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Although Dunkirk is technically a war film, its tone and style are those of a high-octane thriller. For his most serious-minded film to date, Christopher Nolan has employed all the weapons in his arsenal to craft something that, despite the O...

"El Cid is one of the greatest epic films ever made. Anthony Mann's sense of composition, his use of space, and his graceful camera movements bring to life an ancient tapestry where the transformation of an ordinary man into a legend become almost...

Historical epics are often met with mixed reactions from the masses. For every singular triumph like 300, there are many more disappointments. So it should be no surprise that producers, eager to fill cold seats with warm bodies, have returned to...

When Paul Verhoeven took Hollywood by storm during the mid-1980s, he had been a successful director overseas for two decades. During his U.S. tenure, he produced a string of iconic films that remain in the consciousness today, including Robocop, Basi...

Academics will argue about which of the Bronte sisters left the most important literary legacy. All three died young – Emily in 1848 at the age of 30, Anne (Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) in 1949 at the age of 28, and Charlotte (Jane E...

In recent years, the two animation studios working under the Disney umbrella have been making a concerted attempt to shake free of their reputation as a White Princess Factory. The result: a pipeline of features populated with diverse casts – Coc...

Wim Wenders' The End of Violence offers the same type of experience one could expect from sitting through a David Lynch film with a reasonably-coherent narrative (unlike, for example, Lost Highway). Arguably Wenders' most disjointed film to date, ...

I want to give actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber credit for making his behind-the-camera debut a film that means something to him. One can easily see how Everything Is Illuminated could be a deeply personal effort. Unfortunately, the meaning a...

For one reason or another, there have been few quality movies made about 9/11. Maybe it's because the event is too recent and the wound too fresh. Or perhaps it's because filmmakers are keenly aware that a misstep could lead to charges of exploitat...