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Henry Fonda in The Best Man (1984).

President of the Nameless: Alexander Horwath on Henry Fonda for President

A documentary dissects Henry Fonda's character and his role in American cinema.
by A. S. Hamrah, Alexander Horwath via Screen Slate on April 7, 2025
Sam Peckinpah looks into a film camera.

The Noble Savagery of Sam Peckinpah

“Bloody Sam” was born one hundred years ago this month.
by Christopher Sandford via Modern Age on February 19, 2025
Painting of Ancient Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1757.
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All the World’s America’s Stage — Even Ancient Rome

Gladiator and Gladiator II have little to do with the Roman past. But they have a great deal to do with the American present.
by Jessica Clarke via HNN on December 3, 2024
A still of Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan overlaid on the seal of the United States.

The Thin Line Between Biopic and Propaganda

The success of “Reagan” reflects the market demands of a more fragmented moviegoing public—and reality.
by Zach Schonfeld via The Atlantic on November 18, 2024
JD Vance, along with characters from the Scorsese movie "Gangs of New York," shown over a background of a map of New York City

JD Vance is Just Another Know Nothing Nativist

MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity.
by Rebecca Solnit via Literary Hub on August 23, 2024
A freeze-frame of Eddie Murphy smiling at the camera in Beverly Hills Cop.

Bring Back the Freeze-Frame Ending!

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F spends its final moments on a thrilling cinematic trope of the ’80s, one that I would argue is due for a comeback.
by Chris Stanton via Vulture on July 15, 2024
Anna May Wong in the Toll of the Sea.

Chromatic Aberrations: The Toll of the Sea (1922)

Hollywood's first natural-color feature film and the breakout role for Anna May Wong, considered the first Chinese American movie star.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on May 21, 2024
A illustration depicts the Hopkinsville Goblins incident from 1955, when a group claims they were assaulted by aliens of some sort.

The Long, Surprising Legacy of the Hopkinsville Goblins

Or, why families under siege make for great movies.
by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on February 8, 2024
Photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald and of George Joannides.

What Really Happened to JFK?

One thing’s for sure: The CIA doesn’t want you to know.
by Scott Sayare via Intelligencer on November 9, 2023
A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.
by Taylor Dorrell via Jacobin on September 14, 2023
Barbie doll

Barbie and the Problem of Corporate Power

Stars of the movie about an iconic Mattel toy are on strike. Both the company’s history and Barbie’s plot illuminate how powerful corporations really are.
by Rithika Ramamurthy via Nonprofit Quarterly on July 31, 2023
Mae West

Mae West and Camp

A camp diva, a queer icon, and a model of feminism—the memorable Mae West left behind a complicated legacy, on and off the stage.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on April 26, 2023
A board game with different continents of the world and markers.

Playing with the Past: Teaching Slavery with Board Games

Board games invite discussions of counterfactuality and contingency, resisting the teleology and determinism that are so common to looking backward in time.
by Patrick Rael via Perspectives on History on October 13, 2021
A Black family of four in front of their suburban home.
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The ‘Wonder Years’ Remake Resurrects a 1970 Tactic to Diversify TV Viewing

Putting Black characters in situations familiar to White viewers aims to build empathy and interest.
by Kate L. Flach via Made By History on October 1, 2021
A collage of significant people from the time like the Beatles and Elvis.

How Americans Re-Learned to Think After World War II

In ‘The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War,’ Louis Menand explores the poetry, music, painting, dance and film that emerged during the Cold War.
by Carlos Lozada via Washington Post on April 16, 2021

Why 'Glory' Still Resonates More Than Three Decades Later

Newly added to Netflix, the Civil War movie reminds the nation that black Americans fought for their own emancipation.
by Kevin M. Levin via Smithsonian on September 14, 2020

What Ever Happened to Chicken Fat?

Comedy from Mad Magazine to The Simpsons.
by Jackson Arn via 3 Quarks Daily on July 27, 2020
Freddie Bartholomew in fighting stance as Little Lord Fauntleroy for the film.

The Masculinization of Little Lord Fauntleroy

The 1936 movie Little Lord Fauntleroy broke box office records, only to be toned down and masculinized amid cultural fears of the “sissified” male.
by Kristin Hunt, U. C. Knopfelmacher via JSTOR Daily on March 26, 2020

How Local TV Made “Bad” Movies a Thing

Weekly shows on local TV stations helped make the ironic viewing of bad movies into a national pastime.
by John B. King, Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on November 21, 2019

Jimmy Hoffa and 'The Irishman': A True Crime Story?

Martin Scorsese's new film is premised on a confession that is not credible.
by Jack Goldsmith via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2019

What the Press and 'The Post' Missed

Leslie Gelb supervised the team that compiled the Pentagon Papers. He explains what Steven Spielberg's new film gets wrong.
by Brooke Gladstone, Leslie Gelb via WNYC on January 12, 2018
Orson Welles

A Hundred Years of Orson Welles

He was said to have gone into decline, but his story is one of endurance—even of unlikely triumph.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on November 30, 2015

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