Umberto D: Life in Ruins in a City of Ruins

Carlo Battisti. Photo: Dear Film As in the case of Bicycle Thieves (1948), Vittorio De Sica would be criticized for Umberto D. by people who hated how he portrayed their…

Franklin

As the colonies are fighting against the United Kingdom for independence, Benjamin Franklin (Michael Douglas) arrives in Paris together with his young grandson (Noah Jupe), hoping to build an alliance…

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Perhaps a certain fatigue was setting in at the time of the premiere, only a few years after another Jesus epic, King of Kings (1961). This one was targeted by…

Red Desert

After a car accident, Giuliana (Monica Vitti), who’s married to a factory manager in Ravenna, Italy, feels increasingly strange and isolated. Michelangelo Antonioni’s first film in color follows in the…

The Idea of You

L.A. art gallery owner Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) takes her teen daughter (Ella Rubin) to Coachella where she meets a British pop star (Nicholas Galitzine); their accidental encounter leads to…

Face to Face

Psychiatrist Jenny Isaksson (Liv Ullmann), who’s temporarily living with the grandparents who raised her, and also dating a divorced man (Erland Josephson), is headed for a breakdown. Ingmar Bergman signed…

The Straight Story: Moving On a Mower

Richard Farnsworth. Photo: Buena Vista Pictures I remember this film coming out at a time when you certainly didn’t expect David Lynch to do something so… traditional. After all, his…

Scoop

Much like Frost/Nixon (2008), this film tries to create high drama out of a television interview where a powerful person shows jaw-droppingly poor judgment in front of the whole nation,…

The Boys in the Boat

In 1936, a poor engineering student (Callum Turner) joins the rowing team at the University of Washington; coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) is aiming for the impossible, the Olympics in…

Heart of Glass

In the late 1700s, a small Bavarian town loses its master glassblower, who takes his secrets with him; the effect on the townspeople is devastating. One of Werner Herzog’s least…