Spotlight
Under the Influence
In this ongoing series of videos, contemporary filmmakers talk to us about the movies that have had a lasting impact on their work.
Current
An online magazine covering film culture past and present
The Trial: Crime of the Century
In the film he once called his best, Orson Welles found a cinematic language equal to Franz Kafka’s distinctive effects, creating a vertiginous experience that accentuates the writer’s subterranean perversity.
Andrew Bujalski’s Top 10
The writer-director of Computer Chess and Support the Girls lets his eye and heart wander freely through our collection, and gives us a list of some films he admires.
Drylongso: A Refuge of Their Own
Cauleen Smith’s debut feature celebrates the bond between two young Black women and the ways that they imaginatively, collaboratively choreograph their lives in the face of their common vulnerabilities.
Into the Groove: A Conversation with Susan Seidelman
Beloved for her stylistic range and her vibrant portraits of New York City, the director discusses the feminist spirit that runs throughout her work and the collaborations that bring her films to life.
“The House Is the Monster”: Roger Corman’s Poe Cycle
In the great American writer’s Gothic tales, Corman found themes that inspired him to riff, invent, and create immersive cinematic environments.
Bo Widerberg’s New Swedish Cinema: Another Sweden
While frequently drawing from the depths of his private life, the writer-director also sought to shake Swedish cinema out of a state of complacency by engaging with the country’s turbulent social landscape.
The Criterion Channel’s September 2023 Lineup
This month’s programming dives into the sinister side of adolescence, the pleasures of the open road, and the best of period noir.
Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart: Family Style
For the first of several domestic melodramas in his filmography, Wayne Wang drew on the influence of Yasujiro Ozu and the talent within his own San Francisco community to explore the relationship between a mother and her daughter.
Hip-Hop’s Big-Screen Breakthrough
As the influence of the New York–born cultural movement began to spread across the country, cinema gave audiences a deeper sense of the sounds and styles that had emerged from it.
The Replacements: AI in the Movies
Over the past half-century of sci-fi cinema, the theme of artificial intelligence has foregrounded our anxieties about sex, reproduction, and labor in the modern world.
Elvis’s Adventures in Hollywood
Over the course of thirty-one feature films, one of the world’s most revered rock-and-roll icons developed a charismatic persona all his own—and created moments of surprising dramatic depth.
