The Tale

Aug 5, 2010 — I work in the editorial department here at Criterion, and I’ve recently taken it on myself to do a little poking around at the office, to find out what my colleagues have going on and share that with visitors to...

Nov 9, 2008 — Ken Ogata was a brave and talented actor. He took chances in a system that discouraged risk taking. I had been told that no reputable Japanese actor would star in Mishima because of the controversy surrounding Mishima and the notion...

Jun 30, 2008 — The idea of self-fashioning—of deliberately taking the raw materials of one’s body and mind and transforming them into a work of art—has been with us at least since the Renaissance. Yet no one, not even Oscar Wilde, has so rigorously...

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

May 15, 2000 — Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, the first fully-achieved feature by the woman who would become the premiere female director of her generation, dazzled when it opened, and looks even more timely today in its tackling of the fashionable...

A love of monsters (and state-of-the-art prosthetics!) distinguishes the hauntingly beautiful work of this Mexican filmmaker, whose dark fairy tales are triumphs of the imagination.

May 29, 2026 — We’re revisiting work by Tarkovsky, Pelechian, and Portabella as well as two films with the word Dead in the title.

Aug 19, 2025 — This month’s programming celebrates the centenary of the great American filmmaker Robert Altman, the career of Oscar-winning actor Jodie Foster, and much more.

Jul 17, 2024 — This month, we’re celebrating the expansive, archetype-exploding films of Paul Thomas Anderson, as well as the career of his frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Jul 19, 2023 — Next month, we’re celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of hip-hop and featuring collections of films by Kay Francis, Roger Corman, and Lou Ye.