Sheila O'Malley

Perchance to dream: the challenges of death scenes are technical as well as existential

The man in me: in the Belgian actor’s hands, characters who could be tough-guy cliches become fully-realized and three-dimensional

Yes, and: why comedy and improv often produce some of the greatest actors

Into the black: Dennis Hopper's doom-ridden, death-stalked film takes punk rock at its word

Can’t look away: the nearly lost art of acting with back to the camera

Alone together: Tom Noonan’s two-hander is an unblinking look at the havoc loneliness can wreak on humans

Explosive combinations: the elective affinities at work in Jack Conway’s Love Crazy and George Stevens’s The More the Merrier

Something fresh and strange: newly released letters reveal the prominent presence of movies in the poet’s life

I contain multitudes: on Dylan, Whitman, and Scorsese’s new Rolling Thunder Revue documentary

World on fire: in an increasingly dire situation, John Ford’s characters look to the skies or out to sea, hoping for intervention

Tennis anyone? In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace gets at the heart of Brando’s art

Love is a battlefield: Aliens’ Hicks and Ripley are an unlikely pair, but “unlikely pairs” are the bread and butter of romance, Hollywood-style

“Darkness embossed by silvery images”: the New York-School poet had a rapturous relationship with the cinema

In Joanna Hogg's sublime breakout The Souvenir, a budding artist strives to stay true to her path despite a consuming romance

Truth in fiction: Robert Flaherty's 1934 "documentary" remains an astounding depiction of a landscape that still shocks and stuns

Dirt roads and green fields: remarkable performances by Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson punctuate Martin Ritt's 1972 family classic

The cinematographer turned director blew our minds to show better what makes us tick

Speaking of spooky: Charles Laughton excels in a superior adaptation of an Oscar Wilde yarn, American style

(Tamara Jenkins, USA, Netflix, Opening September 21)

Voice of experience: the Hollywood actress brought a sense of hard-won wisdom and forthrightness to The Big Sleep, Tarnished Angels, and more