On the Line

May 12, 2016 — When director Amy Heckerling visited Criterion, she reflected on her days as a struggling filmmaker, the allure and disappointment of moving to the West Coast, and her love for old-Hollywood actors.

Apr 4, 2016 — Ray Dolby did not match the conventional image of an eccentric inventor, nor that of a business mogul. But his name now represents a benchmark by which the recording of sound and its playback on disc and in movie theaters...

Mar 29, 2016 — Today, we’re celebrating the release on Blu-ray and DVD of Les Blank’s legendary Leon Russell music documentary A Poem Is a Naked Person. And while we’re on the topic of fascinating nonfiction filmmaking, we’re also taking a look at a...

Dec 1, 2015 — Critic Todd McCarthy takes an inside look at Michael Ritchie's outdoor drama, which he calls “spare, cut to the bone, as fine as dry powder. Had Hemingway ever written about competitive skiing, this would have been the right style with...

Oct 15, 2015 — Arnaud Desplechin stopped by for a visit and dispensed a few of his gems of wisdom.

Sep 28, 2015 — Rarely has schizophrenia been closer to the surface of American cinema than in the transitional period of 1968–71. Hollywood had just abandoned its censorship code after nearly thirty-five years, and the behemoth studios were heaving and rattling into oblivion or...

Sep 23, 2015 — Bruce Beresford draws on a controversial episode of Australian colonial history from 1901 to create an electrifying drama that questions the moral certitude of war.

Aug 17, 2015 — François Truffaut’s love letter to the movies is a lightheartedly self-reflexive symphony of camera movement and musical flourish.

Aug 13, 2015 — The films Agnès Varda made while living on the West Coast of the United States are some of the most searching and challenging of her stellar career.

Jun 29, 2015 — This work of hallucinatory lyricism was one of the final and freest expressions of the rule-flouting New Wave movement in Czechoslovakia.