In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves arranged what we now know was one of the great parties of the 20th century: He commandeered the Harlem apartment of Duke Ellington and arranged for a special group of old friends and colleagues, many of whom had not seen one another in 50 years, to reconnect. The invitees were key figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including muralist Aaron Douglas, poet and novelist Arna Bontemps, society editor Gerri Major, jazz pianist and composer Eubie Blake, and many more. Greaves’ aim was to film the event—he appointed his son, David, as one of the cinematographers—and turn it into a documentary that would serve not just as a record of how these people lived and what they accomplished, but as a way of thinking about how we honor those who are a repository for our past. For a few hours in 1972 Harlem, it was circa 1925 again. This group of people laughing, arguing, and reminiscing about a great era of American history—and also about members of their cohort who were long gone—recaptured lightning in a bottle. And yet the resulting film, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, is one we almost didn’t see.

Greaves, who’d made a name for himself with experimental documentaries like Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968), as well as establishing the pioneering public television program Black Journal, considered his Harlem Renaissance film to be one of the most important projects of his life. But although he worked on it off and on for years, he wasn’t able to complete it before his death, in 2014. At last, the film he envisioned has been brought to life by David Greaves and his daughter—William’s granddaughter—producer Liani Greaves. Once Upon a Time in Harlem is one of the great documentaries of its era, and certainly of this year. It’s history that breathes.

Ellington's elegantly appointed flat fills up quickly; for the viewer, it’s like dropping into a party right in the middle, as clusters of beautifully dressed people greet one another, embracing, laughing, talking. (Ellington himself was ill and unable to attend.) The guests make themselves at home: Photographer James Van Der Zee, who took extraordinary portraits of the major “show people” of the 1920s, as well as everyday citizens of Harlem, steps up to Ellington’s piano and runs through a few graceful, rippling phrases. We learn that he was trained as a classical musician before turning to photography, just one reminder of the ways people in the arts often need to find a means to support themselves—and sometimes those means can leave us with a lasting record of an era, as we can see from Van Der Zee’s gorgeous, expressive portraits, which flash on the screen like a blessing. Painter and activist Richard Price Nugent, when asked what it was like to be a part of the Renaissance, can’t really say. “While you’re living it, it is the now,” he reflects. Actor Leigh Whipper, the first Black man to join Actors Equity and one of the oldest in the group, and publisher and bookseller Richard B. Moore, recite long poems and passages from the era by memory. Moore calls up Claude McKay’s brilliant, lacerating poem “If We Must Die” as if he’d just learned it yesterday, but you know he’s been living with it for years.

Conversations swell through the room in waves, often prompted by Greaves himself, who was not just a filmmaker but also a poet and sculptor, a man who acted and danced. (The film has been brilliantly edited by Anne DeMare and Lynn True.) Ida Mae Cullen, the peppery widow of poet Countee Cullen, pipes up to remind the group, vigorously, that the Harlem Renaissance really lasted for just one decade, the 1920s, though its ripples began years before and resonated for decades after. For this group, politics and art are so entwined as to be indistinguishable. At one point, a vigorous yet civil cross-talking argument breaks out over the principles and philosophy of Back-to-Africa activist Marcus Garvey: there’s mutual respect in this room, but no such thing as consensus. Among other things, Once Upon a Time in Harlem might make you yearn for an era when people, including intellectuals, really knew how to dress: society editor Major, resplendent in a bold, patterned dress, sports about 10 glittery bracelets on each wrist and pulls it off with aplomb.

What’s striking about Once Upon a Time in Harlem is the seemingly casual quality most of these captured conversations. But casual isn’t the same as insignificant. Regina Andrews, a regal woman decked out in a white lace dress and vivid turquoise earrings and necklace, speaks of the job she started as a young woman, as a librarian at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. Shortly after she was hired, her superiors explained that certain poets and authors would often come to the library to work; they had special rooms reserved for them. She and her roommate became friendly with many of these luminaries, among them Cullen and Langston Hughes, and would often host little get-togethers in their apartment. The problem? They didn’t have enough dishes to go around. And so one New Year’s Day, when Andrews and her friends set out on a tour of the area’s Chinese restaurants, the men—unbeknownst to her—collected a few plates here and a few cups there. Suddenly, Andrews had enough dishes and cutlery for everybody, pieces she treasured for years.

Maybe that sounds like a minor thing, having enough dishes to entertain your friend group of poets and writers. But as Andrews tells that story, it feels anything but small. “It was just the joy of living and creating together,” she explains—as good a summation as any of what it must have been like to be alive in such a glorious time, a “now” that, thanks to Greaves and his family, becomes a part of our lives too.

When news got around that a new movie version of Sense and Sensibility was in the works, cries of dismay rang forth from Bath to Brooklyn. How could anyone dare try to top Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation, penned by—and starring, alongside Kate Winslet— Emma Thompson? But the idea that fine adaptations of great books need to be stopping points, rather than springboards, is alarming by itself. Why is a new adaptation of any Jane Austen novel such a bad thing? There are always new movie audiences, eager for their own fresh take. And just as important, why shouldn’t another generation of actors have a crack at these roles? Our ability to stream anything we want, whenever we want, hasn’t necessarily made us more adventurous; sometimes it’s just a way of clinging to familiar favorites at the expense of welcoming anything new. Austen herself, with her aversion to sentimentality, would have disapproved.

Then what would she make of Georgia Oakley’s amiable, if occasionally a little sluggish, reading of her debut novel, published anonymously in 1811? It’s hard to say for sure, but there’s nothing that’s offensive about this new Sense and Sensibility, and plenty that’s lovely. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles play Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, sisters in a close-knit family whose temperamental differences temporarily drive them apart. As the film opens, Elinor and Marianne, along with their mother (Caitríona Balfe) and younger sister Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), are just learning that they’ll soon have to vacate the airy, comfortable house they’ve called home for years. The girls’ father has just died; his property will not go to his daughters, but to his son from a previous marriage, John (Tom Brooke), who nevertheless hopes to do right by making sure his father's second family well provided for. But his disagreeable wife Fanny (Stacy Martin), feels differently, and to maintain their pride, the Dashwood women choose to move into far more modest quarters, in an arrangement brokered by a family friend, Mrs. Jennings (a blissfully dithery Fiona Shaw).

Mrs. Jennings is also an unrepentant meddler, and she believes she can easily marry off the two eldest Dashwood girls. Ever-sensible Elinor, who never asks for much, has already met, and fallen for, Edward Ferrars (George MacKay), Fanny’s brother, as kind and modest as Fanny is arrogant. And Marianne, a dreamer who lives for music and books, has her sights set on flirty, fun Mr. Willoughby (Frank Dillane): He loves to laugh and sing and dance, and Marianne is sure he’s perfect for her, though another potential suitor, the stalwart and rather dull Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum), is also circling. If you’ve never read Austen’s lively and perceptive novel—or seen either Lee’s 1995 version or the 2008 BBC miniseries adaptation—you’re left to guess which men the sisters will end up with, which is just one of the story’s delights.

But as always with Austen, there’s more to love than romance: The economics of “making a good match” are always, by necessity, lurking somewhere in these characters’ minds. In the case of the sisters Marianne and Elinor—one too dreamy, the other perhaps not dreamy enough—the differences in what they look for in a partner are almost enough to pull them apart. Oakley, who previously directed the 2022 drama Blue Jean, has a deft touch with the material and a deep respect for the English countryside setting. There are drowsy closeups of wildflowers, and shots of placidly grazing deer; a country dance feels lively and lived-in, contrasted with a later ball, set in London, where the steps are more formal and regimented—Oakley leaves no doubt as to which is more fun. Shot by Arnaud Potier, the film has a handsome, genteel look. And if at times the movie comes off as a bit decorous and stiff, the actors, particularly Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles, do their best to keep the proceedings whirring. Creed-Miles shows that there’s a slightly self-centered quality to Marianne’s romantic preoccupations—she takes pride in wearing her heart on her sleeve, though in some sense it’s also a means of getting her way. And yet as Creed-Miles plays her, it’s impossible to dislike her. When Marianne become truly hurt, we hurt for her, thanks to the bruised anguish in Creed-Miles’ eyes.

And Edgar-Jones plays Elinor, the practical sister, with just the right amount of subdued fire. Elinor is the one who always matches her expectations with reality, and as much as she loves Edward Ferrars, she doesn’t put up much of a fight when she learns she might have to give him up. Edgar-Jones gives us clues to Elinor’s submerged longing, but only in flashes. And in a pivotal scene, where Marianne accuses Elinor, angrily, of “always being right,” we can see how wounded she is, even as she recognizes that Marianne is onto something: Elinor would rather be correct than look foolish. Edgar-Jones plays Elinor as reserved without making her recessive; we can see the ways in which she wants to want more. In an age of lowered expectations—for movies, for romance, for just about everything—maybe she’s the Austen heroine we need, ready to break out of the box she’s drawn around herself. Austen knew what she was talking about, and time hasn’t eroded her wisdom.