The Criterion Collection
Essays
Aug 4, 2003 — Shohei Imamura’s lurid black comedy showcases the director’s passion for everything that’s kinky, lowlife, or irrational in Japanese culture.
Nov 11, 2002 — A second Monterey International Pop Festival has for the past month been put in jeopardy by a vicious handful of citizens, cops, and city officials in a small-town drama straight from Peyton Place and The Invaders.
Essays
Oct 15, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s beloved comedy provides insights into the way Hollywood formulas work on us.
Nov 8, 1999 — The virgin of Orleans and those matters that surrounded her death began to interest me when the shepherd girl’s canonization in 1920* once again drew the attention of the public-at-large to the events and actions involving her—and not only in...
Dec 9, 1991 — This rarely seen, overlooked gem, featuring what may be one of Marlon Brando’s most fascinating characterizations, was Gillo Pontecorvo’s worthy follow-up to his political masterpiece The Battle of Algiers. The brilliant radical Italian director achieved something unique in cinema, by...
Essays
Oct 12, 1987 — For more than forty years, The Seventh Seal has been a benchmark by which all other great foreign films are judged. It launched the international career of its director, Ingmar Bergman, and made a star of its 27-year-old leading actor,...
On the Channel
May 24, 2019 — From the delicate ennui of 2003’s Tokyo-set Lost in Translation through the languorously evoked nineteenth-century South of 2017’s The Beguiled, Oscar winner Sofia Coppola has, over the last two decades, established herself as one of contemporary cinema’s most stylistically adept and...
The Daily
Jun 11, 2026 — An adaptation of Night and Day follows two new reimaginings of Mrs. Dalloway.
The Daily
Nov 15, 2019 — This week’s highlights take us from post-apocalyptic cityscapes to the deepest jungles of Southeast Asia, from the sound stages of Hollywood to the coal mines of West Virginia.
Nov 29, 2017 — Tracy Letts is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play August: Osage County and a Tony Award for his portrayal of George in a revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia...