In this edition of Film Filings, Jordan Poss reviews Christopher Nolan’s 2006 epic about stage magicians; Samuel J. Stephens a full ranking and overview of David Lean’s filmography; Nathan Gilmore reviews three major Academy Award winners and contenders from the 1980s.

Reviewing and ranking all the films of David Lean. David Lean is synonymous with epic, but his early chamber dramas and literary adaptations belie that reputation. This essay reviews his films chronologically, from the early successes to the late— and scrutinized — grand epics, and offers a ranking of his entire filmography, including two rare entries.

Reviews of the western classic “Shane”; three by Nathan Gilmore; a 2025 war epic; and a detailed analysis of a favorite Hitchcock film.

In this very belated April 2025 edition of Film Filings we have reviews of Soderbergh’s latest, Carl Franklin’s 1992 neo-noir One False Move reviewed by Chris Witty, Nathan Gilmore’s Sunday Reviews, and Sam Stephens investigates the filmic joy of a bad 1948 classic.

Jordan Poss reviews Gladiator II and more; Witty reviews the 1951 Joseph Losey remake of the Fritz Lang classic “M”; Nathan Gilmore has something to say about Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons; Sam Stephens reviews the 1996 disaster epic Daylight starring Sylvester Stallone.

In this edition of Film Filings, Jordan Poss reviews 2023 in filmwatching; Christopher Witty reviews a Mexican cinema classic; and three of our reviewers have different takes on Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron.

In this editon: Jordan Poss review’s 2023’s The Lost King; Chris Witty reviews The Wolf Man classic; Sam Stephens reviews John Huston’s last film, The Dead; Nathan Gilmore reviews Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence.

In this Film Filings: An update about “Raymar”; Witty Writes About Nigel Kneale; Poss on Disney’s ‘Locomotive’; Stephens on Branagh’s ‘Henry’; Gilmore: A Peck On the Cheek, The Grey Zone, and Boyhood.

In this edition of Film Filings: Oppenheimer, Unforgiven, Lawrence of Arabia, Night of the Hunter, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Kes.

Indiana Jones and his predecessors; Fritz Lang’s M.

Film Filings: Doctor Zhivago; British Film Noir; El Norte; The Madness of the King George

This 1928 biographical film remains a landmark in cinema history as it continues to evoke strong emotion and reflection in those who experience Joan of Arc’s real life trial and execution at the hands of her captors.

This edition of Film Filings contains reviews of two existential 1965 colonial adventures, a look at eleven Australian classics, one of Chaplin’s last, and meditation of the communal experience of theatre-going.

Chris Witty takes us through all the films of John Carpenter: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sam Stephens previews an extended excerpt from a David Lean essay; We preview Jordan Poss’s extensive analysis of the new All Quiet On the Western Front; Nathan Gilmore reviews Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu”.

This edition of Film Filings is four film reviews, and a special invitation to those cinephiles out there who have seen--or wish to see--the astounding silent film masterpiece 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'. We are looking for thoughtful and well-written short reviews to publish this coming May. See 'Film Filings' article for full details.

This edition of Film Filings covers: a Jean Renoir theater experience at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater, my film-viewing habits of the last four months, an excursion in British Folk Horror with Christopher Witty in the U.K., Nathan Gilmore’s reviews of two European classics, and a peek at a cool film that is now in production!

“The Bagheeta [...] will change at his coming into a beautiful woman and attempt to coerce him into an embrace. If she is successful, if the youth kisses her, his life is forfeited. Changing again into a black leopard, the Bagheeta will tear him limb from limb.”

– From ‘The Bagheeta,' a story by Val Lewton published in Weird Tales, July 1930.

Over at his blog, novelist and teacher Jordan M. Poss has done his own spectacular film ranking…the complete films of the Coen Brothers. And don’t miss his follow up review of the most recent Coen film, The Tragedy of Macbeth.

The horror wrapped inside this crime drama is named Dr. Mabuse, a genius in the criminal underworld, uninterested in personal gain—he is an ideological madman perpetuating crime to destroy society.

Roger Ebert called the film Bresson’s “finest prayer." Other Bresson films have been more dramatic, more exciting and more viscerally involving—for me, personally, A Man Escaped—but none more spiritually. Balthazar stands apart in its moral and spiritual rigor.