The Best Films of 2023
Our best films of 2023 include A-listers exploring new ground or new wrinkles in the familiar, lesser-knowns of singularly surprising work, and gut-punch comedies.
martin scorsese
The Amplified Silence in Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
There are taboo subjects in the context of Indigenous Americans in Killers of the Flower Moon. Scorsese’s film only amplifies the silence surrounding them.
BFI London Film Festival 2023: Critics’ Chat
BFI London Film Festival’s most impressionable films of the year, industry strikes, awards season, and the shoe-leather journalism of a film festival critic.
Yuppies, Punks and Sociopaths Congregate in Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’
In After Hours, Scorsese’s camera wanders through a tableau of living and breathing graffiti incarnated as ’80s New York City’s most dangerous bottom-feeders.
Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’ Subverts the One Crazy Night Genre
In Martin Scorsese’s 1985 art punk gem After Hours, a yuppie lost in SoHo is terrorized not so much by the late-night characters but by the city itself.
The 10 Best Classic Films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022
From gentle satire to something like an anarchist paint bomb tossed into an uptight dinner party, we feature the 10 Best Classic Films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022 – and we toss in a few more, just for kicks.
Different Countries, Same Troubled Planet: Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, No. 4
Although the films in Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 4 come from different countries, decades, and languages, they reveal similarities in social conscience and film experiments.
Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ and the Gangster’s Reimagined Soul
Scorsese's The Irishman is not a masculine power fantasy, nor could its heavy underlying sadness ever be mistaken for delight in violence or criminality.
Pretend It’s a City Proves Once Again, You Can’t Argue with Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz’s ubiquitous little smirk is still going as strong as ever because she never feels bad about herself.
Scorsese’s ‘World Cinema Project No. 3’ Has a Filtered Gaze
Scorsese's selections for World Cinema Project No. 3 recall an attitude typical of a bygone age of film studies when professors would rationalize overlooking the reactionary politics of a film because aspects of the filmmaking itself trumped such "trivial" concerns.
The Films in ‘Scorsese Shorts’ Play with the Narrative Voice
In Scorsese's hands, the voice-over is less a substitute for what we are not shown but instead becomes a vital thread woven into the fabric of the film's meaning.
The 35 Best Films of 2010
The best films of 2010 include a fake documentary, a comedy about Jihad, a vampire story NOT dealing with tacky tween romance, a haunting hillbilly noir, and an elegant tale about clones. Not necessarily the usual cinematic suspects.