2025 How it started / How it's going

How we feel about most of 2025.

A New Year's Toast from Patricia Highsmith (and me) 🥂🥂

My final Directed By Women Viewing Guide of the year features 70 new releases (and restorations) that I have recommended throughout the year that you can now watch on streaming or rent, just in case you missed them during their theatrical release (plus some streaming films that bear repeating).

Merry Christmas, friends! Hope you had a wonderful day. We're watching A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) beginning in two hours. Hope you can join us :) #TCMParty ^JW

🌲☕ MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (1969) Now playing on the Criterion Channel!

Reminder that Warner Archive put out a beautifully restored version of “The Man I Love” (1947) last year on blu-ray, with six minutes of footage that hadn’t been seen in decades.

Breakfast à la Elle Fanning 🍽️☕💕 Sofia Coppola's SOMEWHERE (2010) Now playing on the Criterion Channel!

One of the greatest joys in life is taking in a film at the Music Box Theatre. I'm thrilled to hear about their expansion plans.

Folks, my top 10 of 2025 list is up at the Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/17/a...

I’ve been working on this one for a minute. With Criterion releasing DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA, for @letterboxd.social I surveyed Spike Lee’s rich history as a musical director. Read: letterboxd.com/journal/spik...

Sisters Elizabeta and Rosemary from Colorado join us tonight with their pick THE GREAT DICTATOR. Hear why they say it's one of their favorite films during our special programming, Kid Fans.

🔴🟢 #Vertigo #Hitchcock #filmsky

Vincent Price and his daughter Victoria picking out a Charlie Brown Christmas tree in Los Angeles, 1970.

After his brother’s death, London painter Robert Beatty is questioned by Scotland Yard. Working with a couple of clues they’ll connect a string of murders back to a diamond-smuggling ring. It’s a POSTMARK FOR DANGER, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Before you start your holiday shopping, check out my Directed By Women Holiday Gift Guide with curated recommendations of books, Blu-rays, posters, and more suggestions to spread the love of women-directed cinema!

Jazz drummer Mickey Rooney arrives in Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own club. He gets involved with mobsters and ends up being accused of murder. Can he clear his name? Don’t get blinded by the neon lights on THE STRIP, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Happy Noirvember to all who celebrate! On the Criterion Channel, enjoy a wide array of private eyes, femmes fatales, toughs, and fall guys in our British Noir, Blackout Noir and Japanese Noir collections, plus so much more! 🖤

HBD, the incomparable Martin Scorsese, whose movies and commitment to art changed my life.

Wealthy industrialist Toshiro Mifune becomes the target of a ruthless kidnapper. But when it’s revealed there has been a case of mistaken identity, he must decide if he’ll still meet their demands while risking bankruptcy in the process. Enter the depths of HIGH AND LOW, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Join host @eddiemuller.bsky.social on Wed, Dec 17, at Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theatre for #NoirCityXmas We're presenting "I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes", based on the novel by master of suspense Cornell Woolrich. Tix: bit.ly/4oDzTOq @tcmfans.bsky.social #filmnoir #noiralley #noirvember

Struggling mystery writer Chester Morris visits publisher William Forrest to pitch a murder plot for his book. He’s rejected, but later discovers the publisher has been murdered in a way similar to one in his unwritten book. The line between fiction & reality blurs in BLIND SPOT, #NoirAlley next!

I just saw Nouvelle Vague and loved it--a movie about the creation of a great work of art that feels (aptly) casual, tossed-off, impolite, just as Blue Moon is a movie about theater that feels (aptly) like good theater. I don't think anyone in movies is having a better year than Richard Linklater.

Pete Gold-Armstrong. 😌

Gold at 2nd. ✨ Congratulations, Nico!

Was creating a Bogie & Bacall 4-poster collage madness or just symptoms of #Noirvember ...?😅

“The Uncool” book tour was very cool tonight at the Athenaeum Center. Cameron Crowe in conversation with John Cusack about Crowe’s career and new memoir. A fascinating conversation on a crisp Chicago fall night!

This is how you Halloween noir style. Also, proper attire for #Noirvember!

Secret Service agent Don DeFore goes undercover to infiltrate a counterfeiting ring, posing an Eastern kingpin. Things get complicated when he falls for a beautiful hotel manager who may be connected to the gang. The money’s hot in SOUTHSIDE 1-1000, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Convicts Edward G. Robinson & Peter Graves bust out of prison taking prisoners with them to their abandoned warehouse hideout. When the police surround them, Robinson threatens to start killing the hostages one by one. Brace yourself BLACK TUESDAY is approaching, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Waiting in the movie theatre lobby to see Frankenstein on the big screen...

Chicago hit man Richard Conte is hired by New York gangster Broderick Crawford. He is ordered to clean up a hit on a political lobbyist, but when one of the targets flees it leaves his boss vulnerable for indictment. Walk down the dark streets of NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

Coming soon, from @unmpress.bsky.social!

Busboy Henry Fonda falls for nightclub performer Lucille Ball. When Ball is left paralyzed after being assaulted by her gangster boyfriend, he’ll step up to show his devotion. Will she reciprocate? Everything happens on THE BIG STREET, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

“There is no doubt in my mind that the most beautiful music is sad, and the most beautiful photography is in a low-key, with rich blacks.” HBD, cinematographer and noir master John Alton ...

Same.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is Now Playing at the Music Box, presented in 70MM! Showtimes & Tickets: musicboxtheatre.com/films-and-ev...

Let's Go Cubs! #FlyTheW

A heads up: Oct 11 I’ll be doing a virtual Q&A with Raoul Peck at the Gene Siskel Film Center about ORWELL: 2+2=5.

Just got author copies of my new book, a study on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). This was a transformative film for me and I am honored to have been asked to give it the dedicated history it deserves. @unmpress.bsky.social @sarenaulibarri.bsky.social

#FlyTheW! Final: #Cubs 3, Padres 1.

LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!!! CUBS TAKE GAME ONE!!!!!!! #FlyTheW

The new NOIR CITY Annual book is done and off to the printer. Designed cover to cover by yours truly. Will be available to order in November.

happy first day of fall 🍂

Concentration camp survivor Hildegard Knef returns to a ruined post-war Berlin to find her apartment occupied by traumatized doctor Ernst Wilhelm Borchert who seeks revenge on his former superior. Between the rubble, THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US, #NoirAlley next! #TCMParty

This should be encouraged, not banned.

"By making a film that says there is no complicated legacy to Riefenstahl, Veiel’s uncomplicated … is strongly rendered into a direct, inarguable slashing of Riefenstahl’s importance,” writes @812filmreviews.com about RIENFENSTAHL.

“Art is the opposite of politics." So said Leni Riefenstahl. Seeing this latest, most lacerating documentary at any point in the last decade would feel harrowingly relevant. Seeing it this week, well ... (now playing at the Quad in NYC) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/m...