The Criterion Channel’s July 2020 Lineup
This July, the Criterion Channel celebrates unconventional artists who march to the beat of their own drum, with spotlights on indie iconoclast Miranda July, cutting-edge composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, downtown poet Sara Driver, lyrical documentarians Bill and Turner Ross, and formally adventurous dramatist Atom Egoyan. Sports fans sad to be missing this year’s Olympic Games can relive 100 years of Olympic history through the eyes of filmmakers like Kon Ichikawa, Carlos Saura, and Miloš Forman. There’s also bracingly radical films from Med Hondo and Lizzie Borden, a trio of Jane Fonda vehicles, the exclusive streaming premiere of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Young Ahmed, and a gold mine of Hollywood treasure from an era when film noir met the western.
Now check out the full calendar!
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* indicates programming available August 1
** indicates programming available September 1
*** indicates programming available only in the U.S.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1
Between the Lines
Featuring a 1983 documentary portrait of director Joan Micklin Silver by filmmaker Katja RaganelliInspired by director Joan Micklin Silver’s time working at New York’s the Village Voice, this unsung gem of 1970s slice-of-life seriocomedy—starring Lindsay Crouse and a young Jeff Goldblum, among others—offers an incisive, bittersweet look at a shifting media landscape that feels as fresh and relevant as ever.
Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)
Criterion Collection Edition #893
THURSDAY, JULY 2
Young Ahmed***
Exclusive streaming premiere, featuring a new introduction by film historian Godfrey CheshireWinner of the best director award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the latest social-realist triumph from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne finds the pair applying their patented brand of heartrendingly empathetic humanism to the story of a thirteen-year-old Muslim boy growing up in a small Belgian town who, under the sway of his radical imam, becomes increasingly enamored with the tenets of violent religious extremism.
FRIDAY, JULY 3
Double Feature: Auto Focused
Bullitt and Grand PrixPut the pedal to the metal for two adrenaline-rush classics that celebrate the pure, kinetic thrill of cool cars in motion.
SATURDAY, JULY 4
Saturday Matinee: Mad Hot Ballroom
Fifth graders from across New York City’s public schools journey into the life-changing world of ballroom dancing in this irresistible documentary from Marilyn Agrelo.
SUNDAY, JULY 5
Western Noir
Featuring a new introduction by critic Imogen Sara SmithA new breed of westerns emerged after World War II, stained by film noir’s anxious, disenchanted mood and enriched by its psychological and moral complexity. Romantic myths of the frontier gave way to tougher tales of ruthless outlaws, corrupt cattle barons, gold-crazed prospectors, mercenary gunfighters, and lonely, damaged men obsessively pursuing vengeance for past wrongs. From brooding black-and-white dramas like Station West and I Shot Jesse James to the harrowing, elegiac masterpieces of Anthony Mann, the West’s wide-open spaces prove as haunted and dangerous as any dark city.
Featuring: Blood on the Moon (Robert Wise, 1948), Station West (Sidney Lanfield, 1948), I Shot Jesse James (Samuel Fuller, 1949)***, Lust for Gold (S. Sylvan Simon, 1949), The Walking Hills (John Sturges, 1949), Devil’s Doorway (Anthony Mann, 1950)*, Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, 1952), The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953), Man with the Gun (Richard Wilson, 1955), The Violent Men (Rudolph Maté, 1955), Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958), Day of the Outlaw (André De Toth, 1959)
MONDAY, JULY 6
Lenny Cooke
Featuring an introduction by Josh and Benny SafdieIn 2001, Lenny Cooke was the most hyped high school basketball player in the country, ranked above future greats LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Carmelo Anthony. A decade later, he had never played a minute in the NBA. This quintessentially American documentary by Josh and Benny Safdie tracks the unfulfilled destiny of a man for whom superstardom was only just out of reach.
California Typewriter
A love letter to the analogue pleasures of an increasingly niche technology, this thought-provoking documentary is a rich, affectionate portrait of artists, writers, and collectors who remain steadfastly loyal to the typewriter as a tool and muse.
TUESDAY, JULY 7
Documentaries by the Ross Brothers
The richly impressionistic documentaries of Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross are wonders of regional American filmmaking that transform everyday life into free-flowing poetry. The brothers offer an exhilarating look at a single night in New Orleans in Tchoupitoulas and team up with David Byrne to stage a one-of-a-kind performance built around high school color guards in Contemporary Color.
Featuring: Tchoupitoulas (2012), Contemporary Color (2016)
Short + Feature: Animal Instincts
Shadow Animals and AttenbergTwo brilliantly bizarre anthropological dramas tap into the innate strangeness of human social rituals.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8
Directed by Sara Driver
Featuring an introduction by DriverEveryday reality slips into surrealist reverie in the uncanny visions of Sara Driver, whose films possess the hallucinatory textures and hypnotic rhythms of a waking dream. A central but often overlooked linchpin of the 1980s downtown New York arts scene, Driver made her directorial debut with the mesmerizingly eerie You Are Not I, and in subsequent features delved further into the fantastical, crafting modern-day fairy tales whose trancelike spells linger long after the last reel.
Featuring: You Are Not I (1981), Sleepwalk (1986), When Pigs Fly (1993), The Bowery (1994)
A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989)
Criterion Collection Edition #953
THURSDAY, JULY 9
Scores by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, a 2017 documentary by Stephen Nomura SchibleJapanese electronic-music pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto has been at the cutting edge of both pop and avant-garde music for over four decades. Opening up a brave new world of sound through his work with his influential band Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto went on to a distinguished international career as a film composer beginning with his entrancing synth score for Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Since then, Sakamoto has worked with auteurs ranging from Bernardo Bertolucci to Pedro Almodóvar to Shirin Neshat, bringing a distinctive experimental edge and stirring sense of atmosphere to some of the most haunting and indelible film music of the last half century.
Featuring: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Oshima, 1983), The Sheltering Sky (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1990), The Handmaid’s Tale (Volker Schlöndorff, 1990), High Heels (Pedro Almodóvar, 1991), Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (Peter Kosminsky, 1992)**, Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (John Maybury, 1998)***, Gohatto (Nagisa Oshima, 1999), Tony Takitani (Jun Ichikawa, 2004), Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, 2009), Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (Stephen Nomura Schible, 2017)
FRIDAY, JULY 10
Double Feature: Loving on the Edge
Mala Noche and My Own Private IdahoTouchstone works in the evolution of the New Queer Cinema movement, these twin tales of aimless youth by Gus Van Sant are intoxicating anthems of outsiderhood.
SATURDAY, JULY 11
Saturday Matinee: The White Balloon
Cowritten with his mentor Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi’s revelatory debut feature is a child’s-eye adventure in which a young girl’s quest to buy a goldfish leads her on a detour-filled journey through the streets of Tehran on the eve of the Iranian New Year celebration.
SUNDAY, JULY 12
Marriage Stories
Bad marriages make great movies, as evidenced by these gloriously messy, cuttingly perceptive portraits of some of the most dysfunctional relationships ever captured on-screen. These films also happen to be vehicles for some of the most personal and revealing statements from major directors like Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Ida Lupino, Mike Nichols, Noah Baumbach, Lars von Trier, Asghar Farhadi, and others, each of whom brings fresh insight to that most universal of subjects: the mysterious intricacies of human intimacy.
Featuring: Come Back, Little Sheba (Daniel Mann, 1952), The Bigamist (Ida Lupino, 1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958), La notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961), Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini, 1965), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966), Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968), A Married Couple (Allan King, 1969), Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973), California Suite (Herbert Ross, 1978), Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979), 5x2 (François Ozon, 2004), The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005)***, Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009), Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010), Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean, 2010), A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011), 45 Years (Andrew Haigh, 2015)
MONDAY, JULY 13
Nostalgia for the Light
Master documentarian Patricio Guzmán travels ten thousand feet above sea level to the driest place on earth: Chile’s Atacama Desert, where astronomers search for distant galaxies and surviving relatives of the disappeared search for the remains of their loved ones in a quest to reclaim their families’ histories.
TUESDAY, JULY 14
Short + Feature: Lost Pets
Pickle and Gates of Heaven***
Featuring an introduction by Criterion Channel programmer Penelope BartlettDo all dogs go to heaven? Two documentary filmmakers explore mortality and mourning through the experiences of pet owners.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15
Directed by Miranda July
Featuring the 2019 documentary Miranda July: Where It BeganThe fearless, brilliantly idiosyncratic films of writer-director-actor and all-around polymath Miranda July combine arrestingly oddball whimsy with astute, emotionally penetrating observations on intimacy, sexuality, loneliness, and human connection. Beginning her career as a performance artist immersed in the riot grrrl scene of 1990s Portland, Oregon, July found her way to film with her pioneering Joanie 4 Jackie project, in which she curated and distributed feminist video “chain letters” of underground movies made by women across the country. With her acclaimed features Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future, July established herself as one of American independent cinema’s most distinctive voices, a bold, relentlessly imaginative artist who finds cosmic insight in the everyday.
Features: Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005), The Future (Miranda July, 2011)
Shorts: The Amateurist (Miranda July, 1998), Nest of Tens (Miranda July, 2000)
Shorts from Joanie 4 Jackie: Transeltown (Myra Paci, 1992), Dear Mom (Tammy Rae Carland, 1995), The Slow Escape (Sativa Peterson, 1998), Hawai (Ximena Cuevas, 1999), No Place Like Home #1 and #2 (Karen Yasinsky, 1999), Gigi (from 9 to 5) (Joanne Nucho, 2001), Ophelia’s Opera (Abiola Abrams, 2001), La Llorona (Stephanie Saint Sanchez, 2003), untitled video (Sujin Lee, 2002), Joanie 4 Jackie: A Quick Overview (Shauna McGarry, 2008)
THURSDAY, JULY 16
Three Starring Jane Fonda
Few actors have dominated an era—for their work both on- and offscreen—the way Jane Fonda did in the 1960s and ’70s, when she emerged as one of the most acclaimed performers of her generation as well as a zeitgeist-defining cultural icon for her fierce political activism. All made at the peak of her career, these three films showcase Fonda’s nuance, impeccable comic timing, and versatility.
Featuring: Barbarella (Roger Vadim, 1968), Fun with Dick and Jane (Ted Kotcheff, 1977), California Suite (Herbert Ross, 1978)
FRIDAY, JULY 17
Double Feature: Girls and the Gang
Mona Lisa and Gloria
Featuring an audio commentary for Mona Lisa by director Neil Jordan and actor Bob HoskinsTwo women tangle with the mob in a pair of gritty crime dramas with unexpectedly tender hearts.
SATURDAY, JULY 18
Saturday Matinee: Miss Annie Rooney
Shirley Temple grows up in a charming, bobby-soxing teenage romance.
SUNDAY, JULY 19
100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912–2012***
Spanning fifty-three movies and forty-one editions of the Olympic Games, 100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912–2012 is the culmination of a massive, award-winning archival project encompassing dozens of restorations by the International Olympic Committee. The documentaries collected here cast a cinematic eye on some of the most iconic moments in the history of modern sports, spotlighting athletes who embody the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”: Jesse Owens shattering world records on the track in 1936 Berlin, Jean-Claude Killy dominating the Grenoble slopes in 1968, Joan Benoit breaking away to win the Games’ first women’s marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. It also offers a fascinating glimpse of the development of film itself, and of the technological progress that has brought viewers ever closer to the action. Traversing continents and decades, reflecting the social, cultural, and political changes that have shaped our recent history, this remarkable movie marathon showcases a hundred years of human endeavor.
Featuring: The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912 (Adrian Wood, 2016), The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 (Jean de Rovera, 1924), The Olympic Games as They Were Practiced in Ancient Greece (Jean de Rovera, 1924), The Olympic Games in Paris 1924 (Jean de Rovera, 1924), The White Stadium (Arnold Fanck and Othmar Gurtner, 1928), The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam (dir. unknown, 1928), The Olympic Games, Amsterdam 1928 (Wilhelm Prager, 1928), Youth of the World (Carl Junghans, 1936), Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938), Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938), Fight Without Hate (André Michel, 1948), XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport (Castleton Knight, 1948), The VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo 1952 (Tancred Ibsen, 1952), Where the World Meets (Hannu Leminen, 1952), Gold and Glory (Hannu Leminen, 1953), Memories of the Olympic Summer of 1952 (dir. unknown, 1954), White Vertigo (Giorgio Ferroni, 1956), Olympic Games, 1956 (Peter Whitchurch, 1956), The Melbourne Rendez-vous (René Lucot, 1957), Alain Mimoun (Louis Gueguen, 1959), The Horse in Focus (dir. unknown, 1956), People, Hopes, Medals (Heribert Meisel, 1960), The Grand Olympics (Romolo Marcellini, 1961), IX Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1964 (Theo Hörmann, 1964), Tokyo Olympiad (Kon Ichikawa, 1965), Sensation of the Century (prod. Taguchi Suketaro, 1966), 13 Days in France (Claude Lelouch and François Reichenbach, 1968), Snows of Grenoble (Jacques Ertaud and Jean-Jacques Languepin, 1968), The Olympics in Mexico (Alberto Isaac, 1969), Sapporo Winter Olympics (Masahiro Shinoda, 1972), Visions of Eight (Miloš Forman, Kon Ichikawa, Claude Lelouch, Yuri Ozerov, Arthur Penn, Michael Pfleghar, John Schlesinger, and Mai Zetterling, 1973), White Rock (Tony Maylam, 1977), Games of the XXI Olympiad (Jean-Claude Labrecque, Jean Beaudin, Marcel Carrière, and Georges Dufaux, 1977), Olympic Spirit (Drummond Challis and Tony Maylam, 1980), O Sport, You Are Peace! (Yuri Ozerov, 1981), A Turning Point (Kim Takal, 1984), 16 Days of Glory (Bud Greenspan, 1986), Calgary ’88: 16 Days of Glory (Bud Greenspan, 1989), Seoul 1988 (Lee Kwang-soo, 1989), Hand in Hand (Im Kwon-taek, 1989), Beyond All Barriers (Lee Ji-won, 1989), One Light, One World (Joe Jay Jalbert and R. Douglas Copsey, 1992), Marathon (Carlos Saura, 1993), Lillehammer ’94: 16 Days of Glory (Bud Greenspan, 1994), Atlanta’s Olympic Glory (Bud Greenspan, 1997), Nagano ’98 Olympics: Stories of Honor and Glory (Bud Greenspan, 1998), Olympic Glory (Kieth Merrill, 1999), Sydney 2000: Stories of Olympic Glory (Bud Greenspan, 2001), Salt Lake City 2002: Bud Greenspan’s Stories of Olympic Glory (Bud Greenspan, 2003), Bud Greenspan’s Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory (Bud Greenspan, 2005), Bud Greenspan’s Torino 2006: Stories of Olympic Glory (Bud Greenspan, 2007), The Everlasting Flame (Gu Jun, 2010), Bud Greenspan Presents Vancouver 2010: Stories of Olympic Glory (prods. Bud Greenspan and Nancy Beffa, 2010), First (Caroline Rowland, 2012)
MONDAY, JULY 20
12 O’Clock Boys
Three years in the making, Lotfy Nathan’s wild, dynamic documentary captures the death-defying antics of an infamous Baltimore dirt-bike pack through the eyes of young adolescent Pug, a bright kid from the Westside obsessed with the riders and willing to do anything to join their ranks.
TUESDAY, JULY 21
Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project: Soleil Ô
Exclusive streaming premiere, featuring an interview with director Med HondoA furious howl of resistance against racist oppression, the debut from Mauritanian director Med Hondo is a bitterly funny, stylistically explosive attack on Western capitalism and the legacy of colonialism.
Short + Feature: A Day in the Life
Fit Model and Cléo from 5 to 7
Featuring a new conversation between Fit Model director Myna Joseph and actor Lucy OwenAgnès Varda’s French New Wave touchstone inspires a journey through the modern-day gig economy of New York City.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22
Born in Flames
Featuring a new introduction by director Lizzie BordenThe film that rocked the foundations of the 1980s underground, this postpunk provocation is a DIY science-fiction fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social-democratic cultural revolution.
THURSDAY, JULY 23
Tokyo Olympiad*** (Kon Ichikawa, 1965)
Criterion Collection Edition #155
FRIDAY, JULY 24
Double Feature: The Hardboiled Way
Gun Crazy and The Big ComboB movie master Joseph H. Lewis turns the ingredients of dime store pulp into existentialist poetry in two essential noir masterpieces.
SATURDAY, JULY 25
Saturday Matinee: Destroy All Monsters
Eleven iconic beasts romp and stomp their way through this classic kaiju extravaganza from the original Godzilla team.
SUNDAY, JULY 26
Directed by Atom Egoyan
Featuring a new introduction by EgoyanThe formally adventurous and psychologically intricate films of renowned Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan unfold according to complex, time-scrambling structures that heighten their searing emotional impact. Exploring issues of identity (including his own Armenian heritage), loss, alienation, and technology, Egoyan’s films frequently revolve around people struggling to make sense of their own shattered sense of self in the wake of profound personal tragedies. His provocative themes and elliptical style are on display in early critical triumphs like Next of Kin and Calendar and reach new heights of virtuosity in his masterpieces Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which are widely considered among the greatest Canadian films ever made.
Featuring: Next of Kin (1984)***, Family Viewing (1987)***, Speaking Parts (1989)***, The Adjuster (1991), Calendar (1993), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Adoration (2008)***
MONDAY, JULY 27
Infinite Football
Romanian New Wave leader Corneliu Porumboiu directs this marvelously offbeat, continually surprising documentary about an ordinary man’s extraordinary sports ambitions.
TUESDAY, JULY 28
Short + Feature: Age of Exploration
Pillars and Girlhood
Featuring a new introduction by Pillars director Haley Elizabeth AndersonTwo richly immersive coming of age snapshots capture the ecstatic highs and brutal lows of female adolescence.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29
My Twentieth Century
Among the greatest of cinematic debuts, Hungarian trailblazer Ildikó Enyedi’s award-winning first feature is a luminous, unconventional fairy tale.
THURSDAY, JULY 30
The Loft Cinema Presents: Arizona Dream
Serbian visionary Emir Kusturica gate-crashed Hollywood with this singular, marvelously loopy surrealist comedy featuring a remarkable cast that includes Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Lili Taylor, and Vincent Gallo.
FRIDAY, JULY 31
Double Feature: From Art House to Grindhouse
The Virgin Spring and The Last House on the LeftIngmar Bergman’s Oscar-winning tale of savagery in medieval Sweden inspires a notorious Wes Craven shocker.