The Criterion Collection
May 20, 2010 — Driven to Destruction Nagisa Oshima was a destructive force in Japanese cinema—and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Intent on exploding taboos and jabbing the eye of the status quo, he created films that leave us with a...
May 19, 2010 — Plenty of ink has been expended over the years on the turbulent friendship between Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, which helped define the French New Wave in the 1960s. Now those stories jump off the page and onto the screen...
Apr 28, 2010 — Just over halfway through Ang Lee’s masterful Civil War drama Ride with the Devil, the small group of men at the story’s center, young, Southern-sympathizing Bushwhackers fighting in divided Missouri, meet up with other ragtag bands of rebels. Coalescing under...
Mar 30, 2010 — The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with precious few directors of his generation....
Mar 24, 2010 — Congratulations to the winner of our final Kurosawa birthday giveaway, Dan Thompson! He responded to our challenge to craft a single persuasive sentence for getting a friend who is unfamiliar with Kurosawa to watch one of his films with the...
This maverick director—one of the most audacious filmmakers to make his breakthrough in the 1970s—is known for his sprawling ensemble casts, richly layered narratives, and searing assessments of American culture and politics.
Mar 17, 2010 — 1. A Park—Night A man aflame is running directly toward camera. This image, which comes from Nicholas Ray’s initial treatment for Rebel Without a Cause, might stand at the head of almost any of Ray’s movies, since it so clearly...
Mar 5, 2010 — Congratulations to yesterday’s winners, Joe and Michael! Joe’s Hollywood-style tagline for Ikiru was: This summer: Death is only the beginning. And Michael’s, for Rashomon, was: He said. She said. He said. He said. March is Akira Kurosawa month at Criterion....
Jan 26, 2010 — If Paris, Texas is a love letter to America and American cinema, it now also has something of the feel of a farewell: the world to which Wenders pays homage is vanishing fast.
Jan 26, 2010 — "All roads lead to Rome Open City,” Jean-Luc Godard once said, playing on the old Italian proverb—and meaning, we can assume, that when thinking about modern cinema, one always has to come to terms with Roberto Rossellini’s seminal film. Indeed,...