John Petrakis

Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel The Reader is a tricky book to adapt to film....

The story of the proud and vital man who has lost his power and nobility is a recurrent theme, especially at the movies....

It is commonly assumed, and regularly taught, that the key difference between playwriting and screenwriting is that the former tells the bulk of its story with words (it is dialogue-driven), while ...

Martin Ritt’s 1972 adaptation of the beloved children’s novel by William H. Armstrong is one of the most powerful family films ever made....

Screenwriters love structure: it gives them something to focus on as they plow ahead in their storytelling or to retreat to if they get off track....

I’ve covered the Sundance Film Festival many times and can say with reasonable authority that the movie lovers who brave Utah winters to see world premieres are some of the easiest audiences I’ve e...

On August 7, 1974, around 7:15 A.M., just as New York City was waking up and trudging off to work, a 24-year-old Frenchman was taking a walk on a metal cable that was strung between the twin towers...

The name Roman Polanski conjures up different responses....

Claude Lelouch’s 1966 film A Man and a Woman remains the North Star of romantic French movies....

I took my 11-year-old son to see Son of Rambow as a form of retreat from the current armada of blockbusters....

David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels begins with the discordant sounds of a small-town high school band practicing on a football field under gray skies....

When he was in his early 40s, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of a French fashion magazine, suffered a massive stroke which left him completely paralyzed except for the movement of one eye....

Part of what makes Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days so fascinating is its rambling, almost improvisational style....

There are few tasks more daunting for a filmmaker than straddling the line between comedy and tragedy....

I often tell screenwriting students not to avoid the difficult scene....

Great stories touch on many themes and give us a long list of things that they could be said to be “about.” As I tell my students, if you think Moby-Dick is just about whale- hunting,...

This 1982 drama directed by Alan Parker is one of the great films of its decade—complex, adult, irresolvable, with a screenplay by Bo Goldman that poeticizes its c...

Though atmosphere-heavy and plot-light, and obviously pushing Brad Pitt for a “he’s doing serious art here” Academy Award, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford turns ou...

The Valley of Elah is the legendary spot between two mountains where, according to 1 Samuel, young David slew the mighty Philistine warrior Goliath....

“I’m not a fan of heist movies, where the mechanics of the heist are lovingly detailed....