Among the lingering ghosts of the cinematheque, our less-than-apt “silent” retronym persists. Nearly everyone refers to early films as such now; no one called them that then. These were moving pictures. Photoplays. As the saying goes in the decades since, […]

The post SOUND FOR SILENTS; THE SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL 2025 appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

(Check out Chris Reed’s movie review of Nosferatu, in theaters Christmas Day. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.) For his fourth feature, Nosferatu, director Robert Eggers (The Northman) turns his cinematic attention once again to the supernatural, this […]

The post NOSFERATU appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

(An American Tragedy is a featured film in the Metrograph series It Happens to Us: Abortion in American Film which is playing through may 21 both at the Metrograph and online with 50% of all proceeds going to NARAL Pro-Choice America.) If you happen to find […]

The post Metrograph Presents: It Happens To Us: Abortion In American Film (AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY) appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

No, Ferne Pearlstein's latest film, The Last Laugh, is not a remake of F.W. Murnau's classic 1924 German masterpiece, but rather a documentary about the intersection of Jewish comedy and the Holocaust...

The post THE LAST LAUGH (2017) appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

(We here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week Brad Cook dives into […]

The post FAUST (Blu-ray Edition) appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

To some, it may seem strange that the daughter of the figurehead of American Independent Cinema would chose a horror genre as her first fiction feature and yet, in this current climate, where most indie films would make John puke with their utter cowardice and impersonal whiny pleas for market acceptance, this choice seems oddly apropos.

The post KISS OF THE DAMNED appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

The post A Conversation with Miguel Gomes (TABU) appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

Enter the Void is Gaspar Noé's boldest movie yet. He goes for maximum sensory overload in every moment of every scene, bombarding the viewer with lens-and-light effects, swirling CGI psychedelia, swamp-dense sound design, and above all, stunningly virtuosic camerawork.

The post ENTER THE VOID appeared first on Hammer to Nail.