The director of four films beginning with Badlands in 1973, Terrence Malick studied philosophy with Stanley Cavell at Harvard before abandoning a doctorate on Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. A promising journalist and academic—as well as an outstanding high school football player—in …

The best word I’ve come across to describe David Cronenberg’s filmmaking style is “disembodied.” It was voiced as a criticism, but I think he’d own up to it. Whatever squelchy or peculiar or downright disgusting thing is going on in …

There is something very striking about the mises-en-scène, the characters and the plot developments in the genre (a disputed classification) or historical cycle (by rough consensus 1941-1958) known as “film noir.” With respect to virtually any significant or pivotal action treated …