About Thomas M. Puhr

Thomas M. Puhr is an instructor at Dominican University in Illinois and an editor of the film magazine The Big Picture.

Books

Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema (Wallflower Press, 2022)  

Read an excerpt from Fate in Film here, courtesy of Horror Homeroom

World Film Locations: Los Angeles, Volume 2 (Contributor) (Intellect Books, 2024)

Book Reviews

'Alien in the Mirror: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Glazer and "Under the Skin"' (Foster)

'Ambiguity and Film Criticism: Reasonable Doubt' (Law)

'American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper' (Woofter & Dodson)

'Apocalypse TV: Essays on Society and Self at the End of the World' (Cornelius & Ginn)

'The Berlin School and Its Global Contexts: A Transnational Art Cinema' (Abel & Fisher)

'Blumhouse Productions: The New House of Horror' (Platts, et al.)

'The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film' (Glasby)

'Britpop Cinema: From "Trainspotting" to "This is England"' (Glasby)

'Chantal Akerman Retrospective Handbook' (Hogg & Roberts)

'Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century World' (Barraza & Fischer)

'Cinemagritte: René Magritte within the Frame of Film History, Theory, and Practice' (Fischer)

'Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame' (Grant & Henderson)

'The Construction of Testimony: Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah" and Its Outtakes' (McGlothlin, et al.)

'Contemporary Film Directors: Lucrecia Martel' (Gemünden)

'Eye of the Taika: New Zealand Comedy and the Films of Taika Waititi (Bannister)

'Filmed Thought: Cinema as Reflective Form' (Pippin)

'The Films of Albert Brooks' (Long)

'The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky' (Toymentsev)

'Happiness by Design: Modernism and Media in the Eames Era' (Nieland)

'Hayao Miyazaki' (Niebel et al.)

'Journeys on Screen: Theory, Ethics, Aesthetics' (Bayman & Pinazza)
'Lessons in Perception: The Avant-Garde Filmmaker as Practical Psychologist' (Taberham)

'Louis Malle: Interviews' (Beach)

'New Approaches to Contemporary Adaptation' (Kaklamanidou)

'Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution' (Yaqub)

'Postcinematic Vision: The Coevolution of Moving-Image Media and the Spectator' (Cook)

'The Psychology of Moviegoing: Choosing, Viewing and Being Influenced by Films' (Trice & Greer)

'Roman Polanski: Behind the Scenes of His Classic Early Films' (Young)

'Stuart Gordon: Interviews' (Doyle)

'This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" in Stalin's Russia' (Neuberger)

'Watching the World Die: Nuclear Threat Films of the 1980s' (Bogue)

Fiction:

The Open End
"Amanda on a Bike" / "Dunk" / "Mr. Jenkins' Theory of Balance"

Film Criticism:

The Big Picture

i. Collaborative Work: Best of 2017 / Best of 2018 / Best of 2010s (Pt. 1) / Best of 2010s (Pt. 2) / Comfort Movies  / Best of 2020 ii. Collected Film Criticism

Bright Lights Film Journal
'Ex Machina' (Dir. Alex Garland, 2015)
'Hereditary' (Dir. Ari Aster, 2018)

'The Innocents' (Dir. Jack Clayton, 1961)
'The Thing' (Dir. John Carpenter, 1982) and 'The Hateful Eight' (Dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

'Under the Skin' (Dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

'Zodiac' (Dir. David Fincher, 2007)

Classiq
'Blade Runner' (Dir. Ridley Scott, 1982)

Columbia University Press Blog

'Nope' (Dir. Jordan Peele, 2022)

Film International

'Drive-Away Dolls' (Dir. Ethan Coen, 2024)

'Lisa Frankenstein' (Dir. Zelda Williams, 2024)

'The Becomers' (Dir. Zach Clark, 2023)

'Cottontail' (Dir. Patrick Dickinson, 2023)

'Don't Look Away' (Dir. Micheal Bafaro, 2023)

'Fear the Night' (Dir. Neil LaBute, 2023)

'Hidden Within' (Dir. Daniel Lasker, 2023)

'In the Shadow of Beirut' (Dirs. Stephen Gerard Kelly & Garry Keane, 2023)

'Killers of the Flower Moon' (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2023)

'The Last Stop in Yuma County' (Dir. Francis Galluppi, 2023)

'The Other Laurens' (Dir. Claude Schmitz, 2023)

'Pratfall' (Dir. Alex Andre, 2023)

'Priscilla' (Dir. Sofia Coppola, 2023)

'The Sacrifice Game' (Dir. Jenn Wexler, 2023)

'Sympathy for the Devil' (Dir. Yuval Adler, 2023)

'There's Something Wrong with the Children' (Dir. Roxanne Benjamin, 2023)

'5-25-77' (Dir. Patrick Read Johnson, 2022)

'Aberrance' (Dir. Baatar Batsukh, 2022)

'Aftersun' (Dir. Charlotte Wells, 2022)

'The Artifice Girl' (Dir. Franklin Ritch, 2022)

'Beautiful Beings' (Dir. Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, 2022)

'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman' (Dir. Pierre Földes, 2022)

'Huesera: The Bone Woman' (Dir. Michelle Garza Cervera, 2022)

'Klondike' (Dir. Maryna Er Gorbach, 2022)

'The Long Night' (Dir. Rich Ragsdale, 2022)

'The People's Joker' (Dir. Vera Drew, 2022)

'Revealer' (Dir. Luke Boyce, 2022)

'Sissy' (Dirs. Hannah Barlow & Kane Senes, 2022)

'Speak No Evil' (Dir. Christian Tafdrup, 2022)

'Talk to Me' (Dirs. Danny & Michael Philippou, 2022)

'Violent Night' (Dir. Tommy Wirkola, 2022)

'Yelling Fire in an Empty Theater' (Dir. Justin Zuckerman, 2022)

'Alice, Through the Looking' (Dir. Adam Donen, 2021)

'Demonic' (Dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2021)

'Giving Birth to a Butterfly' (Dir. Theodore Schaefer, 2021)

'Kid Candidate' (Dir. Jasmine Stodel, 2021)

'The Scary of Sixty-First' (Dir. Dasha Nekrasova, 2021)

'Son' (Dir. Ivan Kavanagh, 2021)

'What Josiah Saw' (Dir. Vincent Grashaw, 2021)

'Witch Hunt' (Dir. Elle Callahan, 2021)

'Wrath of Man' (Dir. Guy Ritchie, 2021)

'The Andorra Hustle' (Dir. Eric Merola, 2020)

'The Bloodhound' (Dir. Patrick Picard, 2020)

'Centigrade' (Dir. Brendan Walsh, 2020)

'Death of Me' (Dir. Darren Lynn Bousman, 2020)

'Inheritance' (Dir. Vaughn Stein, 2020)

'Kandisha' (Dirs. Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, 2020)

'Spree' (Dir. Eugene Kotlyarenko, 2020)

'A Thousand Cuts' (Dir. Ramona S. Diaz, 2020)

'Villain' (Dir. Philip Barantini, 2020)
'Beanpole' (Dir. Kantemir Balagov, 2019)

'Little Joe' (Dir. Jessica Hausner, 2019)

'Mr. Jones' (Dir. Agnieszka Holland, 2019)

'Queen of Black Magic' (Dir. Kimo Stamboel, 2019)

'Savage State' (Dir. David Perrault, 2019)

'Videophobia' (Dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2019)

'Vivarium' (Dir. Lorcan Finnegan, 2019)

'Desolation Center' (Dir. Stuart Swezey, 2018)

'Dogman' (Dir. Matteo Garrone, 2018)

'Donnybrook' (Dir. Tim Sutton, 2018)

'The Fall of the American Empire' (Dir. Denys Arcand, 2018)

'Lake Michigan Monster' (Dir. Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, 2018)

'Ode to Nothing' (Dir. Dwein Ruedas Baltazar, 2018)

'The Prey' (Dir. Jimmy Henderson, 2018)

'The Ancient Forest' (Dir. Mindaugas Survila, 2017)

'First Reformed' (Dir. Paul Schrader, 2017)

'Tremble All You Want' (Dir. Akiko Ohku, 2017)
'Under the Tree' (Dir. Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, 2017)

'You Were Never Really Here' (Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2017)
'The Great Game' (Dir. Nicolas Pariser, 2015)

'My Heart Is That Eternal Rose' (Dir. Patrick Tam, 1989)

'Tales from the Gimli Hospital' (Dir. Guy Maddin, 1988)

'Robinson's Garden' (Dir. Masashi Yamamoto, 1987)

'Cain and Abel' (Dir. Lino Brocka, 1982)

'The French' (Dir. William Klein, 1982)

'Trances' (Dir. Ahmed El Maanouni, 1981)

'Arrebato' (Dir. Iván Zulueta, 1979)

'West Indies' (Dir. Med Hondo, 1979)

'Deathdream' (Dir. Bob Clark, 1974)

'One-Armed Boxer' (Dir. Jimmy Wang Yu, 1972)

'The Unknown Man of Shandigor' (Dir. Jean-Louis Roy, 1967)

Los Angeles Review of Books

'Enys Men' (Dir. Mark Jenkin, 2022)

The Open End

'Boyhood' (Dir. Richard Linklater, 2014)

Printed Work:

Beneficial Shock!

Issue Two: Mind
Issue Three: Sex
Issue Four: War & Peace

Issue Five: Secrets & Lies

Issue Six: Courage & Strength

Issue Seven: Together/Apart

Issue Eight: Awe & Wonder

Issue Nine: Fun and Games

Film International
15.2, 17.1, 19.2, 20.1-2

Festival Coverage:

2022 Boston Underground Film Festival

2024 Slamdance Film Festival

Podcasts:

Writers on Film with John Bleasdale