Current

An online magazine covering film culture past and present

The Criterion Channel’s August 2025 Lineup

Channel Calendars

The Criterion Channel’s August 2025 Lineup

Among this month’s highlights are a spotlight on ’90s soundtracks, a celebration of Hong Kong icon Sammo Hung, and a retrospective of the work of Spanish auteur Bigas Luna.

Jon Raymond’s Top 10
Jon Raymond’s Top 10

The author and screenwriter shares a list that includes a gritty documentary he saw in his adolescence, a pair of films featuring Neil Young songs, and one of the all-time great depictions of artistic collaboration.

The Big Heat: Fate’s Network
The Big Heat: Fate’s Network

Made nearly two decades into Fritz Lang’s Hollywood career, this brutal noir is designed for maximum velocity and impact, eschewing the director’s accustomed flourishes in favor of a stark literalness.

By Jonathan Lethem

The Iron Chef: A Conversation with Ougie Pak
The Iron Chef: A Conversation with Ougie Pak

An up-and-coming director reflects on the resourcefulness and scrappy ingenuity that went into making his three films, now playing on the Criterion Channel.

By Ife Olujobi

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould: The Idea of Gould
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould: The Idea of Gould

One of the defining independent films of its era, François Girard’s provocatively splintered portrait of the great pianist finds playful ways of toying with the cultural mythologization of its subject.

By Michael Koresky

Sorcerer: Bleak Magic
Sorcerer: Bleak Magic

The product of a famously tumultuous production, William Friedkin’s nerve-jangling adaptation of the classic suspense novel The Wages of Fear infuses the mechanics of genre with rough-hewn realism and the New Hollywood’s renegade spirit.

By Justin Chang

The Quiet Art of LA Rebellion Pioneer Billy Woodberry
The Quiet Art of LA Rebellion Pioneer Billy Woodberry

Throughout a small but indelible body of work that includes the 1984 neorealist masterpiece Bless Their Little Hearts, the veteran filmmaker has explored how everyday life is lived within structures of power.

By Nicholas Russell

The Criterion Channel’s July 2025 Lineup

Channel Calendars

The Criterion Channel’s July 2025 Lineup

This July, find love under the sun with our Summer Romances collection and flirt with the seductive dangers of Miami’s most thrilling neonoirs.

Midnight: The Game of Love
Midnight: The Game of Love

Mitchell Leisen’s marvelously chic and brilliantly constructed screwball classic revolves around a heroine who flounders through a succession of complications but always manages to come out ahead.

By David Cairns

Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser: Thelonious in Action
Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser: Thelonious in Action

Drawing from over a dozen hours of black-and-white footage, Direct Cinema pioneer Charlotte Zwerin created this elliptical and moving portrait of one of American music’s most original artists.

By Paul Grimstad

I’ll Be Your Mirror: Megan Abbott Talks with William Horberg About Ripley on Film
I’ll Be Your Mirror: Megan Abbott Talks with William Horberg About Ripley on Film

The acclaimed crime writer joins a producer of the 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley to discuss the cinematic incarnations of Patricia Highsmith’s shape-shifting, quintessentially American antihero.

By Megan Abbott

The Wiz: A Soulful Oz
The Wiz: A Soulful Oz

Sidney Lumet’s lavish adaptation of a Tony Award–winning stage musical combines an ecstatic appreciation of Black artistry with a celebration of freedom and perseverance.

By Aisha Harris

Video

Room Tone 2023
On Film  – 25 Dec 2023