New Releases, with Alana Pockros and Adam Nayman
It’s officially summertime, and with the AC blasting in multiplexes around the globe, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited two fellow respite seekers, critics Alana Pockros and Adam Nayman, to chat about some of the buzziest new releases in circulation. The group begins with a deep dive into Celine Song’s romantic comedy Materialists (2:50) before turning to Eva Vi
GriGris, with Malcolm Harris and Anselm Kizza-Besigye
Earlier this month, Film Comment hosted the author Malcolm Harris for a special event celebrating the launch of his latest book, What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis—an invigorating analysis of climate change and the collective solutions required to rescue humanity from it. In addition to being a trenchant public intellectual, Harris is also a dedicated cinephile who ofte
Familiar Touch, with Kathleen Chalfant and Molly Haskell
One of our favorite movies of 2025 so far is Sarah Friedland's debut feature Familiar Touch, which opens in theaters in New York on Friday, June 20. The film follows an octogenarian with dementia, played by Kathleen Chalfant, as she settles into her new life in a nursing home. It’s a delicate, touching, and surprising work that evades clichéd depictions of elderly people—thanks in part to
Cannes 2025 #10, with Eduardo Williams, Brett Story, and Zoya Laktionova
For the last two weeks, our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been reporting from the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts.
Before the festival wrapped on May 24, Film Comment partnered with Cannes Docs, the nonfiction-focused section of the Marché du film, on a panel titled “The Voice of Documentary.” Moderated b
Cannes 2025 #9, with Justin Chang, Tim Grierson, and Alison Willmore
Cannes 2025 is wrapping up this weekend—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.
For our ninth episode from the sunny shores of southern France, all-star critics Justin Chang, Tim Grierson, and Allison Willmore join E
Cannes 2025 #8, with Beatrice Loayza, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Abby Sun
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our fifth episode from the F
Cannes 2025 #7, with Kong Rithdee and Inney Prakash
Cannes 2025 is in full swing—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year’s festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our seventh episode fro
Cannes 2025 #6, with Miriam Bale, Robert Daniels, and Jessica Kiang
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year’s festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our sixth episode from the F
Cannes 2025 #5, with Kong Rithdee and Neta Alexander
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our fifth episode from the F
Cannes 2025 #4, with Mark Asch, Kong Rithdee, and Isabel Stevens
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our f
Cannes 2025 #3, with Mark Asch and Beatrice Loayza
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our t
Cannes 2025 #2, with Isabel Stevens and Thomas Flew
Cannes 2025 has arrived—and you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard Linklater, Lynne Ramsay, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Julia Ducournau, Wes Anderson, and many more.
For our s
Cannes 2025 #1, with Jonathan Romney and Guy Lodge
Cannes 2025 has at last arrived—and while news of standing ovations and walkouts, throwaway raves and pans, spit takes and hot takes flood your feed, you can count on our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors to cut through the noise with thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and Podcasts. This year's festival is packed with exciting premieres, including new films from Richard L
A Conversation with Tom Gunning
Legendary American scholar and critic Tom Gunning has changed the way we think about film history and the future of the medium, profoundly influencing generations of academics, artists, and cinephiles. On Sunday, April 27, Devika Girish and Clinton Krute hosted a live conversation with Gunning and curator David Schwartz at the Museum of the Moving Image, following a screening of Hal Hartl
New Releases, with Robert Daniels and Michael Blair
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a singularly ambitious horror film set in 1930s Mississippi, is currently setting theaters ablaze (in an array of formats and aspect ratios to boot). The film stars Coogler mainstay Michael B. Jordan in a dual role as a pair of badass twins returning to their rural hometown of Clarksdale to build a blues joint—with performers whose talents are powerful enough to su
David Cronenberg on The Shrouds
A new film by David Cronenberg is always a major event for all of us at Film Comment, especially after his 2022 opus Crimes of the Future was voted the Best Film of the Year by our contributors. So with Cronenberg’s latest, The Shrouds, opening in cinemas this weekend, we invited this singular auteur to talk about his strange and thrilling new movie.
Like much of Cronenberg’s work, The
New Directors/New Films 2025, with Mark Asch and Natalia Keogan
Spring is finally in the air, and, for New York City cinephiles, that means it’s time for another edition of New Directors/New Films, the annual showcase for standout works by emerging filmmakers co-hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. The festival is always a reliable sign of trends to come and talents to look out for—past editions have featured early films by S
New Releases, with Tim Grierson
Today’s episode marks another entry in our New Releases series, where we dig into the latest titles opening in theaters and offer recommendations on what’s worth seeking out and what’s better left skipped. With so many worthy films to choose from lately, Film Comment’s Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited critic Tim Grierson (Los Angeles Times, Screendaily, and elsewhere) to help us wh
Oscars 2025 Preview with The Los Angeles Review of Books
The Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 2, bringing a strange and wonderful year in cinema—and an awards race filled with surprises and scandals—to an end. Will Emilia Perez win prizes despite the controversy surrounding its lead actress? Will Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan beat Adrien Brody as a brutalist architect in the Best Actor category? Will Oscar voters penalize films for u
The Frederick Wiseman Potluck, with Andrew Katzenstein, Genevieve Yue, and Michael Blair
On January 31, Film at Lincoln Center opened a landmark new retrospective titled Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution. The series showcases new 4K restorations of over thirty of the filmmaker’s works, which together form a monumental survey of modern American life—with a frequent focus on the intersections of individuals and institutions. Wiseman just turned 95 on New Year’s Day, an
You’re Projecting – Valentine’s Day Edition, with Matthew Rankin and Haley Mlotek
When it comes to love and desire, the movies have always had a powerful sway: as a mirror, as a site of fantasy, and as a perfect backdrop for date night. For Valentine’s Day this year, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited author Haley Mlotek and filmmaker Matthew Rankin, two highly trained experts in the parallel worlds of cinema and romance, onto the Podcast for
Afro-Asian Film Festival at IFFR, with Bunga Siagian, Yuki Aditya, Cici Peng, and Inney Prakash
The International Film Festival of Rotterdam, which ran from January 30 through February 9 this year, is a festival with a uniquely wide-ranging and eclectic program of new and repertory films; narrative, documentary, and experimental work; and installations, performances, and expanded cinema. One of the highlights of this year’s festival was a special focus section called Through Cinema
True Crime at Sundance 2025, with Charlie Shackleton, David Osit, and Geeta Gandhbir
Real-life stories of grisly crimes have always had a primal pull on our collective imagination. It’s now axiomatic that if there’s anything that sells better than sex, it’s true crime. In the last decade, the genre has blown up into a media behemoth, with more and more cliffhanger podcasts, television shows, and documentaries released each year, spinning murders and mysteries into engross
Sundance 2025 #4: Isabelle Huppert on LUZ
The great French actress Isabelle Huppert is a mainstay at many international festivals, but seeing her grace the screens at Sundance in Park City, Utah was a uniquely pleasant surprise. Huppert stars in LUZ, the second feature from Hong Kong director Flora Lau, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s edition. The film follows two characters who turn to vir
Sundance 2025 #3, with Lovia Gyarkye, Alana Pockros, and Lisa Wong Macabasco
It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast.
On today's episode, Film Comment
Sundance 2025 #5, with Vadim Rizov and Ruun Nuur
It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast.
On today's episode, Film Comment
Sundance 2025 #2, with Robert Daniels and Tim Grierson
It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast.
Today, Film Comment Ed
Sundance 2025 #1, with Maddie Whittle, Ruun Nuur, and Vadim Rizov
It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast.
To kick things off, Fi
Robert Eggers on Nosferatu
Nosferatu, the new film by Robert Eggers, has been the talk of the movie-town since its release on Christmas Day. With his remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic of the same name, Eggers has become the latest auteur to bring Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula to the screen, joining a group that also includes Werner Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola. Like those before him, Eggers makes the tale
Mike Leigh on Hard Truths
A new film from Mike Leigh is always a cause for celebration. Starting with his first feature Bleak Moments in 1971, Leigh has carved out a singular place in British and global cinema for his beautifully sensitive and detailed portraits of the lives of his largely working-class characters. His latest, Hard Truths, arrives six years after his previous release, the 2018 historical drama Pet
New Year, New Releases, with Lovia Gyarkye and Michael Blair
Two enigmatic icons with enduring holds on the Western imagination are currently lighting up multiplex screens: fearsome Transylvanian vampire Dracula and Nobel Prize–winning American treasure Bob Dylan. Both released on Christmas Day, Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown are ambitious efforts at crafting new and absorbing tales out of these two mainstays of po
The Best Films of 2024, with Molly Haskell and Michael Koresky
On December 12, 2024, as part our annual winter list extravaganza, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish led a panel of special guests—Molly Haskell (critic, author), and Michael Koresky (critic, founding editor of Reverse Shot)—for a live real-time countdown of the films topping our year-end critics’ poll. The evening featured a lively discussion (and some hearty debate) a
Holiday New Releases, with Robert Daniels and Beatrice Loayza
Sleepily emerging from the turkey-induced haze of Thanksgiving break and looking ahead to the barrage of Best of 2024 lists, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited critics Robert Daniels and Beatrice Loayza to discuss some of the most highly-anticipated Hollywood blockbusters (and would-be blockbusters) of this year’s holiday season. The group convened to offer their
Julianne Moore on The Room Next Door
During the 2024 New York Film Festival, Film Comment’s Devika Girish had the chance to chat with Julianne Moore, one of the great American actresses of the last three decades and more. She was at the festival for the premiere of The Room Next Door, the first English-language feature film by Pedro Almodóvar, which stars Moore as a writer in New York who reconnects with an old friend, now i
Payal Kapadia and Miguel Gomes
When Payal Kapadia won a historic Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her second feature, All We Imagine as Light (the first Indian film to play in competition at Cannes in 30 years), she paid homage to another Cannes prizewinner whose work has deeply influenced her: Miguel Gomes, whose Grand Tour won the award for Best Director. The resonances between their latest films go
The Films of Robert Kramer, with Erika Balsom and Benjamin Crais
The films of Robert Kramer blend fiction and documentary modes to engage with, and expand on, traditions of militant political cinema and subjective essay filmmaking. A founding member of the New Left activist film collective Newsreel in 1967, Kramer devoted himself to the group’s radical ethos, but he also began to make his own hermetic and probing fiction films—like The Edge (1967) and
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