The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 11, 1986 — If events had turned out differently, Orson Welles’s second film might well be widely regarded as “the greatest film of all time.”
Essays
Dec 9, 1985 — Movie thrillers may come and go, but after half a century, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps still reigns supreme. And not only for the sheer, breathless excitement of the story; the seamless construction; the chilling, beautifully realized atmosphere; and the...
The performer, comedian, and author praises Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a drag-queen staple, discovers a lacerating self-portrait by Richard Pryor, and talks about the immense cultural impact of Paris Is Burning.
In June 2025, the New York Times published a list of the 100 best movies released since January 1, 2000, as voted on by more than 500 influential directors, actors, and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world....
Once every decade, Sight and Sound magazine polls film critics from around the world and issues a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. The 2022 edition features 65 films available from Criterion, including the one voted the...
The subjects of Crystal Moselle’s award-winning 2015 documentary show off their voracious appetite for cinema, saluting films by everyone from Stan Brakhage to Jean Renoir to Alex Cox to Wes Anderson.
The filmmaking duo talk about their love of black-and-white cinema, the influence of Carl Theodor Dreyer, and the epic scope of The Human Condition.
Sep 21, 2026 — A Japanese-television phenomenon that sparked a boom in anime production and fandom, Hideaki Anno’s magnum opus is a mind-bending mix of kinetic action, sci-fi spectacle, and introspective human drama.
Jul 14, 2026 — One of the funniest and most affecting scenes in 1970s Hollywood cinema is also one of the most quietly radical—no small feat in a decade of movies marked by wiggy experimentation, explosions of brutal and cathartic violence, and shaggy new...