The Criterion Collection

Naked Lunch

David Cronenberg

JustinDW: “Upgraded to Blu Ray courtesy of my brother who bought one for himself and decided there was a rift in time and space if we did not both own it.”

Rosemary’s Baby

Roman Polanski

JustinDW: “One of the very few horror movies that gets scarier with each viewing. It's the little details hidden in every corner that do it. Creepy as hell.”

America Lost and Found: The BBS Story

10 Years of Rialto Pictures

JustinDW: “I'm lucky enough to live a train ride away from the Film Forum, so this epic box set felt like a must own.”

4 by Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda

JustinDW: “Vagabond was fascinating. I look forward to exploring more of her work. A female voice in the French New Wave? I'm intrigued.”

Trilogy of Life

Pier Paolo Pasolini

JustinDW: “Pasolini was never one for subtlety, compromise or caution. The three steps that led to Salo.”

Quadrophenia

Franc Roddam

JustinDW: “Glorious. Beautifully restored with a clear crisp remastered soundtrack, yet somehow just as damp, grimy and gritty as ever. A fantastic movie.”

Anatomy of a Murder

Otto Preminger

JustinDW: “Otto Preminger, James Stewart, Duke Ellington forever fused together via celluloid. Well that's a no-brainer.”

Harold and Maude

Hal Ashby

JustinDW: “Many people think "cult movies" are only ones like Eraserhead, El Topo and Freaks. Harold and Maude shows what a wide spectrum cult actually has.”

F for Fake

Orson Welles

JustinDW: “I love the actual movie, but the extras on Disc 2 are priceless. One of cinema's true geniuses, and maybe the greatest independent filmmaker ever.”

Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard

JustinDW: “I found the few Godard films I'd seen to be pretentious and incoherent. Little did I know his debut was a masterpiece of straightforward minimalism.”

Vampyr

Carl Th. Dreyer

JustinDW: “One of the moodiest, creepiest and most beautiful movies I've seen. It deserves the epic treatment it received from Criterion!”

Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa

JustinDW: “A phenomenal action adventure classic. Simple story told in the most grandiose fashion. Riveting. ”

Godzilla

Ishiro Honda

JustinDW: “One of the all time greatest monster movies (maybe second only to King Kong). Given the Criterion treatment, it knows no bounds.”

Eclipse Series 18: Dušan Makavejev—Free Radical

Dušan Makavejev

JustinDW: “Fascinating, funny and tragic exercises in cinema verite filmmaking. Who knew bare buns and a lesson in strudel-making could be so profound?”

Che

Steven Soderbergh

JustinDW: “An amazing, epic and shockingly neutral chronicle of the rise and fall of an iconic figure in contemporary history.”

Equinox

Jack Woods

JustinDW: “The home movie every 70s monster fan wished they had made. A definitive cult movie, with great stop motion effects and Herb Tarlek before WKRP.”

Peeping Tom

Michael Powell

JustinDW: “Creepy, twisted and devastatingly clever. One of the best movies about cinema and mental illness ever made. A warped masterpiece.”

Dazed and Confused

Richard Linklater

JustinDW: “I'll never forget the night my friends and I went to see it. We wound up driving around the city for hours we were so wound up. Pure entertainment.”

Kicking and Screaming

Noah Baumbach

JustinDW: “Watched this movie on cable multiple times. It was like watching a documentary about me and my friends during those few years when we didn't do shit.”

Black Moon

Louis Malle

JustinDW: “I have no idea what the hell this movie is about, but I love it. Malle goes for pure surrealism and throws convention to the wind. Breathtaking.”

Zazie dans le métro

Louis Malle

JustinDW: “Who directed this movie? Louis Malle or Chuck Jones? A wonderful surreal-slapstick masterpiece. Brilliant.”

Videodrome

David Cronenberg

JustinDW: “This sci-fi/horror/satire is arguably Cronenberg's masterpiece. Who knew Marshall Mcluhan-inspired surrealism would be this grotesque?”

Häxan

Benjamin Christensen

JustinDW: “Amazing sensuality, sacrilege and explicitness for its day. How did Christensen get away with it? Oh, yeah. He didn't.”

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Terry Gilliam

JustinDW: “A brilliant achievement in surreal cinema that makes drug use simultaneously look fun and horrifying. Demented, twisted and, unfortunately, truthful.”

Eyes Without a Face

Georges Franju

JustinDW: “Edith Scob conveys such amazing emotion and heartache through just her eyes and voice you forget she's wearing a mask. An astonishing horror film.”

Blood for Dracula

Paul Morrissey

JustinDW: “My copy is signed by Paul Morrissey, Udo Kier and Stefania Casini. Mr. Dallesandro, where are you?”

Pandora’s Box

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

JustinDW: “G.W. Pabst and Louise Brooks were perhaps the greatest ever director and actor team. Easily in my top 10 films. Beautiful, haunting, moving. ”

Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Pier Paolo Pasolini

JustinDW: “This notorious nightmare movie requires multiple viewings just to get past the gag reflex. I don't think I need to see it in high def.”

Gimme Shelter

David Maysles, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

JustinDW: “Perhaps the only concert movie that would make a great double feature with Last House on the Left.”

The Silence of the Lambs

Jonathan Demme

JustinDW: “Great thriller. Gritty, creepy, brutal... not what I was expecting from Jonathan Demme. ”

Rashomon

Akira Kurosawa

JustinDW: “Another movie to which I was first introduced at film school. Definitely a case to be made for Kurosawa as best filmmaker of all time. ”

Island of Lost Souls

Erle C. Kenton

JustinDW: “Rough around the edges and yet somehow perfect. A remarkably macabre and cruel atmosphere for its time and astonishing make up effects for all time.”

The Rules of the Game

Jean Renoir

JustinDW: “Blind bought this after receiving an out-of-print notification from Criterion. A good decision. Great film.”

Antichrist

Lars von Trier

JustinDW: “Not usually a Von Trier fan, but this freak show is just too wonderfully creepy to resist.”

Repulsion

Roman Polanski

JustinDW: “Another surreal and intensely creepy horror movie. Is there a pattern here?”

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Fritz Lang

JustinDW: “What an amazing film. German expressionism morphs into film noir before your eyes. And simply a great crime thriller. Don't mess with Mabuse! ”

The Seventh Seal

Ingmar Bergman

JustinDW: “Bergman. Film school staple. Don't let it fool you. Far from the cinematic equivalent of Beowulf. A dark, macabre masterpiece with a touch of Poe.”

8½

Federico Fellini

JustinDW: “One of the most uplifting endings for filmmakers, and the journey there is a fascinating ride jam packed with satire, surrealism and love of cinema.”

This Is Spinal Tap

Rob Reiner

JustinDW: “Got this as a Christmas present years ago. Only recently did I find out it is quite the collector's item!”

Closely Watched Trains

Jiří Menzel

JustinDW: “Quirky, hypnotic, offbeat, oddball, funny, tragic, and the best damn butt-stamping scene ever committed to film.”

Grand Illusion

Jean Renoir

JustinDW: “I saw this in film school and found it to be profoundly moving. It's strangely appropriate that Spine #1 is the first Criterion DVD I bought!”

Blow Out

Brian De Palma

JustinDW: “The scene in which John Travolta runs in slow motion through the crowd is possibly the most gut-wrenching sequence ever filmed. Devastating ending.”

Crumb

Terry Zwigoff

JustinDW: “One of the most fascinating biographical documentaries I've seen. Once it starts, you can't stop watching.”

The Night of the Hunter

Charles Laughton

JustinDW: “Southern gothic masterpiece. Robert Mitchum's performance falls somewhere between bravura and psychotic. Lillian Gish? One tough old broad. ”

The Red Balloon

Albert Lamorisse

JustinDW: “This movie made me cry when I saw a 16mm print projected in my grammar school gymnasium. When I saw this on Criterion I had to pick it up.”

The Red Shoes

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

JustinDW: “Who cares what it's about? Just look at it! ”