The Criterion Collection
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.
Feb 2, 2017 — In her just-released Sundance hit The Lure, Agnieszka Smoczyńska evokes both the decadence and decrepitude of 1980s Poland through the adventures of Silver and Gold, two man-eating mermaid sisters who decide to go terrestrial and soon become a nightclub singing...
Nov 15, 2016 — Akira Kurosawa lays bare his deepest fears in this visually astonishing interpretation of folklore, myth, and the director’s own dreams and memories.
Essays
Oct 21, 2015 — Masaki Kobayashi takes on broken vows and the unreality of the past in his sensual and spooky four-part adaptation of Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese folktales.
Sep 8, 2015 — Brian De Palma magnifies the pleasures and perils of Hitchcock and toys with the viewer’s spectatorship in his sly and scary horror masterpiece.
Short Takes
Sep 3, 2015 — Wes Craven, who died this week at age seventy-six, was a horror master with few equals in contemporary American movies. The director of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream may not often be spoken of in the same breath...
Features
Jul 17, 2014 — When I was in high school in the late ’70s, one of my closest pals was a semiprofessional magician. A top-flight pianist as well, Charles was making some tidy sums as an entertainer in restaurants and clubs around North Jersey...
Jun 17, 2014 — The brutal lessons of Vietnam remained in America’s national consciousness for a generation. September 11 gave us collective amnesia, and they’ve had to be learned again.
Features
Mar 26, 2014 — The author recalls his encounters with the great Swedish actress.
Jan 28, 2014 — Terence Davies beckons the viewer into a private world of moods and sensations with this exquisite childhood reverie.