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Robert Duvall Triumphed as Both Actor and Director with ‘The Apostle’
Robert Duvall, one of the greatest actors of his generation, died on February 15, 2026, at the age of 95. What many people don’t know is that he was also a formidable and adventurous film director. I had the good fortune to interview Duvall in 1997 to discuss one of his acting and directing triumphs, The Apostle. As…
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Jewish Film Festival Salutes Charles Grodin, Rebel with a Cause
Each fall’s New York Film Festival is always a big highlight of the year, but Film at Lincoln Center’s other annual events are also a welcome opportunity to experience new international films. Coming up later this year are “New Directors/New Films,” “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema” and “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.” And every January brings…
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A Spy and a Secret Agent Lead My 2025 Ten Best List
In 2023, I went against the grain and named a film from 1961, Dino Risi’s Una Vita Difficile, which had never before been released in America, as the best picture of the year. Well, my contrarian impulse has surfaced again. This year I’m placing a film from 2019, Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy, at the…
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More Highlights of the 63rd New York Film Festival
The 63rd New York Film Festival concludes on Monday, October 13, 2025. I managed to see 31 features—some were disappointing, a few I actively hated, but the majority were well worth the trip from Brooklyn to Lincoln Center. Here are four favorites. The most delightful (yet very naughty) surprise was Pillion, just your average comedy-romance about…
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Movies on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Screenings at the New York Film Festival have provided a welcome escape from each day’s appalling headlines. And counterintuitively, some of the best escapes have been films focusing on characters riddled with anxiety. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but it’s been gratifying to enter the lives of protagonists you’d never trade places with.…
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New York Film Festival Spotlights Artists and Performers
By my count, the 2025 edition of the New York Film Festival offers no less than 15 features about artists or performers, including documentaries about Martin Scorsese and the comedy team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. That emphasis on the arts will no doubt have strong appeal for the Lincoln Center demographic. The most…
Kevin Lally on Film
Interviews and more from the former executive editor of Film Journal International and Boxoffice Pro
- Film Appreciation
- Filmmakers
- Altman, Robert
- Baker, Sean
- Bass, Saul
- Benton, Robert
- Bigelow, Kathryn
- Coen, Joel and Ethan
- Costa-Gavras, Constantin
- Davies, Terence
- de Angelis, Edoardo
- Docter, Pete
- Duvall, Robert
- Eastwood, Clint
- Foley, James
- Freeman, Morgan
- Gondry, Michel
- Gordon, Emily V.
- Henson, Jim
- Ivory, James
- Jewison, Norman
- Johnson, Rian
- Jones, Chuck
- Kelly, Gene
- Lee, Spike
- Lemmon, Jack
- Lester, Richard
- Lord, Peter
- Lumet, Sidney
- Lynch, David
- Maddin, Guy
- Malle, Louis
- Martin, Steve
- Nair, Mira
- Nanjiani, Kumail
- Oz, Frank
- Park, Nick
- Polanski, Roman
- Ponti, Edoardo
- Reiner, Carl
- Resnais, Alain
- Russell, Ken
- Schoonmaker, Thelma
- Schrader, Paul
- Showalter, Michael
- Shyamalan, M. Night
- Ullmann, Liv
- Van Sant, Gus
- Wajda, Andrzej
- Waters, John
- Wilder, Billy
- Woo, John
- Uncategorized
Kevin Lally on Film 