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 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

The First Lady of Noir

Celebrated actress Ida Lupino directed The Bigamist and other taboo-busting films

By David Lehman | Saturday May 22, 2021

Blind Accidents

How John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle brilliantly epitomizes the caper film

By David Lehman | Saturday April 17, 2021

Blonde Venus

The mystique of Marlene Dietrich

By David Lehman | Saturday March 6, 2021

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

A Leap Without a Safety Net

By David Lehman | Monday November 10, 2025

Let’s Write a Villanelle

By David Lehman | Monday October 6, 2025

The Stolen Lines

By David Lehman | Monday September 1, 2025

● NEWSLETTER

Please enter a valid email address
That address is already in use
The security code entered was incorrect
Thanks for signing up