The Criterion Collection
Essays
Apr 14, 2008 — Allen Baron’s stark, moody Blast of Silence (1961) is a movie of many strange distinctions. It’s among the last of the true film noirs, those fatalistic black-and-white urban crime dramas that darkened the American screen so gloriously in the years...
Essays
Jul 21, 1998 — Samurai III, Duel at Ganryu Island, is the last and best part of Hiroshi Inagaki’s Trilogy. In contrast to the earlier, more action-oriented Samurai I and II, this final section shows its hero Musashi (Toshiro Mifune) struggling with questions as...
Essays
Feb 24, 2026 — Centered on the emotional unraveling of a failed newsman, this darkly prescient satire envisions the collapse of American society as we knew it through an unsparing critique of corporate media and capital accumulation.
The Daily
Dec 2, 2025 — Even as he carries on winning awards, Jafar Panahi is sentenced to another year in prison.
Nov 18, 2025 — A pre-Code aviation epic that makes pioneering use of the era’s innovations in cinematic color and sound, Howard Hughes’s directorial debut was Hollywood’s first modern portrait of World War I.
The Daily
Aug 6, 2025 — Along with its world premieres and restored classics, the festival presents a few films sure to spark debate.
The Daily
Oct 7, 2024 — The winner of the Grand Prix in Cannes is a portrait of three women in Mumbai—and at a crossroads in their lives.
Essays
Jan 16, 2017 — Jack Garfein’s no-holds-barred account of sexual assault and trauma captures the volatile sensibility of the Actors Studio.
Jun 28, 2016 — When Stanley Kubrick bought the motion picture rights to the 1958 thriller Red Alert, by the retired Royal Air Force navigator Peter George, he meant to direct an action film about a nuclear war triggered by a solitary madman. Some...
Sep 10, 2013 — Martin Ritt’s 1965 movie of John le Carré’s first great novel (and first best seller), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, declares “a plague on all your houses” to capitalists, Communists, and ruthless intelligence operatives. It’s one espionage...