The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 13, 2002 — In Barbet Schroeder’s portrait of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, we watch a seemingly amiable, thoroughly pompous despot attempt to transform himself into a figure of heroic proportions.
Essays
Apr 29, 2002 — Though set in wartime Soviet Union, Grigori Chukhrai’s drama walks away from the genre of war film, creating a portrait of life and problems behind the lines of battle.
Feb 14, 2002 — Robert Bresson’s second feature is fixed in history as one of the movies that heralded an austere, modernistic way of seeing and feeling.
Nov 19, 2001 — Alfred Hitchcock’s first film in Hollywood is his earliest definitive statement on male domination and female subjugation.
Essays
Sep 17, 2001 — George Sluizer’s nightmarish film is a study in everyday madness, rooted in the specifics of the Dutch and French landscapes and character.
Essays
Aug 20, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s generous-hearted satire achieves a synthesis that is both terribly funny and deeply moving.
Essays
Jun 4, 2001 — Mad with images of nature in rebellion, Luis Buñuel’s 1964 film is a droll vision of Eden during the Fall starring a sumptuous Jeanne Moreau.
Essays
Jan 29, 2001 — Masahiro Shinoda’s historical drama uses traditional elements of Japanese theater to explore the tension between ethics and eroticism.
Dec 18, 2000 — Elegant humor cloaks despair in Luis Buñuel’s masterwork, wherein greedy characters flee their toxic lives and find refuge in the loneliness of dreams.