After the crash of the French New Wave had subsided into an uncertain lull, critics complained that French cinema was dead. In reality, it was merely taking a rest. Enter Olivier Assayas, son of a respected pre-New Wave scriptwriter. Although schooled in literature and painting, Assayas maintaine

Dark, French new wave, Psychological, Self-reflection, Tragic

"Faggot-Retard" was Todd Solondz's initial title of choice for his second feature film. He opted instead for the less inflammatory "Welcome to the Dollhouse," which fortunately did nothing to dilute the tenderly misanthropic cult classic about a pubescent protagonist taunted by the alternating appell

Dark, Depressive, Domestic, Neurotic

Another talented chip off the German Expressionist block, F. W. Murnau had a penchant for horror. With "Nosferatu" (1922) he brought the first of countless Count Dracula stories to cinematic light. Murnau made his Dracula as hideous, doomed, and gloomy as later incarnations are suave, elegant, and ta

Classic hollywood, Dark, Death, Elegant, Erotic, German expressionist film, Grotesque, Primal

After Goebbels made him an offer he couldn't refuse without unpleasant repercussions, celebrated German director Fritz Lang fled the new Nazi regime rather than supervise National Socialist Party motion pictures. Lang, a member-in-good-standing of the German Gothic school of Expressionist cinema, cut

Dark, Dystopia and its discontents, Dystopic, Germans in hollywood, Machinistic, Mathematical, Urban