PETERSON REVIEWS
space
-
‘The Souvenir’ is a Delicate, Devastating Memory Movie
‘The Souvenir’ has a strange dichotomy between overwhelming intimacy and multilayered enigma.
-
Maggie Cheung Gives One of Her Best Performances in ‘Center Stage’
But the movie is made shakier because of its distrait presentation.
-
Private Eyes
‘Claire’s Camera’ is an epigrammatic 69 minutes, yet its short running time isn’t synonymous with sketchiness or lazy economy.
-
On ‘Amazing Grace’
At the center of this church, Aretha Franklin creates not just a feeling of home and unity but announces herself as the closest thing to a divine being personified in that place and that moment.
-
‘Homecoming’ is Overwhelming
‘Homecoming’ is undoubtedly one of the great rock docs, joining the pantheon of genre definitives like ‘Stop Making Sense’ and ‘Sign ‘o’ the Times.’
-
Julianne Moore is Sublime in ‘Gloria Bell’
Moore, giving one of the great performances of her great-performance-heavy career, inspires such empathy that there came a point in the movie where I noticed that my facial expressions almost exactly matched the ones she was giving on screen.
-
The Leisurely Darkness of ‘The Beach Bum’
Considering everything that happens to Moondog, the protagonist of ‘The Beach Bum,’ over the course of a season, we find it surprising that there never comes a point where we find him sitting down, hunched over with his head in his hands, moaning, ‘the world’s out to get me.’
-
‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ Evocatively Captures a Moment
Much would change by the time ‘The Decline of Western Civilization,’ premiered in the summer of 1981.
-
‘Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami’ Doesn’t Want to Be Definitive
On Sophie Fiennes’ tessellated documentary.
-
‘Three … Extremes’ Lives Up to Its Title
On an inspired horror-anthology movie.
-
‘Branded to Kill’ is Thrillingly Unruly
Seijun Suzuki’s 40th film for the Nikkatsu Company was at one time a final straw.
-
‘Black Sunday’ is an Early Masterpiece from Mario Bava
‘Black Sunday’ looks so incredible that it immediately becomes a horror masterstroke in a purely aesthetic sense.
SEPTEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Based on an Article’
ASDFJHGSD
‘Bigger Than Life”s Resounding Anger
By the film’s end, which offers no resounding resolution, you feel practically pummeled by its driving dilemma.
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 