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The 10 best films about infidelity
As a general rule, any violation of one of the 10 Commandments tends to be great story material. There’s a reason cheating has long been a mainstay of literature, film and television, not to mention about 90% of the lyrics that have come out of Nashville. Infidelity is catnip for storytellers. The stakes are baked…
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10 memorable movie mothers
“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,” wrote William Ross Wallace in a poem extolling the greatness of moms. Like most things involving mothers, that sentiment feels a bit loaded. Our relationship with mothers is … complicated. We love them, but fear them, too––particularly when they use your full…
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The 10 best bathroom scenes in film
Bathrooms: We all use ‘em, but it took a curiously long time for Hollywood to challenge the Production Code’s ban on showing them on screen. Once that changed, however (we have Sir Alfred Hitchcock to thank for that, by the way), bathrooms have gotten their close-up. And why not? It’s where we’re most private and…
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The 25 best love stories in film
This just in: Moviegoers love romance. Beginning with The Kiss in 1896, cinema has excavated emotional gold from affairs of the heart. Big-screen love stories are so pervasive, in fact, that most of us know the tropes by heart (pun intended), from the meet-cute to that inevitable climax in which someone, usually male, makes a…
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The 10 best films about time travel
Time travel movies aren’t really about time. Yes, the idea of moving through time is fantastical, but such stories are conduits to explore themes as diverse as nostalgia, regret, fate and free will. These are my picks for the 10 best movies about time travel. 10. My Old Ass (2024, dir: Megan Park) “If I…
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The 15 best coming-of-age films
Few stories, cinematic or otherwise, have proved as enduring as coming of age. There are countless variations, of course: a first love or heartbreak, a reckoning with mortality, learning a truth about a parent or friend, discovering right and wrong. You get the idea. Regardless of the particulars, the best coming-of-age stories endure because growing…
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The 15 best school-centric films
For good or ill––or, more accurately, for good and ill––school is a foundational building block of who we become. The classroom is where we learn to read, write, and do arithmetic, of course, but the instruction does not end there. There are critical lessons to be had in the cafeteria, the locker rooms, the playground:…
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The 10 best film dystopias
It can always be worse. At least, that’s what moviegoers have long told themselves, and so there is a weird comfort that comes from losing yourself in big-screen dystopias. Fritz Lang likely jumpstarted the genre in 1927 with Metropolis’ tale of haves and have-nots, but speculative pessimism quickly caught on in cinema. Like the best…
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach
Let’s talk about movies.
