Best New Yorker The Current Cinema
The New Yorker's film criticism has been definitive since the days of Pauline Kael and Anthony Lane. These reviews and essays examine movies with wit, intelligence, and cultural context.
20 picks · 1971–2020
Top authors: Pauline Kael (10), Anthony Lane (6), Penelope Gilliatt (2)
Anthony Lane reviews Agnieszka Holland’s dramatization of Ukraine’s deadly Holodomor famine, “Mr. Jones,” and Olivier Assayas’s “Wasp Network,” starring Penélope Cruz and Gael García Bernal.
Anthony Lane reviews Greta Gerwig’s new “Little Women,” starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen.
Anthony Lane reviews Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” which stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and slows the passage of time.
Stephen Frears’s “The Queen.”
“The Ninth Day” and “Madagascar.”
“Shattered Glass” and “The Human Stain.”
Pauline Kael reviews film adaptations of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” and Marilyn Robinson’s novel “Housekeeping.”
THE CURRENT CINEMA review of “Law of Desire,” “Raising Arizona,” and “Street Smart.”
Pauline Kael reviews Brian de Palma’s classic gangster film “Scarface,” starring Al Pacino, as the Cuban drug lord Tony Montana, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Hollywood’s managerial sharks might fancy themselves creative giants, Pauline Kael writes, but what they’re really into are the numbers.
Veronica Geng’s 1979 review of Francis Ford Coppola’s film about Vietnam, starring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando.
Pauline Kael reviews films by George Lucas, Marguerite Duras, and Robert M. Young, from 1977.
Review of Luchino Visconti's film, "Ossessione", made in 1942. For years it was forbidden public showing in this country, because it is based on James …
Pauline Kael’s 1976 review of Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver,” starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.
Pauline Kael on the ultimate Altman movie, from 1975: In “Nashville,” the director has evolved an organic style of moviemaking that tells a story without the clanking of plot.
Review of "Young Frankenstein,” with Gene Wilder in the title role. Critique of his acting in this & other films.
Pauline Kael’s 1972 review of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic mob movie, based on the Mario Puzo book and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and Robert Duvall.
Sixties Hollywood ushered in a tidal wave of commercial romantic slop, and now bad movies are more popular than good books, Pauline Kael writes. Can independent criticism save the day?