Answering for the violent thrills of Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa’s sequel Sanjuro modifies its predecessor’s structure and, in a way, condemns its eponymous hero, reprised by Toshiro Mifune, by depicting ...

Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo begins with a ronin, a masterless samurai who wanders here and there, making a living by his sword, at a literal crossroads. By chance, the unkempt samurai chooses a path to a...

One has to wonder if newspapermen like the ones in His Girl Friday ever existed, or if the films like these created the stereotype. You know the sort: fast-talking, hard-nosed reporters willing to do ...

Brian De Palma’s Blow Out begins with a slick sequence from a killer’s point of view, similar to the subjective opening in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). A voyeuristic, heavy-breathing killer watc...

Visionary and moving, A.I. Artificial Intelligence dares its audience to emotionally invest in an inhuman, robotic protagonist. Many could not, and today the film goes largely forgotten and unapprecia...

Made with the enthusiasm of a child and the artistry of a master, Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno is a film so dedicated to making us dream that even its score is a lullaby. Drawn from unc...

Sidney Falco, a pilot fish press agent, hovers around his meal ticket, bloodthirsty shark J.J. Hunsecker, the powerful gossip columnist. Seated at his regular table in the 21 Club, Hensecker shares di...

When Max Renn stumbles across the pirated signal of an ultra-violent torture program called “Videodrome,” a friend warns him to beware. The show has a philosophy, and philosophies are dangerous. David...

On the surface, Sir David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai is a superb epic filled with themes of bravery, valor, and idealism, all set against a grandiose backdrop of powerful images captured by v...