Sam Wasson
Bruce Wagner’s Woke Universe
After his publisher balked at his use of a certain word, Hollywood’s master of satire posts his new novel online for free
Little Gold Men, Big White Guilt
L.A.’s new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has little to say about movie history—but speaks volumes about Hollywood and our times
Everybody’s Talkin’
How a disruptive new technology—sound—brought an end to the silent era and gave rise to the studio system. An exclusive excerpt from Hollywood: The Oral History
The Bike Picture
How a long-haired band of outsiders with a 16-mm. camera, $300,000, and “a hell of an idea” re-invented American movies with Easy Rider
Go Big or Go Home
A new generation is discovering the pleasures of classic movies at Alexander Olch’s Lower East Side revival house, Metrograph
Packages and Kings
How, amid the wreckage of Heaven’s Gate, a couple of young agents rebuilt the movie business in their own image
Beating the System
When every studio in Hollywood passed on Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola—the most successful movie director on the planet—became an independent filmmaker
The View from Here
For 95 years, the Oscar for best picture signified excellence. What will it mean when the Academy starts enforcing its new eligibility rules?
The Plains’ Greats
Alexander Payne gives the author a Hollywood master class on wheels, with stops at the childhood homes of Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and Marlon Brando
Stanley Kubrick’s Waterloo
Having just tackled the end of the world and the mysteries of the universe, the obsessive director set his sights on Napoleon. Tens of thousands of index cards later, he waved the white flag
Emperor of the New Order
How a promising young director gave up a comfortable life in Hollywood—and gained true creative freedom for a new generation of filmmakers. An exclusive excerpt from The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story
“All the Romance of Filmmaking Is Gone”
Woody Allen on Paris, cancel culture, retirement, and “the whole mortality question”