Essay
Musk and Primetime Ask Who Benefits From the Spectacle
Alex Gibney’s documentary and Lance Oppenheim’s television nightmare examine different forms of public authority—and the attention that helps keep them working.
Articles
Rankings, essays, interviews, and stories about how movies are made, seen, and remembered.
Ranking
The 15 Best Horror Performances of the 21st Century, Ranked
The performances that make fear belong to a person: from Keke Palmer’s exhilarating Emerald to Toni Collette’s devastating Annie Graham.
Read the article →Editor’s Picks
Ranking
Every David Fincher Film, Ranked
Before Cliff Booth enters his world, we rank Fincher’s twelve released features—a career in which the pursuit of control keeps exposing how little anyone possesses.
Awards
Fjord and La Bola Negra Make Best Picture a More Interesting Race
Mungiu’s family investigation and Los Javis’ extravagant historical triptych challenge the field through very different kinds of ambition. Our reservations are part of the case for discussing them.
Profile
Amy Adams Makes Thinking Visible
From Junebug to Arrival, Adams builds performances around the moment a person decides what to believe, what to conceal, and what to do next.
Latest Articles
Awards
Best Sound: The Moments That Deserve an Oscar, Scene by Scene
The Odyssey’s straining timber, Resident Evil’s warnings and The Debut’s changing voice give us better starting points than asking which movie is loudest.
Craft & History
The Best Survival Thrillers Make You Understand the Problem
Apollo 13, 127 Hours, All Is Lost and The Martian turn explanation into suspense by teaching us enough to recognize when a solution is about to fail.
Industry & Culture
When a Movie Opens ‘In Select Theaters,’ Who Actually Gets to See It?
A national release date can describe a film that has not reached most of the country. Our coverage should make the distance between opening and access easier to understand.
Essay
The Fly Still Makes Its Monster Painfully Human
Forty years after David Cronenberg’s film, its most disturbing effect remains the persistence of a person inside a body that can no longer support his idea of himself.
Awards
Julianne Moore Has Changed Our Best Actress Ballot
The Debut moves ahead on TSR’s personal ballot because Moore makes a comic transformation feel like a whole life being rearranged. That does not diminish Inde Navarrette’s Obsession performance.
Craft & History
A Great Movie Argument Changes Who Controls the Room
In A Separation, Before Midnight and Anatomy of a Fall, conflict is built through listening, distance and the changing terms of what each person is allowed to say.
Essay
In Jane Austen’s Movies, Falling in Love Is an Economic Decision
The dresses and landscapes are lovely. The income, inheritance and cost of getting a marriage wrong are what make the romances move.