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Browse our essays and reviews on film and TV.
Bertrand Tavernier’s daring documentary about the Algerian revolution sought to break the silence in France.
Polish director Agnieszka Holland's new film exposes the violent contradictions at the heart of EU border policy.
A long line of films tracks the solidarities that arise when prohibition makes friendship too perilous.
Fifty years ago, the American Indian Movement occupied the site of a historic massacre. They won real gains in the face of brutal counterinsurgency tactics.
The novel Kindred reminds us—emphatically, gruesomely—that white supremacy is us too.
Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.
Recent works depict the agonies and rage of being a low-wage housekeeper or nanny. But all fail to identify capitalism itself as the culprit.
The director’s life reflected both the feats and the failures of the postwar U.S. experience.
In the 1974 cult-classic teleplay Penda’s Fen, the past holds the key to escaping the catastrophic present.
Ron Howard’s Netflix adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy continues a long tradition of seeing hillbillies as a symbol of pristine American whiteness.
Current contempt for age gap relationships serves to strip both men and women of their agency.
Virology is often confused with the invisible workings of capital.
Alternate histories like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America—newly adapted by HBO—force us to imagine a different America.
A timely new documentary celebrates Morrison’s novels but downplays the enduring power of her work as an editor and essayist.
Amazing Grace, the long-lost film of Franklin’s gospel album, offers a lesson in the deep connections between gospel and soul music.
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