The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jan 20, 2026 — The constant negotiation of routine pleasure and profound sorrow—the experience of being human—is at the heart of John Huston’s final film, an exquisite adaptation of James Joyce’s classic short story.
Nov 25, 2025 — Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella Traumnovelle, Stanley Kubrick’s final film is a deeply personal examination of the fragility of marriage and the destructive power of sexual fantasy.
Nov 18, 2025 — Though the first two decades of the Iranian filmmaker’s career have long been underappreciated, this fertile period yielded philosophical and restlessly innovative works that reinvigorated both documentary and narrative-fiction cinema.
The Daily
Nov 11, 2025 — “It’s the end of the world, but keep dancing,” says Laxe.
Oct 24, 2025 — It is hard to conceive of a film more dazzlingly, dizzyingly divided against itself—or one more appropriately so—than this delirious creation of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and director Ken Russell.
Sep 24, 2025 — Jacques Audiard’s Paris-set drama about small-time hoodlum with musical ambitions crystallized his identity as an artist with a high degree of confidence and control.
Sep 16, 2025 — In response to the suffocating conservatism of the eighties, Lizzie Borden crafted a pluralistic vision of a feminist front that neither ignores difference nor lets it stand as an immovable obstacle to political solidarity.
The Daily
Sep 8, 2025 — Father Mother Sister Brother and The Voice of Hind Rajab win top awards in Venice.
Aug 26, 2025 — Alice Wu’s feature debut is a romantic comedy in which the most compelling relationship is the one between a young queer Chinese American woman and her long-widowed mother.
May 27, 2025 — A landmark of independent cinema, Charles Burnett’s debut feature captures daily life in Watts, Los Angeles, with a depth and precision that evokes the history of Black American music.