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
Terror on the Airwaves
In the 1970s, up-and-coming mavericks like Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter honed their craft by bringing a taste of the grindhouse to the small screen.
Death Is a Highway
Classics of highway horror, like Road Games, The Appointment, and Race with the Devil, present the open road as a dangerous landscape and automobiles as single-minded killing machines.
Deeper into Horror
To get you in the mood for Halloween, we invited a group of six writers and filmmakers to tell us about horror movies on the Criterion Channel that they feel deserve more attention.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
In one of his most personal films, the Oscar-winning director imbues Mary Shelley’s gothic tale with elements of family melodrama and traces of his own Catholic upbringing.
God Laughs: Stanley Kubrick’s Cinema
Throughout his enormously influential body of work, the great director explored the conflict between humankind’s obsession with control and our capacity for error and failure.
The Silence of the Lambs: Reckoning with Jame Gumb
The serial killer in Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning film remains a powerfully influential and dominant trans film image with a complicated legacy that cannot be taken lightly.
Christiane F.: Up Against the Wall
Uli Edel’s harrowing tale of youth rebellion is one of cinema’s greatest Berlin films, a visceral urban portrait that captures the city’s doom and decadence during the Cold War era.
The Criterion Channel’s November 2026 Lineup
This month’s programs include spotlights on Nicolas Cage and Gene Tierney and a collection gathering work from directors who honed their imaginations making music videos.
The Shout: Sound and Fury
Blending elements of psychological thriller, social satire, and psychedelic film, Jerzy Skolimowski’s Cannes-award-winning classic uses its audacious sound design to evoke the terror of English civilization.
Welcome II the Terrordome: The Future Is Furious
A dystopian drama that draws on the influences of African mythology and hip-hop, Ngozi Onwurah’s debut feature uses a mix of speculative forms to expose anti-Blackness as a system that underpins the modern world.
Cinema as a Buddhist Practice: A Conversation with Khyentse Norbu
The Bhutanese director and leading Tibetan Buddhist teacher talks about his wide range of aesthetic influences, his experience working with Bernardo Bertolucci, and film’s connection to meditation.
Days and Nights in the Forest: Into the Woods
In this tale of four privileged bachelors who embark on a trip to the Indian countryside, Satyajit Ray balances a biting critique of masculine fragility with splendid visual grace.
