Peter Hujar’s Day

In 2021, Linda Rosenkrantz published the transcript of a day-long conversation that she had in 1974 with gay photographer Peter Hujar. As they were talking, his artistic insecurities, working conditions…

Death by Lightning

At the same time as Ohio Congressman James Garfield (Michael Shannon) is unexpectedly elected President, an increasingly confused and desperate lawyer (Matthew Macfadyen) is doing all he can to secure…

Blue Moon

The saddest man you ever knew, or dynamic, alert and fun? Opinions on Broadway songwriter Lorenz Hart, who died of pneumonia and alcoholism in 1943, vary. This film imagines him…

Small Things Like These

It’s 1985 and Christmas is coming to the Irish town of New Ross, where coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) comes across a teenage girl in a local convent who…

Two Prosecutors

In 1937, a young prosecutor (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) suspects corruption within the local NKVD in Bryansk and tries to interrogate an elderly political prisoner. Based on a short story written by…

The Smashing Machine

Sooner or later, you reach that stage when you’ve made more action-comedies than you can count, and start looking for something meatier. In Dwayne Johnson’s case it’s a biography from…

Late Shift

The original title may be a bit obvious, but there’s no doubt that the film is a thoroughly convincing and frustrating look into the overwhelming situation for understaffed healthcare workers,…

Being Maria

What Maria Schneider went through while making Last Tango in Paris (1972) becomes a revealing illustration of the need for preventing movie sets from becoming a boys club in the…

Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Blanche (Emmanuelle Chaulet) is interested in Alexandre (François-Éric Gendron), whom she meets at a public bathhouse together with a new acquaintance, Léa (Sophie Renoir); however, Léa’s boyfriend Fabien (Éric Viellard)…

Queen Christina: Angst on the Silver Throne

Greta Garbo. Photo: MGM In January 1934, Greta Garbo’s latest picture had not yet opened in her native country. Queen Christina depicted a Swedish 17th-century queen who abdicated the throne,…