Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, publication of the magazine was suspended in May 2020, and its website was updated on March 10, 2021, with news of the relaunch of the Film Comment podcast and a weekly newsletter.

[2] Film Comment was founded during the boom years of the international art-house circuit and the so-called New American Cinema, an umbrella term for the era's independently produced documentaries, narrative features, and experimental and underground works.

By way of a mission statement, founder-publisher Joseph Blanco wrote in the inaugural issue: "With the increasing interest in the motion picture as an art form, and with the rise of the New American cinema, [Film Comment] takes its place as a publication for the independent film maker and those who share a sincere interest in the unlimited scope of the motion picture.

By the third issue, the publishers transferred ownership to Lorien Productions, a corporation that Hoover "formed to cover investments in artistic enterprises" (35, Feb 1984).

[citation needed] This period in the magazine's history was marked by a predisposition towards low-budget narrative features and cinéma vérité-style documentaries.