The downtown rocker Patti Smith’s memoir of her early career and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe is a spellbinding, diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Memoirs by Stewart Copeland, the drummer from the Police, and Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band’s saxophonist.

What do the programs on Spike and Lifetime tell us about the sexes?

Claire Danes tackles one of her most demanding roles in “Temple Grandin,” an HBO film about the famous autistic author and animal sciences professor.

The end of the story of the mysterious island is near, although it hasn’t even been written yet.

Is independent film on the verge of being new again?

The Red Riding trilogy takes an epic look at a grim place and time.

The best foreign-language film category has come to suggest a peculiar gulf between Academy opinion and the tastes of critics and audiences alike.

The bleak drama “Winter’s Bone” and the war documentary “Restrepo” won grand jury prizes at Sundance.

In “Ajami,” an Arab and a Jew drew a group portrait of an Israeli community.