The Film Comment Podcast: NYFF63 Festival Report
Signed, sealed, delivered: critics Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, and Beatrice Loayza join for a spirited wrap-up analysis of the highlights and lowlights from this year's lineup| Film Comment
Rewriting the past: the Hong Kong-born, Paris based filmmaker and editor reflects on her first and latest features| Film Comment
Realms of fortune: the legendary Mexican filmmaker discusses his sixty-year plus career| Film Comment
What time is it?: critics and programmers Miriam Bale and Adam Piron join to discuss PTA’s latest's successes and failures, how it fits into his larger body of work, and more| Film Comment
Paint work: Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind is fun and funny, but it also just might be her most chilling portrait of America to date| Film Comment
Once more?: Jay Kelly, Late Fame, and Is This Thing On? ask whether their protagonists have the energy and motivation to continue| Film Comment
Reversing injustice: the filmmaker discusses her new documentary, which uses police body-cam footage to capture the events that culminated in the murder of a Black mother by her white neighbor| Film Comment
Refusing the waves: Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Currents and Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling revive the image of the self-drowned woman with a bracing literalism| Film Comment
Signed, sealed, delivered: critics Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, and Beatrice Loayza join for a spirited wrap-up analysis of the highlights and lowlights from this year's lineup| Film Comment
State of grace: the Italian auteur discusses his latest, a portrait of the renowned early 20th-century stage actress| Film Comment
Boss less: Scott Cooper‘s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere can't find a sincere way of imagining the everyday process of making music| Film Comment
Unchained: Ramesh Sippy’s swashbuckling 1975 epic mashes together tropes from westerns, dacoit films, silent comedies, and musicals to create an entirely unique cult classic| Film Comment
Layers of time: the Italian nonfiction master joins to discuss his latest, which explores the city of Naples as an environment both cosmic and prosaic| Film Comment
Simultaneous dimensions: three films at this year’s NYFF made by or about Palestinians pry open apertures from which we must make sense of Gaza’s horizon as intimately tied to our own| Film Comment
Savage age: the Chinese director discusses his new film’s phantasmagoric odyssey through the history of cinema| Film Comment
Film in my head: the 87-year-old filmmaker discusses her resplendent 1968 debut feature, attending USC film school in the ’60s, and more| Film Comment
Pixel visions: Dry Leaf, Rose of Nevada, and Levers present us with surfaces so textured and tactile that they have the physicality of a terrain| Film Comment
Framed: Kelly Reichardt, Kent Jones, and Lucio Castro join from NYFF63 to discuss the temporality of cinema versus the other arts, the challenge of being a working artist, and more| Film Comment
Class canceled: are the binders empty in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt because the professors are full of shit, or is it just a continuity error?| Film Comment
Dirty work: Paul Thomas Anderson‘s tumultuous and funny One Battle After Another is not just energetic, but energizing| Film Comment
Prison films: Phillip Vance Smith, II reflects on how movies like Life, Penitentiary, and Sing Sing portray life behind bars, and how his own experience of watching them has changed over his years of incarceration| Film Comment
Fire fights: highlights of this year’s festival, like Below the Clouds, Dead Man’s Wire, and Sacrifice reflected the anxious and violent status quo of our times| Film Comment
The Film Comment Letter is a free weekly digital newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing—including the Film Comment Podcast, features,| Film Comment
Field reports: films like Cover-Up, Landmarks, and The Voice of Hind Rajab pierced through the festival’s illusive bubble with lightning bolts of reality| Film Comment
Break like the wind: the legendary British rockers are joined by their longtime creative foil, filmmaker Marty DiBergi, to discuss their long, loud career| Film Comment
Walk on by: Guy Lodge and and Öykü Sofuoğlu join to discuss Duse, Remake, The Voice of Hind Rajab, and more| Film Comment
Rock of ages: critics Savina Petkova and Jordan Mintzer join to discuss Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine, Lucrecia Martel's Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks), and more| Film Comment
Family affair: Bilge Ebiri and Jonathan Romney join to discuss Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Brother Sister, Kent Jones’s Late Fame, and more| Film Comment
Built to last: critics Joseph Fahim and Öykü Sofuoğlu join to discuss festival premieres including Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, Jihan K’s My Father and Qaddafi, and more| Film Comment
Crashing out: critics Katie McCabe and Tim Grierson join to discuss festival premieres including Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, and more| Film Comment
Golden years: Jonathan Romney and Jordan Cronk join to discuss early festival premieres Jay Kelly, Bugonia, La grazia, and more| Film Comment
In a silent way: Christopher Harris joins to discuss the origins of his filmmaking in his youthful ambition to be musician, his interest in stillness and silence as structuring concepts, and why his work is always as fun as it is challenging and erudite| Film Comment
War report: intimate and epic, My Undesirable Friends: Part One follows a small cohort of oppositional journalists in Putin’s Russia during the run-up to the military invasion of Ukraine| Film Comment
Video life: many of the best films at this year’s festival—including Blue Heron, God Will Not Help, and Dry Leaf—explored the imperfect nature of recollection| Film Comment
Tooth and nail: Inney Prakash and Cici Peng join to discuss festival highlights Dracula, Dry Leaf, With Hasan in Gaza, and more| Film Comment
Still lives: the two acclaimed directors discuss their latest films, the practicalities of their unique production methods, and more| Film Comment
Charged as guilty: Roman Polanski‘s J'accuse, which dramatizes the infamous Dreyfus Affair, premiered to great acclaim in France—but soon led to further allegations of sexual abuse by the director| Film Comment
Water colors: the Argentine filmmaker pens and paints a tribute to Hong Sangsoo’s latest “river film," By the Stream| Film Comment
Now seating: Gina Telaroli, Benjamin Crais, and Michael Blair spotlight unmissable repertory series playing in New York City| Film Comment
Together now: the moving-image artist and scholar discusses her decades-long practice of “memory work”| Film Comment
Seat yourself: three independent cinemas opening in New York City are betting that audiences still prefer collective experiences of art and urban space| Film Comment
Train tracks: the Austrian experimental filmmaker discusses using found footage to interrogate and play with the past| Film Comment
Stop that train: the recursions of a painful past preoccupied many of the best films at this year’s edition of the Czech festival| Film Comment
Let them cook: Phoebe Chen, Bedatri Datta Choudhury, and Joseph Hernandez join to discuss the humble household appliance’s enduring on-screen appeal| Film Comment
Name game: the renowned British experimental filmmaker speaks about his latest, a politically charged and cheekily playful essay film| Film Comment
On fire: at this year’s edition of the festival devoted to rediscoveries and restorations, distinctions between high and low art dissolved into the heat of the air| Film Comment
New scene: the incarcerated journalist shares her painstaking journey to teach herself screenwriting in prison| Film Comment
Circuit cities: the Mumbai-based collaborative art studio CAMP experiments with media technology in playful and political ways| Film Comment
Start your engines: critics Alana Pockros and Adam Nayman join to discuss F1, Materialists, 28 Years Later, and more| Film Comment
Bull in the heather: Albert Serra‘s challenging and visceral portrait of a matador is one of the year’s best films| Film Comment
Walks beside me: an inclusive, elastic understanding of modern queer lives emerges across Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy| Film Comment
Fire escapes: the acclaimed author joins to discuss Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s 2013 thriller, cinematic portrayals of the climate crisis, and more| Film Comment
Heroes and villains: the festival largely made good on its promise to show socially relevant works from independent and early-career filmmakers| Film Comment
This whole world: the films of Pierre Creton model a communal life removed from urban capitalism, nationalism, and traditional family structures| Film Comment
Recipe for living: the stalwart actor talks to the legendary film critic about her latest role as an octogenarian settling into a nursing home| Film Comment
Here today: a new festival defiantly reclaims a lost history, bringing contemporary and classic Cambodian cinema to a local audience| Film Comment
Children‘s song: the 92-year-old filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and activist reflects on her influential body of work, currently the subject of a major retrospective at MoMA PS1| Film Comment
Road music: the German auteur discusses his latest tale of hauntings and doublings, which follows a morose piano student who wanders into the life of an enigmatic woman| Film Comment
End of the road: new films by Kelly Reichardt, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Julia Ducournau, and Sergei Loznitsa explore the politics of time| Film Comment
Listen in: filmmakers Eduardo Williams, Brett Story, and Zoya Laktionova discuss the ethical and practical ways in which documentaries use sound, voice, and audio| Film Comment
Going express: the filmmaker discusses his contemporary reimagining of Kurosawa’s classic, working again with Denzel Washington, and what makes New York City such a rich setting and subject| Film Comment
Get a grip: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning celebrates the tenacity and power of the human body struggling against technology| Film Comment
Political world: the Iranian auteur speaks about his Palme d‘Or–winning latest, a typically ingenious meditation on the lasting effects of state repression| Film Comment
Pressing on: standouts of the second week of the festival included Pedro Pinho’s I Only Rest in the Storm, Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident| Film Comment
Shelter from the storm: critics Justin Chang, Tim Grierson, and Alison Willmore wrap up the 2025 edition with Bi Gan’s Resurrection, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, and more| Film Comment
Family ties: Abby Sun, Beatrice Loayza, and Giovanni Marchini Camia join to discuss Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Carla Simón's Romería, and more| Film Comment
Running on empty: Ari Aster‘s Eddington, Christian Petzold‘s Mirrors No. 3, and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague fail to be more than mere reflections of their grander ambitions and inspirations| Film Comment
Rave on: the French-born Galician director discusses his latest, a trance-inducing techno vision quest set in Morocco’s Sahara Desert| Film Comment
Sail away: Kong Rithdee and Inney Prakash join to debate Lav Diaz’s Magellan, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, and more| Film Comment
Roll on: Miriam Bale, Robert Daniels, and Jessica Kiang drop a token and talk Highest 2 Lowest, Alpha, and My Father's Show, and more| Film Comment
Under cover: Kong Rithdee and Neta Alexander join to discuss Kleber Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, Christian Petzold's Mirrors No. 3, and Sebastián Lelio's The Wave| Film Comment
Reality bites: early festival selections like Enzo, Promised Sky, and Adam's Sake were rooted in straight-down-the-line realism| Film Comment
Drink deep: critics Mark Asch, Kong Rithdee, and Isabel Stevens join to swim through recent premieres Die My Love, The Chronology of Water, Nouvelle Vague, and Urchin| Film Comment
No holds barred: critics Mark Asch and Beatrice Loayza join to debate recent premieres Eddington, Sirât, and The Little Sister| Film Comment
Don’t let go: Isabel Stevens and Thomas Flew from Sight and Sound join to discuss Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Two Prosecutors, and Left-Handed Girl| Film Comment
Key frames: the grandest of all film festivals may be a large-format photo of the cinematic planet, but it is not a map of the world| Film Comment
First impressions: critics Jonathan Romney and Guy Lodge join to kick off our festival coverage, discussing early selections Leave One Day, Enzo, and Sound of Falling| Film Comment
Grounded: a nuanced perception of a band with many faces emerges from Alex Ross Perry‘s biopic-doc hybrid Pavements| Film Comment
Hold fast: the Guadeloupean-French filmmaker, currently the focus of a major retrospective at MoMA, never compromised on her ideological and artistic commitments| Film Comment
Major attractions: the legendary scholar joins the FC Editors and programmer David Schwartz for a lively and wide-ranging discussion| Film Comment
Burning down the house: Robert Daniels and Michael Blair join to discuss Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, and Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet| Film Comment
Wade out: the New York–based festival is honoring two Indian filmmakers whose works, despite their seeming hermeticism, stand in serious dialogue with the politics of their times| Film Comment
For your consideration: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s new Apple TV series The Studio sets out to lampoon executive-class know-nothings at a major Hollywood production company, but does its satire actually pack a punch?| Film Comment
Phantom pictures: the Singaporean filmmaker reflects on how the urban landscapes and communities depicted in his 2018 feature A Land Imagined have since disappeared due to relentless industrial redevelopment| Film Comment
Talk to him: the recipient of Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th Chaplin Award reflects on his subversively queer cinema, his love for actors, and making films in times of authoritarianism| Film Comment
Grief stages: the Canadian auteur discusses making art to process loss, the eroticism of conspiracy theories, and why his latest is very much a Toronto film| Film Comment
New rhythms: the filmmaker discusses his intimate French Guiana–set debut feature, which reverberates with the collective call contained in its title| Film Comment
Double trouble: Barry Levinson‘s new mob movie trades on the gambit of its two Robert De Niro performances, yet fails to imbue them with any more brio than one finds in an SNL sketch| Film Comment
Watching the show: the Austrian critic and curator discusses his debut feature, a cinematic essay that investigates the on- and off-screen personas of the legendary American actor, and what they reveal about the United States then and now| Film Comment
Long journey: Sarah Friedland‘s debut feature Familiar Touch—the Opening Night selection of this year’s New Directors/New Films Festival—is the rare film about aging that bypasses the lurid and the exploitative| Film Comment
On the lookout: critics Mark Asch and Natalia Keogan join to discuss this year’s lineup of films by emerging directors, including Familiar Touch, Mad Bills to Pay, Lost Chapters, and more| Film Comment
Miracle workers: the American evangelical film industry is booming, producing movies infused with a Republican-aligned anti-government politics| Film Comment
Sweet dreams: there is something unsettlingly liminal about the Okinawan artist’s videos, which take place on thresholds like graveyards, fences, and national borders| Film Comment
No fun: boredom predominates in Bong Joon Ho‘s Mickey 17, for the characters and the audience alike| Film Comment
Bottoms up: Alain Guiraudie’s latest Misericordia perfects a farcical logic that underpins all his filmmaking| Film Comment
Land and sea: in his latest, an experimental literary adaptation, the filmmaker continues to blur the lines between performance and reality, past and present, with a uniquely improvised, tactile approach| Film Comment
Locally sourced: this year’s edition of the True/False Film Festival was a haven for principled cinephilia, with highlights including Hu Sanshou’s Resurrection and Francesca Scalisi’s Valentina and the MUOSters| Film Comment
Out with the old: critic Tim Grierson joins FC editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute to discuss recent offerings Mickey 17, Opus, Misericordia, Eephus, and more| Film Comment
Bootlegger‘s dilemma: critic Abby Sun answers a reader‘s question about the ethics of piracy in a skewed distribution landscape| Film Comment
Bite our style: Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl explores everything from the tragicomedy of survival to the Black feminist refusals of Missy Elliott| Film Comment
