French director Jean Renoir has a bold statement in his 1939 film “The Rules of the Game,” and it goes: “The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.” That same principle holds...

Lucrecia Martel serves up a cacophonous brew of middle-class misery in her 2001 debut “La Cienaga,” or “The Swamp,” a film quite unlike any I had ever seen before. I say this on the tail end of...

In a world where films that clock in at or around three hours tend to take straight, white men as their subjects (last year alone gave us “Boyhood” and “Mr. Turner,” to name two), it takes a certain...

J.K. Simmons urged a captive audience to give their parents a call two weeks ago in his Oscar acceptance speech, and with that advice in mind—and with many of us returning home for the break—now seems...

If death and taxes are the fabled two certainties of life, then attacks on the aristocracy and outrage over awards shows are the two certainties of cinema. With the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

Poland, 1962. Winter. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is preparing to take her vows at the austere convent out in the countryside where she has lived since infancy. The Mother Superior calls her in for a meeting:...

No film now playing in theaters is more immediately pertinent to the life of a Georgetown student than the Dardenne brothers’ “Two Days, One Night.” Presumably, no one reading this column is currently...

Communication. Fate. Kinship. Moral responsibility. Such topics may seem better suited to your next philosophy class than to a movie, yet they happen to be central to one of the greatest films of the 1990s...

Watch enough movies and you’ll start to notice that many filmmakers share a fascination with the medium through which they create their art. Indeed, film is a relatively new phenomenon in the grand scheme...

‘Any resemblance to real events and persons living or dead is not coincidental; it’s INTENTIONAL.” The ’60s was a monumental decade for film, but perhaps no other film from that era is quite...

Only in the 21st century would it seem perfectly plausible to recommend that a friend binge watch 10 to 12 hours of the hottest new TV show and yet utterly ridiculous to recommend that anyone go spend...

“Raise the Red Lantern” is a flat-out masterpiece, though I suspect this is the first time you’re even hearing of it. Let me clarify the “you” in that statement: if you’re an enthusiast...