There’s a long tradition of cisgender actors playing transgender roles—often to great acclaim. But trans actors have started to make waves on television, and a winning comedy could help change things in movies, too.

On every level of calculation, the film is about servicing women’s sexuality; it’s an open, repeated plot point. But the film has some strange, sticky ideas about what turns women on.

From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, Penelope Spheeris made three music documentaries that doubled as snapshots of a particular time in California. With the release of a new Blu-ray set, the director looks back on the process.

A conversation about The Killer covers its auspicious arrival in America, its lasting legacy, and whether or not John Woo lays on the melodrama thickly.

As Hong Kong directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam made their way to Hollywood in the 1990s one star helped them get there: Jean-Claude Van Damme. The weird thing: It kind of worked.

The subject of Granik’s documentary was a minor player in Winter’s Bone. After years of filming him, she put together an emotional portrait of poverty, PTSD, and his many survival tactics.

Conceived as a means to push the limits of computer animation, Pixar has evolved from a problem-solving wing in a tech company to an assured teller of moving stories. But its success as the latter has its roots in the former.

Though Woo’s influences range from Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese to Le Samouraï and Magnificent Obsession, his breakthrough hit brought his own distinct style to a bullet-riddled gangster melodrama.

Producer James Gay-Rees and director Asif Kapadia talk about why they turned their documentary Amy around so quickly, how they built trust with Winehouse’s media-shy former friends, and the hidden woman they reveal.

Our new feature digs into multiple version of the same film. First up: James Cameron’s The Abyss, an ambitious underwater adventure that attempted to do for the seas what 2001: A Space Odyssey did for outer space.

Starting with the watershed moment of Sigourney Weaver’s tough-as-nails space heroine, we look at some of the female roles that broke ground, dodged stereotypes, and paved the path for today’s increasingly diverse women on film.

The conversation around Sofia Coppola’s debut continues with a discussion of death, nostalgia, and teenagers.

From The Virgin Suicides through The Bling Ring, Coppola turns up the volume even when her characters can’t express themselves.

After Star Wars’ success, the gold rush was on for cheap space adventures from around the world, from a laser-blasting American kid to a Japanese movie with Sonny Chiba and Vic Morrow to an Italian production starring a young David Hasselhoff. 

Coppola’s career-long concern with looking in, looking out, and characters feeling trapped no matter which side they’re on begins with her remarkable debut.

The lead director and co-writer of Pixar’s latest animated movie talks about characters he cut (including Pride, Hope, and Schadenfreude), dead ends and problems, and why it’s so expensive to make textured, glowing CGI characters.

Grim real-world events cast a shadow on this year’s AFI Docs, a festival of new documentaries that, at its best, doubles as a mirror of what’s going on in the world.

Several Pixar films have already addressed the poignancy of childhood’s end. But in Inside Out, the studio gets brutally honest about coming of age.

 Is Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film as blinkered as its critics claim? One writer’s recent personal history leads him to suggest otherwise.

The debuting writer-director of the Essential Viewing pick Gabriel talks about learning film at Harvard, working under Hal Hartley, and building realistic, natural dialogue.