Dana Stevens
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thehighsign.bsky.social
Dana Stevens
@thehighsign.bsky.social
Film critic at Slate; co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast; repped by the Cheney Agency; member NYFCC. Camera Man, my book on Buster Keaton, is out: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Camera-Man/Dana-Stevens/9781501134203
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My Top 10 list for 2025 has everything: melancholy songwriters, banjo-strumming vampires, dirtbag birdwatchers, sad Norwegian sisters, incognito Brazilian scientists, brave Russian journalists, and the soul-soothing wisdom of Benicio del Toro's Sensei. slate.com/culture/2025...
The 10 Best Movies of 2025
Including thrillers, comedies, a biopic, and a documentary that’s streaming for free on YouTube.
slate.com
Reposted by Dana Stevens
I think it's kind of beautiful that this was Rob Reiner's final line on television
December 15, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
No. Too on the nose.
WATCH: Replica of the Statue of Liberty topples due to strong winds in Guaíba, Brazil
December 15, 2025 at 10:27 PM
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One of the things I love best about Reiner is he always presented romantic love as something that required effort. Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride. Love takes time, love takes care, love doesn’t solve all your problems but it can make your problems bearable.
December 15, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Here's a quick suggestion: why don't you shut your flapping face-hole and go do the thing everyone is longing for you to do. The thing the entire world will not mourn but celebrate.
December 15, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Rob Reiner & River Phoenix | Stand By Me | 1986 | 🖤
December 15, 2025 at 6:21 AM
A Few Good Men. Best in Show. A Mighty Wind. Miss Congeniality. Barcelona. All three movies in Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Music & Lyrics. Michael Clayton. All films that were able to be made because of the production company Reiner co-founded in order to give talented filmmakers creative freedom.
without Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock production company we wouldn’t have:

City Slickers, Honeymoon in Vegas, In the Line of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise, Dolores Claiborne, Lone Star, Waiting for Guffman, and more - in a six-year period alone
December 15, 2025 at 6:31 AM
He lands this whole moment & the punchline so hard.
One of my all-time favorite clips of Rob Reiner, from his Friars Club Roast in 2000, as he reads aloud Roger Ebert's infamous scathing review of his movie North. The man had an amazing sense of humor about himself. RIP.
December 15, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation 💔
December 15, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Just last night my daughter was making a list of classic movies she'd never seen & asking me to contribute to the list so we could watch them together over holiday break, & I added Spinal Tap. I rewatched it recently to review the sequel that came out in September. It remains a perfect film comedy.
December 15, 2025 at 4:15 AM
My child was six, the same age as the Sandy Hook first-graders, so she was at school when the news broke. Both her dad and I were home and I remember telling him and then falling apart sobbing in his arms. And yep, I idiotically believed it would be the wakeup call for gun laws to finally change.
do you remember 13 years ago today? remember thinking surely this would be the last straw, that something would change? i remember weeping at my desk thinking about the wrapped presents waiting under so many christmas trees for six year olds who would never come home.
December 15, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Everything about the shooting at Brown is horrific & should make America ashamed of the slaughterhouse we’ve become. But I’m especially holding in my heart the parents who were eagerly planning for their kids to get home for break. Getting them holiday gifts. Planning to cook their favorite meals.
December 14, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
December 13, 2025 at 9:10 PM
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"Anything you're devious enough to dream up, I might be devious enough to do." —Dick Van Dyke in the title role of the charming, Christmas-set FITZWILLY (1967). I hope he's having a 100th birthday that's as joyous as all my years of watching him.
December 13, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
My Top 10 list for 2025 has everything: melancholy songwriters, banjo-strumming vampires, dirtbag birdwatchers, sad Norwegian sisters, incognito Brazilian scientists, brave Russian journalists, and the soul-soothing wisdom of Benicio del Toro's Sensei. slate.com/culture/2025...
The 10 Best Movies of 2025
Including thrillers, comedies, a biopic, and a documentary that’s streaming for free on YouTube.
slate.com
December 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
The Lord's slayer: on the greatness of Josh O'Connor and John Dickson Carr, Benoit Blanc and Dr. Fell, and the many delights of Rian Johnson's mass-murder mystery, WAKE UP DEAD MAN. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Wake Up Dead Man”: A Murder Mystery with God in the Details
In Rian Johnson’s latest whodunnit, Josh O’Connor plays a Catholic priest trying to restore moral order at a church befouled by murder.
www.newyorker.com
December 12, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Looking for a freelance researcher based in Boston for a brief gig in January or February. Please email [email protected] with your relevant experience, availability, and rate.
December 11, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Counterpoint: Get your black-gloved hand away from my overpriced Trump-tariff full-caffeine coffee and get lost.
Cafes across the U.S. are embracing the low- and no-caffeine lifestyle, with options that are a far cry from dusty tea bags and rewarmed decaf. nyti.ms/3XKlqoj
December 10, 2025 at 10:34 PM
My Top 10 list for 2025 has everything: melancholy songwriters, banjo-strumming vampires, dirtbag birdwatchers, sad Norwegian sisters, incognito Brazilian scientists, brave Russian journalists, and the soul-soothing wisdom of Benicio del Toro's Sensei. slate.com/culture/2025...
The 10 Best Movies of 2025
Including thrillers, comedies, a biopic, and a documentary that’s streaming for free on YouTube.
slate.com
December 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Day 8 of my 2025 Favorites: You Can Handle The Floof

Rosy maple moths emerge fairly regularly in my yard, and occasionally I'm lucky enough to find a fresh one who wants a nice spot to rest and let their wings dry. Like my hand. Look at him 🩷
December 9, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
this is more or less why we still have basic cable, if tcm doesn't cough up the a+ goods twister is almost definitely on somewhere
I honestly don't want to make dinner to Netflix sludge, I want to make dinner to some middling 90s movie where if I look up I'll see great production design or Joan Cusack give a line reading they should teach in schools.
December 9, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Excellent film history thread from @moviessilently.bsky.social, as usual
The ”Women fight for Conrad Veidt” slogan was very real and used to market the formerly German, newly-minted British film star, recently released after being detained by the Nazis
December 9, 2025 at 4:54 PM
If you all will allow me a three-years-post-publication book boast, my beloved acquiring editor @rakeshsatyal.bsky.social just spotted this on Instagram. Anne Hathaway is reading & recommending Camera Man? 👠
@thehighsign.bsky.social hope lots of people have sent this to you already but just in case
December 8, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Daniel Plainly-correct-view
Daniel Day Lewis came out of Instagram retirement to show support for Paul Dano. King shit.
December 8, 2025 at 7:42 PM
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Morning walk with Nutmeg
December 7, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Dana Stevens
a new jersey-based christmas tree delivery service called Spruce Bringsteen
November 11, 2025 at 3:22 AM