Life and a Day

Aug 16, 2011 — “It is my best film. I always loved it. I always believed in it. It is real cinema, done for cinema—like art for art.” That was Roman Polanski’s view of Cul-de-sac in 1970, four years after its release and just...

Jun 27, 2005 — Like his earlier adaptations of Terence Rattigan plays, Anthony Asquith’s late work is bereft of heavy-handed directorial flourishes.

Aug 30, 2022 — A lyrical study of a farming community in Ethiopia, Jessica Beshir’s debut feature reckons with the consequences of the region’s reliance on the cash crop khat.

Jan 31, 2023 — In this shape-shifting exploration of creativity, couplehood, and artistic influence, Mia Hansen-Løve offers a glimpse at the existential heavy lift required by her deceptively simple autofictions.

Nov 2, 2022 — The director of Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country discusses his formative artistic encounters, his eclectic professional background, and on-screen Indigenous representation.

Jun 4, 2021 — The festival returns with a full-to-bursting official selection that includes an entirely new program.

Jul 1, 2018 — In one of Criterion’s earliest commentary tracks, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader talk about how they got lucky with their gripping New York City classic.

Nov 12, 2007 — What is left of Berlin Alexanderplatz, this endless canon of the sublime and the trivial, is thus a perpetuum mobile of the human dance of love and death.

Aug 14, 2007 — When I found out last year that we’d be working on Days of Heaven, I got goose bumps. It’s always been one of my favorite films, and I had wished it could be in the Criterion Collection ever since I...

Jan 9, 2026 — The director of some of the bleakest films ever made once claimed all they were all comedies—except one.