PETERSON REVIEWS
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Gene Kelly and Judy Garland Are Off the Charts in ‘The Pirate’
Vincente Minnelli’s ‘The Pirate’ is one of the oddest movies to come out of MGM’s musical golden era; it’s also among the most fun and boundary-pushingly playful.
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Struggling to Care About Billy Liar
It’s a mostly effective study of a young man who craves artistic success but isn’t willing to put in the work to make it happen, but it’s not very good at actually pulling us in.
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Short Takes: ‘Sick,’ ‘Broker,’ and ‘Women Talking’
A slasher, a road movie, and a stagey drama.
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‘Cover Girl’ Doesn’t Quite Know What to Do with Its Stars
There are a handful of moments in this hit 1944 musical where Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly remind you of their greatness, but they’re largely underserved by Charles Vidor’s static direction.
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The Cautious Optimism of ‘The Big City’
‘The Big City’ is blunt about the professional and personal difficulties that come with shifting tides.
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Overnight Successes and Falls from Grace in ‘Babylon’
‘Babylon’ intoxicatingly — if exaggeratedly and not always accurately — evokes the sugar-rush quality of silent moviemaking and the behind-the-scenes dramas surrounding them.
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The Best Movies of 2022
Looking back at a great year for cinema.
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‘Secret Defense’ is a Spellbinding Revenge Drama
Jacques Rivette takes a revenge plot and, subversively, is most interested in the mundane everyday details that would in most other movies be incidental.
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‘Outlaws’ is a Bad-Wig Crime Thriller
This Spanish drama has all the charge of a crime-doesn’t-pay TV movie.
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‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is a Stunning Achievement — and a Bit of a Bore
James Cameron’s long-delayed follow-up to 2009’s ‘Avatar’ doubles down on visual spectacle and inert drama.
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‘À Nos Amours’ is One of the Great Coming-of-Age Movies
Where other directors might moralize or condescendingly diagnose, Maurice Pialat delicately and sensitively handles the emotional complications of a teenage girl’s budding sex life.
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Sally Field and Burt Reynolds Are Dynamite Together in ‘Smokey and the Bandit’
Jackie Gleason’s cigarette-voiced villain performance is a highlight, too.
SEPTEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Based on an Article’
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In ‘Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros,’ It’s All in the Process
Revisiting Frederick Wiseman’s 44th documentary, which trains its gaze on the Troisgros family and its various culinary pursuits.
August 19, 2026
May 25, 2026
May 13. 2026
Strong, Stoic Types
Director-star Paul Newman’s 1971 treatment of Ken Kesey’s ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ perceptively observes the corrosiveness of toxic masculinity.
August 7, 2026
Working Girls
‘Broken Mirrors,’ Marleen Gorris’ 1984 follow-up to her still-transcendent feminist drama ‘A Question of Silence,’ expands on its predecessor’s themes while dramatically improving on its writer-director’s aesthetic command.
July 9, 2026
Found Connections
Donna Deitch’s ‘Desert Hearts’ was a breakthrough for lesbian representation in cinema. It also achieves another rarified thing: Characters who feel like they exist outside a screenplay’s bounds.
June 30, 2026
Peterson Reviews 