Review

A glitz and glam song competition turns political.

A slate of new releases reexamine gender in conflict.

Jia Zhangke’s "Ash Is Purest White," socially critical yet officially sanctioned, strikes a middle path for Chinese cinema.

La perturbadora elegancia del blanco y negro

Alfonso Cuarón’s masterpiece may be Oscar worthy, but it fails to address the problems of Latin American households.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has tried to keep the Islamist group in check, but the situation in Gaza is as unstable as ever.

In Capernaum, Nadine Labaki finds a new way for film to deal with poverty.

A new video game captures the anxiety of Chinese parenting.

1,200 newly translated poems from Bertolt Brecht offer an unexpected survival guide for difficult times.

Will the return of the European far-right be the undoing of the West?

A new diplomatic history argues that the United States, Egypt, and Israel prevented a Palestinian state from emerging. But leaders such as Yasser Arafat bear much of the blame.

A review of Prudence Bushnell’s new book on the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings.