The Criterion Collection
Lesley Brill is the author of The Hitchcock Romance (Princeton, 1988) and John Huston's Filmmaking (Cambridge, 1997). He teaches film studies at Wayne State University, Detroit.
Maurice Yacowar is Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and the author of The Films of Paul Morrisey (Cambridge University Press).
Jul 23, 2021 — Deep Dives In later years, Buster Keaton referred to his signing of a contract with MGM as “the worst mistake of my career.” In 1928 it was purely a business decision. The last few films he had made for his own...
Sneak Peeks
Sep 10, 2013 — Novelist John Le Carré created one of literature’s most fascinating characters in Alec Leamas, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’s main heavy, who is on a final, fateful mission in East Germany. In Martin Ritt’s movie version, now...
Jul 22, 2026 — The filmmaker looks back on the experiences that have shaped his creative life, including his time in art school, his work as a graphic designer and music-video director, and his early interest in documentary cinema.
The Daily
Jul 21, 2026 — New restorations of the first three features premiere this weekend, followed by a retrospective next month.
Jul 21, 2026 — Harry Dean Stanton’s Jerry Schue doesn’t get on-screen until a full hour of Ulu Grosbard’s Straight Time (1978) has passed. Unlike Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man, Stanton’s character hasn’t been discussed, chewed over, anticipated, and foreshadowed for...
Jul 21, 2026 — At the beginning of Cruel Story of Youth (1960), the title splashes across the screen in fiery red. Each of the three Japanese words that appear offers a key to understanding director Nagisa Oshima’s breakthrough film and the energies that...
On the Channel
Jul 17, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, crank up the volume on our playlist of (actually good) rock biopics that go beyond cliché to explore the elusive place where inspiration sparks and musical legends are born. Our Southern Gothic...
The Daily
Jul 17, 2026 — Some early reviews raise a few objections, but for the most part, Nolan is wowing critics with his grandest vision yet.