David Lehman

David Lehman, a contributing editor of the Scholar, is a poet, critic, and the general editor of The Best American Poetry annual anthology and author of the book One Hundred Autobiographies. He currently writes our Talking Pictures column.

Rogues’ Gallery

Cinema’s greatest villains

By David Lehman | Saturday November 28, 2020

Gangsters in Love

Revisiting Sergio Leone’s 1984 classic, Once Upon a Time in America

By David Lehman | Saturday October 17, 2020

Coward, Take My Coward’s Hand

Looking back at Mark Robson’s Home of the Brave

By David Lehman | Thursday August 13, 2020

An Exchange of Bullets in Belfast

Revisiting Carol Reed’s 1947 masterpiece Odd Man Out

By David Lehman | Thursday July 9, 2020

Strangers and Mirrors

Orson Welles’s The Stranger (1946) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

By David Lehman | Tuesday May 26, 2020
Black-and-white photo of the "Running Wild" scene from Some Like it Hot. Cast members, including Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe, play various instruments in the photo.

Great Movie Music

Fifteen examples that avoid the usual suspects

By David Lehman | Tuesday April 28, 2020

Epitaph for a Genre

Crime Doesn’t Pay in The Killing

By David Lehman | Wednesday April 1, 2020
Still from The Time of Our Lives

Souvenirs of War

Remembering The Best Years of Our Lives

By David Lehman | Thursday March 5, 2020
Gregory Peck in "Gentleman's Agreement"

A Matter of Pride

The enduring legacy of Gentleman’s Agreement

By David Lehman | Monday February 10, 2020
Don Taylor and William Holden in Stalag 17

William Holden, Model Prisoner

How the actor defined the ideal, postwar man

By David Lehman | Tuesday January 14, 2020

Homage to the Uncanny

By David Lehman | Thursday February 29, 2024

How Well Do You Know Your Hitchcock?

By David Lehman | Friday January 19, 2024

“Mr. Lucky” Didn’t Know Who He Was

By David Lehman | Thursday September 28, 2023

Brilliant Carnage

By David Lehman | Thursday February 23, 2023

What Hath Gable Got?

By David Lehman | Monday November 28, 2022

The Allure of the Enigmatic

By David Lehman | Thursday August 25, 2022

Famous Last Lines

By David Lehman | Thursday July 21, 2022

The Last Cigarette

By David Lehman | Saturday May 14, 2022

The Plot to Kill de Gaulle

By David Lehman | Saturday March 5, 2022

The Prophecy of an Assassination

By David Lehman | Saturday January 22, 2022

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