The Master

Jul 7, 2008 — Every decade since 1984 the Toronto International Film Festival has conducted a poll of film scholars, critics, and directors to determine the ten best movies in the history of Canadian cinema. This top-ten list has changed somewhat over the years,...

Aug 20, 2001 — Carl Dreyer’s 17th-century period piece leaves all major questions frustratingly unresolved yet vibrantly open, quivering and radiant with life and meaning.

Oct 12, 1998 — Are there cultural purists still remaining who would argue that the “Westernized” title of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 masterpiece—High and Low—throws polluted water on the cosmological fire of its given name: Tengoku to jigoku—literally, Heaven and Hell?Kurosawa’s once insisted-upon reputation as...

Nov 6, 1989 — If you had to choose one movie to have with you while stranded on an island, the choice might well be Lawrence of Arabia. Considered by many as one of the greatest films ever made, it received seven Academy Awards...

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Jul 6, 2017 — Our very first DVD edition, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece Grand Illusion, streams on the Criterion Channel in celebration of the film’s eightieth anniversary.

Extending from the “kitchen-sink dramas” of the early sixties to contemporary masters like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, the tradition of social realism in British film runs strong.

Dec 1, 2009 — Running a taut ninety-one minutes, this documentary about the Rolling Stones is a masterpiece of restraint and understatement.

Feb 2, 2004 — A story about defeat and failure, Robert Bresson’s masterpiece is a milestone in the slow process of the liberation of postwar French cinema

The director of The Living End and The Doom Generation reminisces about writing papers on Bringing Up Baby in film school, defends one of David Lynch’s most polarizing masterpieces, and calls John Waters “the original godfather of everything.”