Critic’s Notebook
When violence trumps politics
Director Gerard McMurray's "The First Purge” is a prequel in a franchise constructed on a rather silly social science premise [...]
A large and troubled piazza
Piazza Vittorio: an enormous rectangular space not far from Stazione Termini, Rome’s central train station, surrounded by magnificent 19th-century porticoes [...]
La dolce vita is not so sweet
In his latest cinematic effort, the master Italian director Paolo Sorrentino revisits two themes that have dominated his work: La [...]
Black new world
The blockbuster "Black Panther" is both a classic super-hero movie (not meant as a compliment), and an immersion into black [...]
Codes of love
Sicilian Luca Guadagnino beautifully captures the implacable oneness of deep feelings in "Call Me By Your Name."
Creature comfort
A mousey cleaning woman and a monster become sentimentally entangled in Guillermo del Toro's magical "The Shape of Water."
Five-inchers
In reconfiguring humans, director Alexander Payne has more than sci-fi comedy on his mind.
Much ado about Mildred
Frances McDormand helps Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" hit a rural nerve.
Flags and war ghosts
In a sabre-rattling age, Richard Linklater's "Last Flag Flying" may be as close as the U.S. can come to an anti-war film.
Blade Runner reborn
Fans of the original "Blade Runner" will find much to like in Denis Villeneuve challenging sequel.
Luckless Logan
Steven Soderbergh's return to the movies is a misfire, above all because it flunks American cultural geography.
Over there, and desperate
Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" successfully conveys a chaotic World War II's fiasco that turned into a heroic moment.