The Criterion Collection

Au revoir les enfants

Louis Malle

Wild Strawberries

Ingmar Bergman

The Wages of Fear

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Diabolique

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Le Corbeau

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Le cercle rouge

Jean-Pierre Melville

Throne of Blood

Akira Kurosawa

Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders

Burden of Dreams

Les Blank

The Earrings of Madame de . . .

Max Ophuls

Ugetsu

Kenji Mizoguchi

JesseB: “Ghost stories don't get any better than this. Stories of the male ego reflected back to us are sometimes hard to swallow, but this movie transcends it”

I Know Where I’m Going!

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

JesseB: “This film caught me by surprise and I was absolutely delighted by it. It has such a whimsical charm within its various lilting performances. ”

Black Narcissus

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

JesseB: “This is one of the sexiest films I've seen. Jean Simmons... you just want to reach into the screen and touch her, she's so beautiful. I love Archers.”

The Red Shoes

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

JesseB: “As a dancer who is obsessed about his own art, I have a very good understanding of what drives this film -- one of the greatest ever made. Black Swan?”

Three Colors

Krzysztof Kieślowski

The Killing

Stanley Kubrick

JesseB: “To me it is all about early Kubrick and you don't get any better than this. A great script by Jim Thompson, The Killing is like a sock in the jaw.”

Paths of Glory

Stanley Kubrick

JesseB: “On to another favorite war film of mine. If one were to look up the word "bravado" in the dictionary, you would find a picture of Douglas in this role”

Stagecoach

John Ford

JesseB: “John Ford. John Wayne. The beginning of movie marriage made in heaven. Also a damn fine work of cinema.”

Walkabout

Nicolas Roeg

JesseB: “Pure cinema at it's best. Another film which inspires greatness from even a casual viewer. It opens up the mind to what is possible.”

The Thin Red Line

Terrence Malick

JesseB: “Watching this film is like watching G-d looking down on mankind and saying to himself, "What went wrong?" This is my favorite war film. It asks of us.”

Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick

JesseB: “Malick's films always seem so biblical to me. Like he remembers bits and pieces from his Sunday school days and mixes up the memories to be made anew.”

My Dinner with André

Louis Malle

JesseB: “The art of conversation is all but lost among men. I love the sheer audacity of Malle, making a long talk between two friends so incredibly cinematic.”

L’avventura

Michelangelo Antonioni

JesseB: “Self imposed exile by being unable to feel. Antonioni is of the utmost in his field. He affects me deeply, within my soul.”

Ratcatcher

Lynne Ramsay

JesseB: “I love it how a movie written and performed in English needs subtitles. I really love movies about the destruction and violence of youth. ”

Beauty and the Beast

Jean Cocteau

JesseB: “Magical. The only word befitting of this incredible work. I love how the director is not afraid to remind you that this is a movie and that it is okay”

Summer Hours

Olivier Assayas

JesseB: “You can feel the warmth of the sun on your face, and smell the slight scent of dust in the old house when you watch this film. It shoots to the heart.”

The Seventh Seal

Ingmar Bergman

JesseB: “I love how the knight knows everything about death because of a couple of paintings he's seen. This is a great film, I think with a lot of hope within”

Revanche

Götz Spielmann

JesseB: “And I thought this was just going to be another cops and robbers movie. Just shows how little faith I have in Criterion. This is an exquisite film. ”

Hunger

Steve McQueen

JesseB: “I know what you are thinking, "Steve McQueen was great in Bullit." Well, not exactly. I don't think that Steve would have had the guts this one does. ”

M

Fritz Lang

JesseB: “I still marvel at the use of sound in this film. It's the silent moments that will chill you to the bone.”

The Lovers

Louis Malle

JesseB: “I'm not exactly sure why The Lovers had the effect it did on me. But I just love it so much.”

The Fire Within

Louis Malle

JesseB: “This film could also be called, The Long Goodbye.”

Rififi

Jules Dassin

JesseB: “Rifi is what happens when paranoid 50's America excommunicates one of its greatest talents to France. We get a masterpiece.”

Bob le flambeur

Jean-Pierre Melville

JesseB: “Whose cooler than Bob? Jean-Pierre Melville was the master of introspective gangster flicks. The marriage of American noir and French intellectualism.”

La strada

Federico Fellini

JesseB: “Anthony Quinn drunk and alone on the beach, beneath the vast night sky. Never has there been a piece of film more profound than this. ”

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir

JesseB: “Haunting beauty is what comes to mind when I think about Picnic at Hanging Rock. Sometimes the mystery is better than the explanation. None is needed.”

Rushmore

Wes Anderson

JesseB: “Underachievement has never been so overly achieved in Wes Anderson's comedic masterpiece... Rushmore.”

Jules and Jim

François Truffaut

JesseB: “This movie introduced me to, as well as inspired an undying love of women in fake mustaches.”

Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara

JesseB: “Hiroshi Teshigahara is a master of surrealistic film. Witness his psychological exploration of human identity and inhibitions in The Face of Another.”

Last Year at Marienbad

Alain Resnais

JesseB: “Is all that we believe to be real, truly what is? Or is our perception things what guides our understanding of its reality? Experience the labyrinth.”

The Double Life of Véronique

Krzysztof Kieślowski

JesseB: “The Polish singer. The French music teacher. The marionette ballerina. Are they all Irene Jacob? The triangle is complete. ”

Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa

JesseB: “The artistic achievement of the ages is also one of the most entertaining action films you will ever see, in a language you probably don't know. ”

The Third Man

Carol Reed

JesseB: “The script. The lighting. The cinematography... The zither. This film was made with a dastardly glee which emanates from every projected frame of film”

Grand Illusion

Jean Renoir

JesseB: “The futility of war...”

Le Samouraï

Jean-Pierre Melville

JesseB: “If movie gangsters are cool, than Delon is ice cold. Without this film you would have others like the recent "Drive" or "The French Connection". ”

Sullivan’s Travels

Preston Sturges

JesseB: “The only film which has ever made me both laugh and cry... at the same time. I mean the hardest laughter and the deepest sobs. What an amazing film. ”

The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson

JesseB: “This is a very special film to me, one that I hold very closely to my heart. Possibly because I identify with a number of the characters... the family”

The Rules of the Game

Jean Renoir

JesseB: “The Rules are: everybody has their social position and one is not to violate that. This film should be renamed with the word "Breaking" in its title. ”

Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville

JesseB: “Possibly Melville's greatest film (perhaps Le Samourai), the underground French Resistance is the topic at hand. It is deep and dark and a great film ”

Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais

JesseB: “Resnais navigates the landscape of the mind in his films; of memory and time. Of reality and conception. The opening of this film will remain with you”

La Jetée/Sans Soleil

Chris Marker

JesseB: “La Jetee is a film of surpassing brilliance which at one time haunted my dreams for long after I had dreamed about it. It's visuals are transcendent. ”

Late Spring

Yasujiro Ozu

JesseB: “Master Ozu: his films are as touching as a smile and as deep as a knife wound. Watching his families interact is profoundly beautiful, like breathing.”

Cries and Whispers

Ingmar Bergman

JesseB: “Bergman is my favorite horror director and I don't know of any of his films which cuts to the quick as swiftly as Cries and Whispers. Shattering story”

Rashomon

Akira Kurosawa

JesseB: “I cherish this film. It builds up a wonderful plot and then completely disregarding it in the end to make a point about human nature. It's true cinema”

Red Desert

Michelangelo Antonioni

JesseB: “Bergman believed the soul to be red in color. Antonioni's concept of a soul is a vast wasteland which we are meant to journey alone. Enter Red Desert.”

8½

Federico Fellini

JesseB: “A movie which never fails to inspire creativity from this viewer. The way in which the film bounces from dreams, to life and fantasy expresses freedom”

The 400 Blows

François Truffaut

JesseB: “For the past couple of years, Francois Truffaut's semi-autobiographical tale of supreme childhood angst has sat upon the very top as my all time fave.”