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.
The Current
An online magazine covering film culture past and present
Beyond the Western: The Staggering Range of Ennio Morricone
The legendary film composer may be best known for his work on Sergio Leone’s iconic visions of the American frontier, but a closer listen reveals his mastery of a wide variety of genres, sounds, and styles.
Home Is Where the Struggle Is: Victoria Keith’s Activist Lens in The Sand Island Story
Residents of a neglected Hawaiian island fight against eviction and mistreatment in this consciousness-raising documentary from 1981, now playing on the Criterion Channel.
Isabel Sandoval’s Closet Picks
The multitalented auteur selects a few all-time favorites that reflect her bold cinematic style, as well as a number of movies she’s excited to see for the first time.
Irma Vep: Film in Flux
In what became his biggest hit to date, Olivier Assayas turned his methods of postmodern reflection onto his own medium, which was being drastically transformed by digitization and globalization at the end of the twentieth century.
Chosen Family: The Tenderness in Midnight Cowboy
The director of Test Pattern examines how toxic masculinity gets in the way of the domestic bliss briefly enjoyed by the film’s downtrodden protagonists.
The Criterion Channel’s May 2021 Lineup
In this packed month of programming, we celebrate the work of Gena Rowlands, Satyajit Ray, Dalton Trumbo, Mitchell Leisen, and other luminaries.
10 Things I Learned: Memories of Murder
The producer of our edition of this unnerving procedural shares details about director Bong Joon Ho’s approach to visual style, his commitment to verisimilitude, and the lengths to which actor Kim Sang Kyung went in order to portray his character.
Worlds Away
Obsessed with the lure of memory and the stigma of social otherness, Terence Davies’s The Long Day Closes inspires this writer to take her own winding journey into the past.
Memories of Murder: In the Killing Jar
Bong Joon Ho combines gritty crime drama with absurdist comedy in his breakthrough second feature, a dark tale set during a tumultuous period in South Korean history.
Looking Through the Veil: The Theology of Movie Afterlives
From Here Comes Mr. Jordan to Defending Your Life (which we recently released in a new edition), cinematic visions of the great beyond often hinge on widely shared anxieties and uncertainties about our earthly existence.
A New India Finds Its Voice in the Films of Bimal Roy
With movies that spoke urgently to the nation post-independence, the director forged a path between the realist tendencies of the era’s art-house cinema and the pleasures of popular genre filmmaking.
History Is Made at Night: Taking a Chance on Love
The feeling of freedom in this swooningly beautiful blend of melodrama and romantic comedy speaks to director Frank Borzage’s belief in the invincibility of love.
