The author of “Lit” and “The Liars’ Club” on a lifetime of moviegoing

Directed by Martin Scorsese • 1980 • United States
Starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty

With this stunningly visceral portrait of self-destructive machismo, Martin Scorsese created one of the truly great and visionary works of modern cinema. Robert De Niro pours his blood, sweat, a...

Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer • 1928 • France
Starring Renée Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley

Spiritual rapture and institutional hypocrisy come to stark, vivid life in one of the most transcendent masterpieces of the silent era. Chronicling the trial of Joan of Arc in the hours leading up...

Directed by François Truffaut • 1959 • France
Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy

François Truffaut’s first feature is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), THE 400 BLOWS sensitively re-creates t...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1960 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Tatsuya Mihashi

A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing THE BAD SLEEP WELL. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines element...

Directed by Federico Fellini • 1963 • Italy

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand e...

Directed by Peter Brook • 1963 • United Kingdom
Starring James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, Hugh Edwards

In the hands of the renowned experimental theater director Peter Brook, William Golding’s legendary novel about the primitivism lurking beneath civilization becomes a film as raw and ragged as the los...

Directed by Louis Malle • 1987 • France, West Germany
Starring Gaspard Manesse, Raphaël Fejtö, Francine Racette

AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the p...

Directed by Steve James • 1994 • United States

Two ordinary inner-city Chicago kids dare to reach for the impossible, professional basketball glory, in this epic chronicle of hope and faith. Filmed over a five-year period, HOOP DREAMS, by Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert, follows y...