MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:

Bilge Ebiri

  1. sundance 2020
    There’s Nothing Funny About Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Performance in DownhillThe remake of Force Majeure (starring the Veep actress alongside Will Ferrell) sounds like a fake movie. But it’s real, and genuinely unnerving.
  2. sundance 2020
    Into the Deep Chronicles the Monstrousness of Danish Inventor Peter MadsenEmma Sullivan began filming her documentary one year before he murdered and dismembered journalist Kim Wall.
  3. backstories
    Quail Hunting and Rabbit Holes: How Terrence Malick Made His Nazi EpicA Hidden Life tells the story of a conscientious objector to Hitler. If we didn’t know better, we’d say it’s the director’s most political film yet.
  4. q&a
    A Long Talk With James Newton Howard, Hollywood’s Most Versatile ComposerHe’s written music for Pretty Woman, The Sixth Sense, The Dark Knight, and more. After a long career, he can admit when he’s been a bit of a diva.
  5. sundance 2020
    The 17 Movies We’re Most Excited to See at Sundance Film FestivalIncluding a transatlantic thriller starring Jude Law, a family drama from Miranda July, and a portrait of up-and-coming performer Taylor Swift.
  6. movie review
    Dolittle Is Anti-CinemaYou go into this thing expecting silly insouciance and walk away from it questioning reality.
  7. movie review
    The World Didn’t Need Another Bad Boys MovieThe new Bad Boys is probably a wash, but it ends so well that I now find myself not entirely opposed to the idea of a fourth one.
  8. movie review
    I Lost My Body Is Both Genuinely Sweet and Thoroughly TwistedAt least one good thing came out of the 2020 Oscar nominations: recognition for a left-field animated gem.
  9. movie review
    Underwater Is a Relentlessly Entertaining Deep-sea CatastropheIt’s all your fears — of the deep, of tight spaces, of the dark, of giant-creepy-crawly-squishy things — rolled into one.
  10. coming attractions
    68 Movies We Can’t Wait to See in 2020Daniel Craig bows out as Bond, Liu Yifei debuts as Mulan, Timothée Chalamet brings Dune back, and Spike Lee comes to Netflix.
  13. movie review
    Just Mercy Is a Precise and Patient Recounting of a Very Real Human StoryDestin Daniel Cretton’s film is based on the non-fiction book of the same name.
  14. 25 days of cats
    Cat Performances, RankedA celebration of the 24 greatest feline roles — with no CGI, human-cat hybrids in sight.
  15. chat room
    Tom Hooper Has a Hard Time Explaining the Feet in CatsThe director confronts the problem of family-friendly Christmas musicals featuring gyrating, pseudo-erotic man-cats.
  16. movie review
    With A Hidden Life, Terrence Malick Takes on the Evils of HistoryIt’s based on the real story of Franz Jägerstätter, a devout Austrian farmer who refused to pledge loyalty to Hitler.
  17. movie review
    Jumanji: The Next Level Is a Tired, Modestly Funny Sequel2manji feels kind of lifeless, but there are a few twists this time around.
  18. what were the 2010s?
    Every Movie of the 2010s, RankedOur critics pored over 5,279 of the decade’s films. Here’s the best, worst, and mehst.
  19. vulture honorary degree
    Laura Dern Changed Our Idea of StardomThere is no one performance you can point to as the reason for her decades-long success.
  20. best of 2019
    The Best Movies of 2019Our critics celebrate the latest Tarantino, a South Korean black comedy, and the return of Eddie Murphy.
  21. movie review
    Netflix’s Klaus Is Just Weird Enough to Get You to Watch ItThis animated holiday movie is set in a surreally gruesome place, filled with surreally gruesome people. Somehow, that works.
  22. the race to animate
    The Story of the Beauty and the Beast Screening That Changed EverythingAn in-progress version of the Disney film premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1991, and upended animation as we knew it.
  25. the race to animate
    What Happened to Rise of the Guardians? The Story Behind an Animation FlopBefore Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, director Peter Ramsey made a DreamWorks movie so strange it feels like we dreamed it.
  26. deep dives
    The Discomforting Legacy of Wendy TorranceShelley Duvall’s performance in The Shining is just one of the many bold, perplexing aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s beloved adaptation.
  27. rise of the machines
    May We Never Forget the Deliriously Bleak Terminator 3The third Terminator film made clear that our future was indeed a nightmare. Maybe that’s why everybody’s trying so hard to pretend it didn’t happen.
  28. movies
    The Movies We Loved in 2019Including Bong Joon Ho’s acid black comedy, Brad Pitt in space, and the gentle Pain and Glory.
  29. the insider
    20 Years Later, The Insider Is Michael Mann’s Greatest ProphecyFor all its foresightedness, the 1999 movie is also a time capsule, from a period when TV or newspaper reports could actually change things.
  30. movie review
    Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms Is a Dream, Then a Dance, Then an Existential ThreatThe artful, elliptical film tells the story of a young Israeli man trying to shed his identity in Paris.
  31. director's cut
    Okay, Fine, Let’s Talk About MarvelWhat are Martin Scorsese and the Justice League of Aging Auteurs really rebelling against?
  32. j'accuse
    How High-Frame-Rate Technology Killed Ang Lee’s Gemini ManIt would be silly to blame the film’s failure on the tech, but I’m going to go ahead and blame the tech.
  33. movies
    ‘Heil Me, Man’: How Taika Waititi Learned to Play HitlerFor Jojo Rabbit, a black comedy about a Nazi fanboy at the end of the Third Reich, the director cast himself as a make-believe version of the Führer.
  34. movie review
    Not Even Lupita Nyong’o and her Ukulele Can Save Little MonstersThe zombie movie, now streaming on Hulu, is an unhinged horror-comedy that never quite settles in.
  37. theater review
    Theater Review: When Middle Age Goes Rough, in Linda VistaTracy Letts finds emotional vulnerability in a nearly wrecked man.
  38. q&a
    Pedro Almodóvar on the Most Painful Disagreement He’s Ever Had With an Actor“I had to go to a psychiatrist just because of the anxiety.”
  39. movie review
    Pain and Glory Is the Most Emotionally Naked Movie Pedro Almodóvar Has Ever MadeIt’s not quite autobiographical, but a fictional alter ego story, a vessel through which the director can confess his doubts and regrets.
  40. the uncanny valley
    So, How Is the De-Aging in The Irishman? Incredibly Impressive.The effects in Martin Scorsese’s movie are far from perfect, but — unlike this year’s Lion King remake — they actually help give the movie its soul.
  41. movie review
    The Death of Dick Long Is a Delirious Symphony of StupiditySwiss Army Man co-director Daniel Scheinert returns to Sundance with a more modest effort that’s still plenty weird in its own right.
  42. q&a
    What the Hell Is Going on in Ad Astra? James Gray Explains HimselfThe director doesn’t know if the human race will survive, but he can spot all the mistakes in his own movies.
  43. chat room
    Paolo Sorrentino Explains That Absurd Sheep Death Scene in Loro“With cinema, it’s not up to us to be real. Cinema is something fake.”
  44. movie review
    It’s Between Two Ferns, for Crying Out LoudShoddiness is built into its philosophy, and things like production value, sharp scripting, and delicate acting would only degrade the project.
  45. movie review
    Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro Made Me Feel Dirty. I Can’t Wait to See It Again.Loro shows how Silvio Berlusconi created a reality-distortion field around him. Sound familiar?
  46. chat room
    Antonio Banderas Reflects on His History with ‘Dirty Movies’The Pain and Glory star recalls marrying Melanie Griffith, kissing Tom Hanks, and making controversial films with Pedro Almodóvar.
  49. backstories
    The Hardest, Strangest, Most Unforgettable Jobs In HollywoodTV and movie craftspeople share their stories (and a great dip recipe).
  50. fall preview 2019
    The Best and Biggest Movies to See This FallCats, Frozen II, Little Women, and more.
  51. fall preview 2019
    Robert Eggers on The Lighthouse, His Bleakly Gorgeous Follow-up to The WitchThe director places us in a remote 19th-century lighthouse, where two men — played by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson — find themselves at odds.
  52. odes
    Long Live Gerard Butler, and the Gerard Butler MovieHe is an action star for the age of the declining action star, and he’s almost single-handedly keeping a very specific type of film alive.
  53. remembrances
    Peter Fonda’s Hired Hand Is a Masterpiece of 1970s American CinemaIt would have been fascinating to see what the late director might have done had the Western been received as a success.
  54. movie review
    Good Boys Is Funny Because It’s AbominableSome moviegoers might want to leave the theater and file a lawsuit. I stayed and laughed.
  55. once upon a time in hollywood
    It’s Time for a Best Stunts OscarAfter 28 years of stuntpeople lobbying the Academy, an annual category for them remains elusive. Why?
  56. movie review
    Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Serves Unnerving, Old-School Horror to KidsIt starts off as a quaint, small-town fright flick before plunging headlong into a full-on, grotesque shriek-fest.
  57. movie review
    Hobbs & Shaw Is a Refreshing Antidote to Franchise BloatTurns out whittling the bulging series down to two guys who hate each other can be strangely liberating.
  58. movies
    So, How Much of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Is Margot Robbie Actually In?Quentin Tarantino will probably reject this hypothesis.
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