The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jul 19, 2004 — In Yasujiro Ozu’s hands, the extended-family drama widened its focus to encompass friends, neighbors, and employers.
Essays
Mar 15, 2004 — This Japanese classic’s guiding passion is hunger, and its central image—a gaping black hole in the earth—is that of an all-consuming maw.
Mar 13, 2004 — With uncharacteristic warmth and affection for human frailty, Ingmar Bergman raises the question of how love can possibly last forever.
Jun 23, 2003 — The following text is from Michael Töteberg’s presentation of a collection of Fassbinder screenplays (The Merchant of Four Seasons, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fontane Effi Briest), which were published in Germany as Fassbinders Filme, Band 3 (Fassbinder’s Films, Vol....
Essays
Jun 26, 2000 — Brief Encounter was the fourth and final film that David Lean made in association with Noël Coward. Derived from Still Life, a one-act play which Coward included in the portmanteau Tonight 8:30, the story tells of a suburban housewife, Laura...
Jun 21, 1994 — From the opening credits of Spike Lee’s seminal film, She’s Gotta Have It, viewers in 1986 were able to recognize the presence of an extraordinary talent. For it was Lee, a graduate of the New York University’s Tisch School of...
Dec 16, 1991 — Lady for a Day represented a watershed in the career of Frank Capra. The young director had been laboring at Columbia Pictures’ Poverty Row Studio, churning out 18 films in less than six years. He had moved from low-budget programmers...
Essays
Jan 7, 1991 — Vittorio de Sica remembers the inspirations behind and the making of his classic film.
Essays
May 12, 2026 — Sexuality—how one defines it, lives with it, hides it, shuns it, or wields it—is inextricable from matters of socioeconomic class, though rare is the American film that centralizes this intersectional reality. The foundational myth of the American dream puts forth...
Apr 21, 2026 — Since its debut in 2024 at the New York Film Festival, the Criterion Mobile Closet has made wildly successful stops in cities across the United States and Canada. For our first trip this year, in partnership with PAM CUT, Criterion...