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.
OCTOBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Thrills and Chills’
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The Surprising Sensitivity of ‘The Leopard Man’
This proto-slasher from 1943 takes pains to show that its victims are more than their fates.
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
