Ty Burr's Watchcast

A confession: When I first saw Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” in 2011, I didn’t really get it. I liked it — was wowed by the imagery, moved by the music, and appreciative of the film’s long-range lens on human existence. I got into a squabble outside the movie theater with a quartet of retirees who thought “Tree” was the dumbest thing they’d ever seen — an

This was a delight: A deep-dish discussion of one of my favorite films of all time with one of my favorite young critics. Hunter Harris has written for GQ, New York magazine’s Vulture, and the New York Times, but it’s her pop culture newsletter “Hung Up” and its associated social media tendrils that had Forbes recently name Harris to its “30 Under 30” list of media up-a

If you have never seen Jim Jarmusch’s 2016 film “Paterson” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐), now would be a very good time to watch it, with the world falling to pieces on a daily basis and your frazzled soul in need of a balm. If you’ve already seen “Paterson,” now would be a good time to watch it again. In fact, it would be entirely within the philosophy of this movie to watch it ev

One of the great pleasures of putting together the “Classics of the New Millennium” podcast series — I suspect it may have been the impetus all along — is that it gives me an excuse to revisit movies I may have liked or loved well enough when they came out but am now curious as to whether they’ll last. Many do, some don’t, and some deepen their grip with each passing ye

So, first off, I have to apologize: It’s Friday and I don’t have the usual What to Watch line-up telling subscribers about good movies in theaters or on VOD. What can I say? I had a busy week in dinosaur media: An appearance on NPR’s “Here and Now” to talk with host Robin Young about gifted child actors who grow up into good, not-insane adult actors, and two pieces for th

When was the last time you watched “No Country for Old Men” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐)? I saw it twice in 2007, the year it came out, and then two weeks ago while preparing for this podcast, and the intervening 15 years had cast a pall of dust on the experience of the movie that a revisit dispelled in a blast of bleak Texas wind. Is this the Coen brothers’ greatest two hours of film?

I’m so glad my friend and critical colleague Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s “Fresh Air” chose South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning” as his pick for a great film of the 21st century. Justin brings to the discussion a deep knowledge of Lee’s filmography — I regret to say I’ve only seen 2010’s “Poetry,” which is remarkable — and

It’s strange to realize that David Fincher’s “The Social Network” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) came out in 2010 — it seems like it was just yesterday and it also seems like two centuries ago. Thirteen years on, and after a decade-plus of social and political upheavals that can in part be traced directly to Facebook, this first warning about where our social media was taking us and t

It’s interesting when movies try to predict the near future, especially when you come back ten years later to see what they got right and what they got wrong. Spike Jonze’s “Her” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) came out in 2013 and painted a picture of a spooky brave new world right around the corner, where pant waists were higher, people dated their operating systems, and we all were lo

Armando Iannucci’s 2017 political comedy “The Death of Stalin” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, streaming and for VOD rental on various platforms) is not only a bona fide 21st century masterpiece but one of the few genuine satires to be put on film — satire in the Swiftian sense; satire that leaves a viewer as bloodied as the characters. Iannucci, best known in the US as the creator of �