His writing on film has appeared in print at Filmmaker and Documentary Magazine, and online at The A.V. Club, Paste, Screen Slate, In Review Online, and elsewhere. He writes a weekly column for Splice, mostly focusing on cinema and media. He has covered a number of film festivals in person, including NYFF, Sundance, Maryland Film Festival, and every edition of New/Next Film Festival. Most of the time, though, he works at a bar.
Lei is available for freelance commissions for film-related features, interviews, reviews, and capsules. He can be reached at lei dot alex96 at gmail
He is also the nonfic editor at BRUISER. For all inquiries or pitches there, please cc bruiser dot magazine at gmail
A Scanner Darkly is the near-future Philip K. Dick film that always feels set in the present - The A.V. Club [07/07/2026]
From Laughter to Tears, and Back Again: John Early and Maddie’s Secret - In Review Online [06/24/2026]
Tom Clancy is gone, and Jack Ryan is nothing but advertising - The A.V. Club [05/27/2026]
New American Voices - Michigan City Review of Film [05/18/2016]
SXSW has moved on, but mumblecore preserves its legacy - The A.V. Club [03/13/2026]
Robert Duvall's strength was finding the blood in stony men - The A.V. Club [02/19/2026]
“I BELIEVE IN RESUSCITATION”: Alex Lei reports from Rip Torn’s old living room on Adult Film’s latest piece of vital theater, Cimino’s Defeat - BRUISER [02/06/2026]
There's never been a better time to get in on the guy who makes the world's longest films - The A.V. Club [01/09/2025]
James Cameron tried to bring the Western into the future, but only went backwards - The A.V. Club [12/26/2025]
BETWEEN THE BEACH AND THE BARDO: Alex Lei talks with the trio behind REVERIES - BRUISER [12/19/2025]
Nouvelle Vague betrays Godard, yet finds something all its own - The A.V. Club [11/21/2025]
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere has no idea why Nebraska is a great album - The A.V. Club [10/29/2025]
THE HOUSE PROVIDES FOR NEW/NEXT’S OPENING NIGHT: Alex Lei on Albert Birney’s homegrown DIY sci-fi film OBEX - BRUISER [10/02/2025]
Paul Thomas Anderson rockets Thomas Pynchon into the present - The A.V. Club [10/02/2025]
Luc Moullet in New York - BRUISER [09/04/2025]
Come And See is a poster child for shock films, but its reputation misses what it's really about - The A.V. Club [07/09/2025]
F1 The Movie transforms the sport into just another piece of intellectual property - The A.V. Club [06/30/2025]
Open House: Callie Hernandez’s Berskhire Home and Temporary Film Studio - Filmmaker [06/18/2025]
David Cronenberg goes back to his sci-fi roots with The Shrouds - The A.V. Club [04/21/2025]
With Warfare, A24 brings arthouse style to the military-entertainment complex - The A.V. Club [04/15/2025]
Bad Day At Black Rock remains an essential anti-McCarthyite text - The A.V. Club [01/07/2025]
Move over, Sundance—Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight has become the proving ground for American indies - The A.V. Club [12/30/2024]
Bob Dylan continues to evade the film world's attempts to define him - The A.V. Club [12/27/2024]
Clint Eastwood and his movies have something to say, but nobody's listening - The A.V. Club [11/07/2024]
The Rain People — Francis Ford Coppola - In Review Online [09/30/2024]
A Mandated Psychosis: On Peter Watkins’ The Journey - In Review Online [08/12/2024]
Public Enemies at 15: Michael Mann’s End to the Wild West - Paste [07/01/2024]
Maria’s Lovers and Siberiade: Andrei Konchalovsky’s Cannes Evolution - Paste [05/14/2024]
Making a Production: Memory - Documentary Magazine [04/22/2024]
Young Bodies Heal Quickly at 10: Andrew T. Betzer and the Left-Behind Indies - Paste [04/19/2024]
Man with a Movie Camera Found the Mechanical Heartbeat of the Modern World - Paste [04/09/2024]
Making a Mann: Revisiting Michael Mann’s Feature Debut, The Jericho Mile - Paste [03/18/2024]
With Christ Stopped at Eboli, Francesco Rosi Gave Carlo Levi the Final Word - Paste [02/23/2024]
The False Start River of Grass Planted the Seeds of Kelly Reichardt’s Career - Paste [01/16/2024]
The Form of Ferrari - Paste [01/04/2024]
Night Moves at 10: Kelly Reichardt’s Pessimistic Ecoterrorism - Paste [10/17/2023]
“Festivals Should Reflect Their Community”: Eric Allen Hatch on New/Next Film Festival’s Inaugural Edition - Filmmaker [08/07/2023]
Oppenheimer Is Christopher Nolan’s First Personal Movie - Paste [07/26/2023]
Monkey Business: What Len Powers’ Forgotten Dippy Doo Dads Tell Us about Acting - Paste [06/26/2023]
Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt, and the Space to Create - Paste [05/04/2023]
In Ludwig, Luchino Visconti Saw His Dreamy Royal Reflection - Paste [03/15/2023]
Jimmy Stewart Tapped into the Nastiness of the Post-War Western with The Naked Spur - Paste [02/01/2023]
John Huston’s Last Masterpiece: The Dead, 35 Years Later - Paste [12/18/2022]
Jean Luc-Godard’s First Death: Letter to Jane and Tout Va Bien 50 Years Later - Paste [10/26/2022]
Star Wars, Russian Ark and Cinema’s Digital Revolution - Paste [08/29/2022]
Back Already? The Maryland Film Festival Settles Into Its New Spring Dates - Filmmaker [04/21/2026]
LAST CHANTS FOR SUNDANCE: Alex Lei reports on the festival’s final Park City edition - BRUISER [02/19/2026]
Maryland Film Festival 2025: Cinema Saturation in Baltimore - Filmmaker [11/20/2025]
New/Next Film Festival 2025: On Campus - Filmmaker [10/10/2025]
New York Film Festival Dispatch - BRUISER [10/11/2024]
DIY Baltimore: New/Next Film Festival 2024 - Filmmaker [10/11/2024]
Festival Report: The 2024 Maryland Film Festival - Filmmaker [05/15/2024]
New/Next Film Festival 2023: Baltimore’s Successful Return to the Arthouse - Paste [08/22/2023]
Don’t Talk About It, Do It: A Conversation with Rob Tregenza on Fast - In Review Online [08/12/2026]
That Was Us, and Now This is Us: A Conversation with Robb Moss on The Bend in the River - In Review Online [08/11/2026]
Take Care: Georgia Bernstein on Night Nurse - Filmmaker [07/10/26]
DISCURSIVE TRANSACTIONS AND SYNAPTIC CLASHES - Alex Lei talks filmmaking as investigation with Lynne Sachs in her new film Every Contact Leaves a Trace - BRUISER [06/11/2026]
Music and Film: A Conversation with Shunji Iwai - Screen Slate [06/03/2026]
Where Is Ours? - Želimir Žilnik discusses six decades of work from his early films to Eighty Plus, and their piercing, political critiques of Yugoslavia and modern-day Serbia - Documentary Magazine [05/27/2026]
“A Growing Sense of Freedom”: Sho Miyake on Two Seasons, Two Strangers - Filmmaker [05/11/2026]
A GIFT FROM THE MOVIE GODS - Alex Lei talks with Pete Ohs about his latest no-budget, “table of bubbles” movie, Erupcja - BRUISER [05/07/2026]
“This Rupture of Utopian Horizons”: Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe on Aro berria - Filmmaker [04/22/2026]
Environmental Horror - Abby Ellis talks about ringing the alarm on the “environmental nuclear bomb” in Utah with her Sundance doc The Lake - Documentary Magazine [01/27/2026]
“Withholding Information Makes You More Engaged”: Elena Oxman on “Outerlands” - Filmmaker [12/16/2025]
Inner Landscapes: Tenzin Phuntsog on “Next Life” - Filmmaker [11/25/2025]
Between the Production and Real Life: Paula González-Nasser on The Scout - In Review Online [10/23/2025]
“Collapsing the Past Into the Present”: Connor Sen Warnick on “Characters Disappearing” - Filmmaker [10/17/2025]
A Never-Ending Pile-On: Sabrina Greco on Lockjaw - In Review Online [10/17/2025]
“The Algorithm of It All”: Tucker Bennett and Chris Corrente on “In the Glow of Darkness” - Filmmaker [10/16/2025]
Outgrowing Your Parent’s Politics - Lee Anne Schmitt discusses how Evidence uses childhood objects and family memories to investigate the propagation of conservative ideology - Documentary Magazine [09/26/2025]
“He’s Kind of the Original Vlogger”: In ‘The Best of Me,’ Heather Landsman Traces Ricardo López’s Violent Obsession with Björk - Documentary Magazine [05/01/2025]
“The Cause of Fascism was the Capitalists”: Igor Bezinović on Fiume o morte! - Filmmaker [04/03/2025]
“I Grew Up Playing Nintendo”: Albert Birney on OBEX - Filmmaker [01/25/2025]
“Apple Changed the Whole Landscape of How You Market a Product”: Sebastian Pardo on Crafting Graphic Design for The Brutalist - Filmmaker [12/17/2024]
Create the Situation: No-Budget Filmmaker Nicky Otis Smith in conversation with Alex Lei - BRUISER [12/02/2024]
“A Nihilist Western”: Athina Rachel Tsangari on Harvest - Filmmaker [10/30/2024]
“Nostalgia for When Things were Terrible”: Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar and Jack Bensinger on Rap World - Filmmaker [10/24/2024]
The Spirit of Independent Filmmaking: An Interview with Jinho Myung - In Review Online [10/11/2024]
“North Dakota is Trump Country Today”: John Hanson and Rob Nilsson on the 4K Restoration of Northern Lights - Filmmaker [10/02/2024]
Utopia Is Temporary: Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau Discuss ‘Direct Action’ - Documentary Magazine [09/20/2024]
“Going Through Every Emotion Is Important”: Zia Anger Morphs Desktop Documentary Performance ‘My First Film’ Into Fiction - Documentary Magazine [06/19/2024]
A Funeral Home for At-Risk Youth - DIY Filmmaker and Festival Programmer Skizz Cyzyk in conversation with Alex Lei - BRUISER [06/06/2024]
“The Pitch Is a Performance”: Emily Mackenzie and Noah Collier on Carpet Cowboys - Filmmaker [08/25/2023]
“Cinema Can Be a Mode for Grieving”: Elaine McMillion Sheldon Discusses ‘King Coal’ - Documentary Magazine [08/16/2023]
When We Saw Each Other More Often - Screen Slate [08/30/2026]
There Once Was a Singing Blackbird - Screen Slate [08/16/2026]
The Last Run - Screen Slate [05/20/2026]
Alyonka - Screen Slate [04/11/2026]
The Secret Agent — Kleber Mendonça Filho [Review] - In Review Online [11/28/2025]
Fire of Wind — Marta Mateus [Review] - In Review Online [10/30/2025]
The Razor’s Edge — Jocelyne Saab [NYFF ’25 Review] - In Review Online [10/07/2025]
Movie star saga Jay Kelly is Noah Baumbach doing another take on a familiar scene - The A.V. Club [10/03/2025]
My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow - Screen Slate [08/16/2025]
Villagers reap what they sow in the compellingly metaphorical Harvest - The A.V. Club [07/31/2025]
The Asthenic Syndrom - Screen Slate [05/16/2025]
Throwback thriller Gazer is stuck looking backwards - The A.V. Club [03/31/2025]
The realistic present chips away at a romanticized past in Grand Tour - The A.V. Club [03/25/2025]
Nightshift - Screen Slate [03/14/2025]
No Other Land — Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor [Review] - In Review Online [02/03/2025]
Scénarios — Jean-Luc Godard [Review] - In Review Online [11/25/2024]
BRUISER DISPATCH: A Night of Experimental Film + Music + Animation - BRUISER [10/18/2024]
Underground Orange — Michael Taylor Jackson [New/Next ’24 Review] - In Review Online [10/08/2024]
Reagan's ugly hagiography is middle-of-the-night History Channel nonsense - The A.V. Club [08/30/2024]
Ambition and Repetition Stifle MaXXXine‘s Horror - Paste [07/03/2024]
Gran Turismo Isn’t Even a Good Sony Commercial - Paste [08/22/2023]
Primer: Where to start with Jia Zhangke, one of China's greatest living filmmakers - The A.V. Club [05/12/2025]
Beyond the canon: Soviet cinema - The A.V. Club [07/03/2024]
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Favorite Soviet Films - Paste [01/05/2023]
If You’re Not First, You’re Last: The 10 Best Racing Movies - Paste [12/20/2023]
The Legend of Mexman - Dekanalog/Vinegar Syndrome [2025]
Richard Gere is Trying to Kill Me - GONZOID [07/30/2026]
baltimore snow pile - Michigan City Review of Books [03/07/2026]
Electric Smoke Signals Light the Valleys at Night - Burial Magazine [01/02/2026]