The Criterion Collection
Sep 25, 2013 — Roberto Rossellini’s tale of modern sainthood demonstrates the importance of opening oneself to the wider world.
Jul 19, 2010 — “It is the most erotic film that I have ever made,” wrote Michael Powell of Black Narcissus. “It is all done by suggestion, but eroticism is in every frame and image, from the beginning to the end.”
Aug 14, 2006 — The appearance of Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales in the midst of the sixties’ sexual revolution brought unexpected sobriety to the European sexual drama and the comedy of erotic manners. Their stateside popularity successfully challenged the sauciness and candor audiences were...
Dec 5, 2005 — René Clément’s masterpiece is dedicated to the radical Freudian proposal that living matter seeks the comfort of oblivion.
The Daily
Nov 26, 2025 — This short week brings writing on Wong Kar Wai’s first series and Kubrick’s and Pasolini’s last features.
Features
Sep 26, 2025 — One of the most provocative subgenres of 1970s exploitation cinema, nunsploitation explores the collision of sex and religious dogma through stories of desperately horny women of the cloth.
Aug 28, 2025 — Made for public television, this moving vérité documentary about three terminally ill cancer patients is one of the purest expressions of the director’s career-long preoccupation with human fragility.
May 20, 2025 — A film about and against everything, this astonishingly original comedy attacks Big Brother, the bomb, and the incipient collapse of our planetary ecosystem, along with the lies that stop us from recognizing all of the above.
Nov 19, 2024 — William Wyler’s adaptation of the Broadway musical celebrates the indomitability of vaudeville legend Fanny Brice, embodied by Barbra Streisand in an incandescent and remarkably vulnerable performance.
The Daily
May 1, 2024 — Films by Horace Ové, Menelik Shabazz, John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, and more depict Black lives in a tumultuous era.