David Lehman

David Lehman, a contributing editor of the Scholar, is a poet, a critic, and an editor. Ithaca, his new book of poems, won The New Criterion Poetry Prize for 2025. He runs the “Next Line, Please” poetry feature on our website.

The Allure of the Enigmatic

“Mod” London takes center stage in Michelangelo Antonioni’s mind-blowing Blow-Up

By David Lehman | Thursday August 25, 2022

Famous Last Lines

How many do you know by heart?

By David Lehman | Thursday July 21, 2022

The Last Cigarette

Cinema’s most seductive prop

By David Lehman | Saturday May 14, 2022

The Plot to Kill de Gaulle

Fred Zinnemann’s “clock management” in The Day of the Jackal

By David Lehman | Saturday March 5, 2022

The Prophecy of an Assassination

John Frankenheimer’s prescient 1962 film, The Manchurian Candidate

By David Lehman | Saturday January 22, 2022

Christmas Movies Beyond the Expected

Six films to shake up your holiday viewing

By David Lehman | Saturday December 18, 2021

The Highest Achievement of American Film Noir

Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson at their best in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity

By David Lehman | Saturday November 6, 2021

To Dance an Exclamation Point

The case for An American in Paris as Gene Kelly’s best

By David Lehman | Saturday September 25, 2021

For Every Season, a Classic Holiday Movie

Three films fit for fall

By David Lehman | Saturday August 28, 2021

Fedora, Trench Coat, Cigarette, and Gun

Humphrey Bogart’s legacy as an unconventional heartthrob

By David Lehman | Saturday July 17, 2021

“In Regard to Your Submission”

By David Lehman | Monday August 31, 2026

Twentieth-Century Quiz Show

By David Lehman | Thursday May 21, 2026

A Photographer in Words

By David Lehman | Tuesday March 17, 2026

Why Lee Wiley? 

By David Lehman | Monday March 2, 2026

Resolutions or Regrets

By David Lehman | Monday February 9, 2026

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