The Criterion Collection

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2

Batzomon: “Even more classics from the World Cinema Project, praise to Scorsese for these restorations. Revenge is my personal favorite on here, spell-binding.”

Black Girl

Ousmane Sembène

Batzomon: “African cinema is too often overlooked, and this hour-long film is a prime example as to why the continent has much to offer the art of film.”

Watership Down

Martin Rosen

Batzomon: “I'm glad that I didn't see this as a kid, not only for the violence, but for the fact that such a beautiful parable of hope might not move me as much.”

The Vanishing

George Sluizer

Batzomon: “The banality of evil is best experienced in high-definition, so that every nuance of the lost can be appreciated. A masterpiece of sickening impact.”

Fantastic Planet

René Laloux

Batzomon: “Fantastic, psychedelic, eccentric...all words to describe this film that defies simple adjectives. It is animation at its most transporting.”

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson

Batzomon: “Wes Anderson brings his unique style to the world of animation, and Criterion brings animation into its fold once more. All told, it's fantastic.”

Chimes at Midnight

Orson Welles

Batzomon: “Orson Welles made many masterpieces after Citizen Kane, and more than Macbeth, it's a swirling melange of Shakespeare with Welles' acting at its best.”

Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro

Batzomon: “Del Toro's fantastical artistry reaches its apex here in his best film, a fairy tale as simple as it is complex and most beautiful at its darkest.”

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

Kenji Mizoguchi

Batzomon: “Behind every man who sacrifices himself for art is a woman who sacrifices more. Mizoguchi gives these two lovers a wide canvas to live a tale of woe.”

The New World

Terrence Malick

Batzomon: “Malick's journey through America's soul goes back to the country's infancy as a young woman matures and a new world begins to slowly degrade itself.”

Night and Fog

Alain Resnais

Batzomon: “It was the first film to confront the horrors of the Holocaust in a way only matched by Shoah. Truly a noble and necessary piece of art.”

A Touch of Zen

King Hu

Batzomon: “Wuxia films are usually gorgeous expressions of human agility and emotion, but this one took it to a level of transcendence that's true enlightenment.”

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Stanley Kubrick

Batzomon: “Mr. Kinolove, or: How I Learned to Stop Waiting and Buy this Newest Criterion Addition So I Could Get The Best Insert of the Entire Collection”

Bicycle Thieves

Vittorio De Sica

Batzomon: “Essential for any cinephile, the BD upgrade will make every painful line in Maggiorani's face stand out like the spokes of a bicycle's wheel.”

Only Angels Have Wings

Howard Hawks

Batzomon: “Classic Hollywood film-making from the only director who had wings: Howard Hawks. You got Grant, you got Arthur, you even got Hayworth, hallelujah!”

Ivan’s Childhood

Andrei Tarkovsky

Batzomon: “Tarkovsky understood the potential for transcendent beauty in his first film. One of the most harrowing portraits of childhood in wartime.”

Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy

Wim Wenders

Batzomon: “Before Wenders went to Paris, Texas, he went across Germany to explore that uniquely human condition known as wanderlust. Take a ride with him.”

In a Lonely Place

Nicholas Ray

Batzomon: “Bogart at his most vulnerable and Ray at his usual best, it just goes to show that even in the glam and glitz of Hollywood, it can be a lonely place.”

A Brighter Summer Day

Edward Yang

Batzomon: “Edward Yang was the master of intimate epics, and this film stands out as the most personal of those. It's been a long wait to enjoy this summer day.”

The Complete Lady Snowblood

Toshiya Fujita

Batzomon: “Even the slightest snowflake can be deadly in a blizzard. Watch yourself, wicked men, for the blade of vengeance is swift and merciless, WISHA-SHA!”

Le samouraï

Jean-Pierre Melville

Batzomon: “It's not just Ghost Dog who follows the Way of the Samurai. It is a belief system forged in steel and marked by impeccable style and coolness.”

Hard Boiled

John Woo

Batzomon: “How did I not add this way back when I snagged it off EBay? Boy, is that egg on my face, flawlessly filmed as if in balletic motion.”

The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates

Robert Drew

Batzomon: “You know what's as amazing as Robert Drew and his famous associates gaining access to the JFK administration's inner sanctum? An advance copy, y'all!”

Ikiru

Akira Kurosawa

Batzomon: “What is it to live? Is it to live for oneself, or to live for others? Maybe both, but what I live for is Blu-ray upgrades to classic films.”

The Freshman

Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer

Batzomon: “As a Tate College graduate, I can relate to this movie completely. They still talk about Harold Lamb the hero in excited intertitles.”

Dont Look Back

D. A. Pennebaker

Batzomon: “Kudos to Criterion for getting the spelling exactly right, and props to Dylan for saying more words when he was young & irreverent than he does now.”

The Soft Skin

François Truffaut

Batzomon: “Cheating has never been so suspenseful as when Truffaut made one man's affair the nail-biter of the year. Is it based on personal experience, though?”

The Apu Trilogy

Satyajit Ray

Batzomon: “If ever there was a more humane, more insightful, more talented director invested in exploring the human condition, they owe a debt to Satyajit Ray.”

Blow Out

Brian De Palma

Batzomon: “De Palma crashes the thrills to the tinkle of Allen and Travolta while Lithgow whispers the death knell. I always shout out at the final scream.”

Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch

Batzomon: “There's a blue key, one driver per cart, and no orchestra. The lights of Hollywood flicker and flare as the pink paint rests on a hair. Silencio...”

Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties

Julien Duvivier

Batzomon: “I haven't seen Pepe le moko in so long. I know Criterion means quality and Eclipse means underappreciated, so more Duvivier is good with me.”

Eclipse Series 26: Silent Naruse

Mikio Naruse

Batzomon: “Alongside Ozu and Mizoguchi, the gods of silent Japanese cinema include Mikio Naruse. If you want your tears skillfully extracted, watch these films.”

The Fisher King

Terry Gilliam

Batzomon: “Funny, heart-breaking, poignant, irreverent: this film is a series of contradictions that works beautifully. Gilliams finds the humanity in insanity.”

Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais

Batzomon: “Now I can experience the pain and passion, the starkness and the darkness in blazing 4K. Is this the result of the atomic age? Then bomb me up!”

Au revoir les enfants

Louis Malle

Batzomon: “Malle gives his invisible yet precise style to the heart-breaking tale of youth in a time of death and destruction. Childhood is wrenched apart.”

Six Moral Tales

Eric Rohmer

Batzomon: “Rohmer is like watching paint dry, if paint was a deliciously droll and insightful novel with winning characters. Plus, it doesn't dry. It is great.”

Y tu mamá también

Alfonso Cuarón

Batzomon: “Cuaron made the sexiest movie ever. The steam that comes off the screen can't cover up the beautiful photography. I'm sure my mom also likes it.”

Cries and Whispers

Ingmar Bergman

Batzomon: “The red is so red, the cries are so sorrowful, and the whispers are so quiet that it's no wonder that this Blu-ray brings the best of Bergman to us.”

The River

Jean Renoir

Batzomon: “Renoir uses colors much like his father did: spectacularly. Criterion uses digital restoration much like its father did: effectively and subtly.”

The Thin Blue Line

Errol Morris

Batzomon: “Errol Morris freed an innocent man with the simple truth, eloquently constructed out of subjective viewpoints to show just how slippery a fact can be.”

The Third Man

Carol Reed

Batzomon: “A vaunted classic on which I spent a fortune, Vienna has never looked or sounded better. Do they still have that ferris wheel there?”

Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville

Batzomon: “The famous French Resistance, everyone likes to claim a part of it yet fewer actually lived it. Melville was one, and he brings the pain to life.”

Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais

Batzomon: “Resnais manages to make any romantic encounter a profound and devastating experience. The same could be said for my ex-wife! No, but this is great.”

Red River

Howard Hawks

Batzomon: “I sure would like to hold Montgomery Clift's gun, and he can hold mine. We could ride hard out on the rough and come back for hot beef with taters.”

A Day in the Country

Jean Renoir

Batzomon: “Renoir didn't even need a whole hour to make a masterpiece. I wish I had a portable player to watch this in the countryside, but inside is also good.”

An Autumn Afternoon

Yasujiro Ozu

Batzomon: “An autumn afternoon with the taste of mackerel in your mouth and a big bottle of sake is made better when it's so sharply defined in Blu-ray, NEEEEE?!”

Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee

Batzomon: “I've been to Bed-Stuy in the summer, but no riot broke out. Good for me, because my name's Raheem. Spike Lee lit the fire; let it never go out.”

4 by Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda

Batzomon: “One of the great living directors, Varda can't be barged-a from the canon for these four alone. She even makes infidelity and cancer scares romantic.”

Trouble in Paradise

Ernst Lubitsch

Batzomon: “Will there ever be another filmmaker as witty as Lubitsch? He made every romance seem like the classiest affair and every actor a legend...for you.”

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Batzomon: “Who knows how many films are out there in the world waiting to be saved? These are but a few, but if this is only the beginning, let's keep going.”

The Essential Jacques Demy

Jacques Demy

Batzomon: “Demy is a delight deserving of dedication to his dynamite...films. They pop off the screen and melt your heart while sending your ears to heaven.”

Eisenstein: The Sound Years

Sergei Eisenstein

Batzomon: “Russia was already pretty insane before the Soviet Union, and Eisenstein lets it glow and roil under his impressive camera and new microphone.”

Eclipse Series 41: Kinoshita and World War II

Keisuke Kinoshita

Batzomon: “Let us never forget the glorious Japanese Empire which thought a Japanese sword was a good weapon against machine guns in an open field.”

Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu—Three Family Comedies

Yasujiro Ozu

Batzomon: “Ozu was always funny, and he didn't even need all those delightful voices. Families are his passion, and these three show great compassion.”

A Canterbury Tale

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Batzomon: “Remember: you have to glue friendly, or the Nazis will take your glue, and then no one will have any glue to glue with! This is easier than Chaucer.”

The Leopard

Luchino Visconti

Batzomon: “Visconti, you lavish bastard! You knew that I wanted to see Burt Lancaster in an Italian epic drama, but how? That's in my private dream journal...”

Ikiru

Akira Kurosawa

Batzomon: “Truly an inspirational film, Kurosawa's masterpiece makes me want to do something with my life. That something was buying Ikiru, so that helps me.”

David Lean Directs Noël Coward

Batzomon: “The best British duo since tea and crumpets, Lean and Coward provide sumptuous tales of war, family, love, and ghosts. I know there's a pun here.”

Mouchette

Robert Bresson

Batzomon: “It's not so much a tearjerker as a soulcrusher. Mouchette never had a chance, and try as you might, you can never save her. Never ever ever. Ever.”

Don't Look Now

Nicolas Roeg

Batzomon: “I didn't ask to see Donald Sutherland nude, but I'm not complaining when it's embedded in a tragedy rendered in red dreams like this very one.”