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Tag: Film

Browse our essays and reviews on film and TV.

Judith Levine

A long line of films tracks the solidarities that arise when prohibition makes friendship too perilous.

Joel Whitney

Fifty years ago, the American Indian Movement occupied the site of a historic massacre. They won real gains in the face of brutal counterinsurgency tactics.

Junot Díaz

The novel Kindred reminds us—emphatically, gruesomely—that white supremacy is us too.

Robin D. G. Kelley

Thelonious Monk lost (and found) in Paris.

Nojang Khatami

From street demonstrations to song, dance, film, and poetry, women are advancing a long legacy of struggle against authoritarianism in Iran.

Stuart Schrader

Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.

Éric Morales-Franceschini
A “woke” remake that peddles in symbolic representation is not the film Puerto Ricans deserve.
John Crowley
Amazon’s Tales from the Loop has introduced a new audience to the speculative worlds of the Swedish artist, whose books depict worlds in which humanity has, in one way or another, run afoul of technology.
Francey Russell
The release of a restored Basic Instinct alongside director Paul Verhoeven’s newest erotic epic, Benedetta, offers an occasion to think not only about the ethics and politics of watching bodies on screen, but about the uncanny relationship between film and reality.
Sophie Lewis

Recent works depict the agonies and rage of being a low-wage housekeeper or nanny. But all fail to identify capitalism itself as the culprit.

Joseph J. Fischel
Porn performers have a unique vision for labor justice and erotic fulfillment, but they face draconian regulation and exploitative work conditions.
Jonathan Kirshner
The director made landmark contributions to three distinct art forms. His life reflected the American experience in the latter half of the twentieth century—both its failures and its feats.
Andy Battle

In the 1974 cult-classic teleplay Penda’s Fen, the past holds the key to escaping the catastrophic present.

Judith Levine
The Netflix series Dead to Me suggests that we might get closer to justice by forgiving each other and ourselves for the sometimes literally fatal flaw of being human.
Daniel Petrick
The award-winning documentary ‘Honeyland’ sets out to offer a timeless environmental parable, but in the process it also explores misconceptions about the region’s culture and history. 
Ellen Wayland-Smith

Ron Howard’s Netflix adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy continues a long tradition of seeing hillbillies as a symbol of pristine American whiteness.

Jessa Crispin

Current contempt for age gap relationships serves to strip both men and women of their agency. 

Mark Bould
In films such as Contagion, virology is often confused with the invisible workings of capital.
Matt Gallagher

Alternate histories like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America—newly adapted by HBO—force us to imagine a different America.

Tao Leigh Goffe
Jordan Peele's ‘Us’ depicts the terrors faced by black mothers in a way that owes as much to Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’ as it does to classic Hollywood horror. 
Joy James

A timely new documentary celebrates Morrison’s novels, but downplays the enduring power of her work as an editor and essayist.

Ed Pavlić

‘Amazing Grace,’ the long-lost film of Franklin’s gospel album, offers a lesson in the deep connections between gospel and soul music.

Mark Bould
Trump’s Space Force is a bad reboot of the old imperial fantasy of control from above.
Robin D. G. Kelley

Boots Riley's film, Sorry to Bother You, roasts racial capitalism and issues an unapologetic call for revolution.

Deborah Chasman, Errol Morris
Morris on his new film and what he thinks of the man who likened himself to Darth Vader and Satan.
Francey Russell

‘Happy End’ is the culmination of Haneke’s obsession with how technology mediates our desires.

Christopher Lebron
Black Panther, a movie unique for its Black star power, depends on a shocking devaluation of Black American men.
Mark Bould

The monotony of slow cinema defamiliarizes our world and enables us to see it critically.

Jonathan Kirshner

A new book takes on the titans of twentieth-century cinema, fetishes and all.

Neil Gordon

The art and life of John Fante.

Judith Levine

When your father is trans, memoir is both personal and political.

Alan A. Stone

Tilda Swinton, icon of indy cinema, is masterful in A Bigger Splash.

Alan A. Stone

Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups is lost in its own symbolism.

Alan A. Stone

In Paolo Sorrentino's Youth, the crossroads of despair and integrity.

Alan A. Stone

The Wonders subverts the typical female coming-of-age story.

Alan A. Stone
Isabel Coixet's Learning to Drive
Alan A. Stone

Michael Almereyda's Cymbeline

Alan A. Stone

Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria

Adam Katzman
Lav Diaz's singular approach to history is liberated from the shackles of business-oriented film.
Randolph Lewis
Truth in the Films of Errol Morris.
Alan A. Stone

Abderrahmane Sissako's Timbuktu

Alan A. Stone
Even if the facts are wrong, the feelings in Selma are right.
Judith Levine
Patriotism, as brilliant as the gold tridents pounded into a SEAL’s coffin lid, outshines all flaws.
Alan A. Stone

Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman.

Alan A. Stone

Richard Linklater's Boyhood

Alan A. Stone

Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida

Alan A. Stone

John Turturro's Fading Gigolo.

Alan A. Stone
Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen.

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That’s what sociologist Alondra Nelson says of Boston Review. Independent and nonprofit, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.

That’s why there are no paywalls on our website, but we can’t do it without the support of our readers. Please make a tax-deductible donation to help us create a more inclusive and egalitarian public sphere—open to everyone, regardless of ability to pay.

"An indispensable pillar of the public sphere."

That’s what sociologist Alondra Nelson says of Boston Review. Independent and nonprofit, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.

That’s why there are no paywalls on our website, but we can’t do it without the support of our readers. Please make a tax-deductible donation to help us create a more inclusive and egalitarian public sphere—open to everyone, regardless of ability to pay.