The Criterion Collection
Dec 5, 2005 — René Clément’s masterpiece is dedicated to the radical Freudian proposal that living matter seeks the comfort of oblivion.
Essays
May 17, 2004 — Banned by the Third Reich before it was even released, Fritz Lang’s denunciation of Nazi Germany is a compellingly contemporary image of terrorism in an age of universal conspiracy and advanced technology.
Mar 18, 2003 — Director William Dieterle’s 1941 film adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is a melodramatic fever dream, a hallucinatory tour de force.
Essays
Aug 20, 2001 — Carl Dreyer considers the work of art’s soul in this excerpt from Dreyer in Double Reflection.
Dec 18, 2000 — Elegant humor cloaks despair in Luis Buñuel’s masterwork, wherein greedy characters flee their toxic lives and find refuge in the loneliness of dreams.
Essays
Mar 17, 2026 — In her first and only theatrical feature, director Lynne Littman presents an unbearably intimate vision of apocalypse, focusing on the effects of a nuclear blast on one suburban American family.
Jan 26, 2023 — This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.
The Daily
Feb 16, 2022 — Among the notable titles competing this year are new films from Sho Miyake, Gastón Solnicki, and Ashley McKenzie.
On the Channel
Mar 29, 2021 — Channel Calendars Next month, the Criterion Channel ups the ante with a collection of some of the greatest films ever made about the pulse-racing highs and gutter-dwelling lows of gambling. We’re also dealing out the Marx Brothers’ anarchic comedies, sublime...
Essays
Jun 17, 2018 — The stakes are high. An unknown entertainer newly arrived in a foreign country prepares for her first performance, under pressure to make a hit with a restless, rowdy audience. It is a hot night; the crowd exudes a collective humidity,...