High and Low

Aug 18, 2017 — In this unsparing drama, Mike Leigh captures the grim mood of Thatcher’s England through the frustrations of a working-class London family.

Feb 20, 2017 — Joan Crawford delivers one of her greatest performances in Michael Curtiz’s unsparing look at class, ambition, and the all-consuming intensity of maternal love.

Sep 20, 2016 — Cloaked in chiaroscuro and innuendo, this stylistically innovative creature feature leaves its greatest horrors to the imagination.

Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.

Jun 17, 2013 — The author recounts the story of his friendship with the great filmmaker.

Dec 11, 2009 — This expansive tribute to the iconic Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai was first published on the Criterion Collection’s website in fall 2005, around the time of the Criterion releases of two films starring Nakadai: Kurosawa’s Ran and the less well-known samurai...

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...

May 19, 2026 — “My history’s burning up out here,” Ned Racine (William Hurt) tells his lover in the opening minutes of Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut, Body Heat (1981). Ned, a small-time attorney and local roué in his South Florida beach town, recognizes the...

Jun 2, 2025 — More than a hundred films likely to make you feel bad in all the best ways will screen in eight cities this month.

Jul 29, 2024 — Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on the Bard were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines the ambiguously queer tensions in the history play Henry IV.