The Front Row
Richard Brody offers notes on blockbuster movies, independent films, and documentaries. Follow live updates from the 2023 Oscars.
“Civil War” Is a Tale of Bad News
Alex Garland’s grim political fantasy about secession and violence revolves around a war photographer but has little to say about the making and consumption of news images.
The Rediscovery of a Depression-Era Masterpiece
A new restoration of Frank Borzage’s “Man’s Castle,” starring Loretta Young and Spencer Tracy, showcases the visionary Hollywood director’s lusty yet spiritual artistry.
The Counterculture Counter Culture of Kim’s Video
A new documentary revels in the legend of the downtown rental store and seeks to recover its treasures.
“The People’s Joker” Is an Outlaw Vision of the Superhero Movie
Vera Drew’s D.I.Y. parody of “Joker” has all the wild humor and transgressive freedom of John Waters’s films.
Woody Allen Reëmerges with a Movie About Getting Away with Murder
The director’s films have often specialized in denunciation and retribution, and the comedic thriller “Coup de Chance,” set in Paris, fits this pattern all too plainly.
Med Hondo’s Vital Political Cinema Comes to New York
The Mauritanian filmmaker, long active in France, reveals the legacy of colonialism in society at large and in the art of movies.
The Best Bio-Pics Ever Made
The genre presents very particular artistic challenges, but here are thirty-three films that transcend them.
The Oscars Are More Barbie Than They’ll Admit
The show wasn’t bad, but a shortsighted Academy was hard on this year’s best movies.
In “Hometown Prison,” Richard Linklater Looks at Life on Both Sides of the Wall
The wide-ranging documentary about Huntsville, Texas, where the filmmaker grew up, evokes the city’s carceral system through interviews, archival footage, and his own reminiscences.
The Forced Erotic Whimsy of “Drive-Away Dolls”
The director Ethan Coen, writing the script with his wife, Tricia Cooke, leans on comical violence and genre winks for this road movie of lesbians seeking love.