The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
May 16, 2016 — Almost from the moment she made her breakthrough performance in Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City, Anna Magnani became an icon of Italian cinema. Her ferocious presence and multifaceted talent continued to enliven the work of a wide range of directors,...
Dec 8, 2015 — In Speedy, Harold Lloyd, a comic genius who thought of himself as a quintessentially average American man, places his optimistic everyman character within the context of a society in shift, to great comedic effect.
Essays
Oct 13, 2015 — Divorce wreaks a particularly devastating form of havoc in David Cronenberg's personal take on the dissolution of a marriage.
Aug 12, 2015 — Director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter’s brilliant adaptation of John Fowles’s novel focuses on the experiences of women in two radically different eras.
Jul 30, 2015 — It is now thirty years since the release of Stephen Frears’s film, which was both a product of and a response to the social and political landscape of 1980s Britain and depicted the lives of Pakistani immigrants with wit and...
Jan 13, 2015 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s characters play an endlessly layered game of dress-up in this tale of sadomasochistic love.
Jul 29, 2014 — The writer and director is inspired by Lawrence Kasdan’s classic comic drama to consider the joys and disappointments of the baby boomer generation that begot her.
Dec 6, 2011 — One of the delights of Alfred Hitchcock’s comic thriller is the wit with which it pins down a distinctly British insular mindset.
Features
Nov 16, 2011 — The Rules of the Game is one of the best-loved films of all time. The following is a selection of tributes to it from writers and directors, originally included in the 2004 Criterion DVD edition. Paul Schrader, Writer-Director The...
Oct 26, 2011 — Performances The galumphing hulk who terrorized early sound cinema audiences in Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932), Boris Karloff was the movies’ politest monster. Even in his darkest on-screen moments, the London-born Karloff (né William Henry Pratt) exhibited a regal...