The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 18, 2018 — Half a century before Julien Duvivier made his 1946 film Panique, the French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon published his influential study of mob behavior, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, in which he argued that recent upheavals in...
Dec 7, 2018 — Christian Petzold’s films are like dances in which people circle each other but never quite connect. The most resonant moments in the German writer-director’s work are not ones of dialogue or plot development but of blocking and choreography: bodies intertwining,...
Dec 3, 2018 — True Stories, David Byrne’s 1986 paean to American eccentricity and ordinariness, called to me from the shelves of a video store in Austin, Texas. Subtitled “A Film About a Bunch of People in Virgil, Texas,” True Stories is not “true”...
The Daily
Nov 28, 2018 — The career of one of Italy’s greatest directors was riddled with scandal and accolades.
Nov 26, 2018 — Even as he chronicles the downfall of an American family, Orson Welles brings a sense of buoyancy to this grim saga through his virtuoso storytelling.
The Daily
Nov 26, 2018 — The cinematographer-turned-director reinvigorated British cinema with bold color and nonlinear storytelling.
Features
Nov 20, 2018 — In the aftermath of the political turmoil that swept through France in 1968, Sylvina Boissonnas used her wealth to sponsor some of the most radical films of the era, including works by Philippe Garrel and Jackie Raynal.
Nov 20, 2018 — The loss of Pablo Ferro and Douglas Rain reminds us that Kubrick had a sharp eye for unique talent.
Nov 19, 2018 — Billy Wilder proves himself one of cinema’s greatest pleasure seekers in this irresistible confection, a landmark of Hollywood comedy.
Nov 19, 2018 — The great German director reflects on her first experience with Ingmar Bergman’s classic meditation on mortality, a film that opened her eyes to the possibilities of cinema.