This spring, San Francisco witnesses the arrival of a masterpiece: Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light, his septuagenarian meditation on memory and history in Chile, his usual documentary subjects. But this time he travels deep into the specific to illuminate the general: broader themes of childhood, astronomy, forensic anthropology, desert geography, the passage of time—and the ability of humans to survive trauma and bring its questions into the future. Read more>>

Errol Morris has tackled miscarriages of justice and Abu Ghraib. Now, in Tabloid, he turns his attention to the case of Joyce McKinney, and this may be his final documentary. Read more>>

This year, my nose led me into a thicket exploring subjectivity. Sure, subjectivity is always present, but this year in these films, it was used as a style, as a shiv to pry open the trap doors hiding secrets of the soul, trauma, heartbreak and the secrets of history. Read more

The best films in the US competitions restored the spirit of the festival’s early days: regionally shot films on restricted budgets with new or non-actors, by film-makers more passionate about what they were shooting than where their career was heading. Read more>>

Taylor inhabits female beings who refuse to play by the rules and, in so doing, she makes it clear to us how inappropriate those rules really are, and how boring are the characters—and actors—who try to play by them. Read more

Every once in a while a film comes along that changes our perceptions so much that cinema history thereafter has to arrange itself around it. Read more