The Criterion Collection

Having studied everything but film in college, I never would have imagined that landing a job in the DVD industry would help me get more out of fashion magazines. But sitting in the front office at Criterion, seeing every person and package that . . . Read more »

From the moment Luis Buñuel released his iconic Un chien andalou in 1929, ushering avant-garde cinema out of its infancy with the slice of an eyeball, it was clear how much he relished shocking his audiences. But audiences had changed by the time . . . Read more »

In the mid-sixties, Luis Buñuel became fascinated by the youth rebellion that culminated with the events of May 1968 in Paris and also manifested itself in music, fashion, opposition to institutions, family, and state. Buñuel felt that the forces . . . Read more »

In 1987, nothing else looked or sounded quite like House of Games. David Mamet’s debut film was a welcome throwback to the primacy of character and careful story construction, at a time when narrative intricacy was in short supply on American . . . Read more »

When I found out last year that we’d be working on Days of Heaven, I got goose bumps. It’s always been one of my favorite films, and I had wished it could be in the Criterion Collection ever since I started here twelve years ago—that and . . . Read more »

Instead of calling “Action!” Samuel Fuller discharged a Colt .45 in the air. It was the first scene he had ever directed, on the set of I Shot Jesse James (1949), and he knew the importance of a good opening—“If a story doesn’t give you . . . Read more »

Cría cuervos . . . , Carlos Saura’s political and psychological masterpiece, was shot in the summer of 1975, as Spanish dictator Francisco Franco lay dying, and premiered in Madrid’s Conde Duque Theatre, on January 26, 1976, forty years after . . . Read more »

Two towering figures of cinema died this week, and while we can all be grateful that they lived such long and fruitful lives, their departures were nevertheless profoundly saddening, and shocking in their coincidence. Look to your right at our . . . Read more »