The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 31, 1999 — As a tour de force of screen acting, Autumn Sonata stands unchallenged as the finest work of Ingmar Bergman’s last few years as a movie director. Fanny and Alexander may have won the Oscars, but Autumn Sonata represents Bergman’s chamber...
The actor, comedian, and screenwriter shares why he thinks Secrets & Lies is Mike Leigh’s “juiciest” work, praises the powerful simplicity of The Celebration, and selects contemporary films that have inspired him, like Anatomy of a Fall and The Worst...
The actor and producer praises the groundbreaking work of martial-arts legends Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, shares her love for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and remembers the thrill of seeing The Grifters for the first time.
The writer and director talks about the influence of Samuel Fuller’s films on his own, shares what makes Fat Girl so viscerally devastating, and praises the legendary work of Youssef Chahine.
The writer-director talks about the Yasujiro Ozu classic that inspired his film Little Men, the underrated work of Francesco Rosi, the golden age of repertory cinema in New York City, and a college course in which he studied Shoah for...
The Palme d’Or–winning Belgian duo talk about their friends Jane Campion and Cristian Mungiu, a Krzysztof Kieślowski masterpiece that has influenced their own work, and the “profound loneliness” of Barbara Loden’s Wanda.
Chrystel Oloukoï is an artist, film critic, and curator focusing on experimental cinema, queer cinema, and Black continental and diasporic cinema. They hold a PhD from Harvard University and work at the University of Washington. Their writing has appeared in...
Film journalist Craigh Barboza teaches at New York University and has written for Cineaste, Film Comment, and the Hollywood Reporter. His book John Singleton: Interviews, a study of the director’s work, is part of the series Conversations with Filmmakers (University...
Justin Chang is a film critic at the New Yorker and NPR’s Fresh Air. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his work at the Los Angeles Times.