Film

Kenneth Lonergan's critically acclaimed film Margaret stars Anna Paquin as Lisa, a Manhattan teenager who tries to make sense of a bus accident she may have caused -- on that resulted in a woman's death.

Bach's oratorio The St. Matthew Passion has been called the Mount Everest of Western classical music. For some three and a half hours, it tells the story of Jesus' last days, based on the Gospel of St. Matthew. A new DVD deals with this monumental work in an original way.

Oliver Stone's new film Savages is a violent thriller starring Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson as pot growers caught up in a Mexican drug war. Critic David Edelstein says the movie is deeper and more complicated than Stone's famously bloody Natural Born Killers.

Beasts of the Southern Wild came out of nowhere to win the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The fable-like film, starring 6-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, takes place after a storm ravages Louisiana. (Recommended)

Nora Ephron, the essayist, novelist, screenwriter and film director, died Tuesday night in Manhattan. She was 71, and suffered from leukemia. Fresh Air remembers the creator of Silkwood and When Harry Met Sally with excerpts from a 2006 interview from WHYY's Radio Times.

The star of 30 Rock has two films out this summer. He plays a club owner in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages. And he travels to Italy with an ensemble cast for Woody Allen's To Rome with Love.

The movie Brave is Pixar's first feature with a female protagonist — a medieval Scottish princess named Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) who asserts her independence and wreaks havoc. Critic David Edelstein says the film is "pure Pixar in its mischievousness and irreverence."

Andrew Sarris, who popularized the auteur theory and was called the "dean of American film critics," died on Wednesday. He was 83. Fresh Air remembers the longtime film critic for The Village Voice with excerpts from a 1990 interview.

This interview was originally broadcast on August 8, 1990.

Henry Hill, the mobster-turned-informant portrayed by Ray Liotta in the film Goodfellas, died Tuesday at age 69. Author Nicholas Pileggi talks about the colorful figure he profiled in the 1986 book Wiseguy, which became the basis for Goodfellas.

Indie director Lynn Shelton's latest film stars Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt as half-sisters Iris and Hannah, and Mark Duplass as Iris' best friend, Jack. The three connect — and then reconnect — on a remote island off the coast of Washington state.