The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
May 8, 2017 — With his mix of documentary-like immediacy and profound moral inquiry, Roberto Rossellini became a pioneer of Italian neorealism, a movement that transformed the way filmmakers captured the fabric of everyday life and and grappled with the most urgent social issues...
Apr 27, 2017 — Blending irreverent comedy and surreal eroticism, Juzo Itami’s international hit is a utopian look at the peculiarities of gastronomic culture.
Production Notes
Apr 27, 2017 — 1. As I began work on The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates, I knew that 1960’s Primary was really the birth of what we think of as the modern documentary: observational photography based on access to an interesting subject, presenting...
Apr 19, 2017 — Fresh off her successful collaboration with George Cukor on The Philadelphia Story, Katharine Hepburn secured her comeback after a brief career slump with George Stevens’s 1942 Woman of the Year. This clever battle-of-the-sexes comedy—which marked the actor’s first on-screen partnership...
On the Channel
Apr 4, 2017 — Through an alchemy of stylistic flair and creative restlessness, Seijun Suzuki was able to transcend the by-the-numbers material he was assigned as a director at Japan’s oldest film studio, Nikkatsu, to become one of the most electrifying genre auteurs of...
Essays
Mar 28, 2017 — In his first English-language feature, Michelangelo Antonioni examines the elusiveness of the real through the lens of a murder mystery.
Mar 24, 2017 — Did You See This? In anticipation of the Twin Peaks revival set to debut on Showtime in May, GQ spends time with the infamously elusive David Lynch and compiles some awestruck testimonials from his frequent collaborators, including Laura Dern, Kyle...
Short Takes
Mar 23, 2017 — With a monumental body of work spanning nearly six decades, thirty feature films, and a staggering array of styles and genres, Akira Kurosawa has been a cornerstone of our collection since we released Seven Samurai as our second Criterion edition...
On the Channel
Mar 18, 2017 — The landscape of late-nineties American film culture found a loving chronicler in John Pierson, whose groundbreaking TV series Split Screen premiered on IFC in 1997 and now has its streaming home on the Criterion Channel. In this excerpt from the...
Features
Mar 6, 2017 — To commemorate the anniversary of the late Polish master’s birth this week, critic Michał Oleszczyk pays tribute to his mercurial style, urgent political themes, and sly evasion of the censors.