This article appeared in the November 26, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here.

Land of the Pharaohs (1955, Howard Hawks). When I first saw it, as a kid, Land of the Pharaohs became my favorite film. I’d always been addicted to historical epics, but this one was different: it ...

There’s something strangely sedating about being at the Venice Film Festival. The annual Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica takes place not in Venice proper, but on a tiny island called Lido ...

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At that performance, director Robert Rossen was impressed, and later cast Hackman in a small role in LILITH with Warren Beatty. Three years later, Beatty remembered Hackman and cast him in BONNIE AND ...

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Perhaps you have opinions on Greta Gerwig leaving Indiewood behind to go full Hollywood, and have judged her a sellout, or hailed her as Powerful Woman Who Can Do What She Wants. Or perhaps you simply ...

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Itim: isang eksplorasyon sa pelikula [Itim: An Exploration in Cinema] (Clodualdo “Doy” del Mundo Jr., 1976). Courtesy Mike De Leon Founded in 1938 by Narcisa “Doña Sisang” De Leon (Mike’s grandmother) ...

Takahiko Iimura came from Japan to participate in the International Seminar at Harvard University in the summer of 1966, and the consequence of his coming to the United States is unexpected. All of ...

For instance, what, in the United States in 2010, made a then-unknown 19-year-old Jennifer Lawrence so riveting in Winter’s Bone, the film that vaulted her—now the highest paid actress in ...

The results are in for our 2021 poll of Film Comment’s contributors and colleagues! Our Top 20 lists in both the Released and Undistributed categories feature original appreciations from critics, as ...