Denis Villeneuve’s sequel is better than its predecessor, but only in a few extravagant moments does it rise above proficiency and flirt with transcendence.
ByJustin Chang
Notes on Hollywood
Can You Really Want an Oscar Too Much?
It’s the ultimate paradox of campaigning: an actor must somehow be dedicated but not try-hard, authentic but not award-hungry.
ByMichael Schulman
The Current Cinema
Two African Migrants’ Fantastical, Harrowing Odyssey in “Io Capitano”
Matteo Garrone’s epic about two young Senegalese cousins attempting to reach Italy is his finest film since “Gomorrah.”
ByJustin Chang
The Front Row
The Forced Erotic Whimsy of “Drive-Away Dolls”
The director Ethan Coen, writing the script with his wife, Tricia Cooke, leans on comical violence and genre winks for this road movie of lesbians seeking love.
ByRichard Brody
More from The New Yorker
Cultural Comment
“Dune” and the Delicate Art of Making Fictional Languages
The alien language spoken in Frank Herbert’s novels carries traces of Arabic. Why has that influence been scrubbed from the films?
ByManvir Singh
On Television
In “Shōgun,” an Update Is a Double-Edged Sword
The FX series attempts to tailor its source material—a 1975 novel about an English sailor turned samurai—for modern audiences, but gives them little to seize on emotionally.
