The Criterion Collection
Essays
Nov 23, 2008 — The possession of a real voice is always a marvel, an almost religious thing.
Apr 16, 2007 — Following debates about tensions between police and immigrant communities in France, director Mathieu Kassovitz began a public correspondence with the right-wing minister of the interior Nicolas Sarkozy.
Oct 23, 2006 — The New Zealand director’s debut feature is a bridge between her tentative, probing film school works and her subsequent female character studies.
Jun 13, 2005 — Ernst Lubitsch was a big-city director. The historical dramas that he made in Germany in the late 1910s and early 1920s were known around the world for their distinctively urbane approach, focusing on the private lives of public people. This...
Essays
Sep 17, 2001 — Jirí Menzel’s war comedy is an absurdist symphony of self-absorption and impotence.
Essays
May 24, 1999 — Before The Red Shoes, there were films with dance numbers. After it, there was a new medium which combined dance, design, and music in a dreamlike spectacle. Hollywood musicals were quick to pay tribute—An American in Paris was the most...
Jan 11, 1989 — Thursday, March 2, 1944—the United States is in its third year of war with the Axis powers. More than 12 million Americans are fighting on various fronts; the German armies are being repulsed at Anzio and the newspapers have large...
Features
Jul 9, 2021 — A raucous, fast-talking diva, the actor had a remarkable ability to convey both glamour and silliness, a gift that made her the queen of screwball comedy before her untimely death in 1942.
Sep 9, 2019 — In his thought-provoking latest book, the critic and frequent Criterion contributor traces the complex ways European filmmakers have grappled with the influences of Christianity and modernity.