We Have Only One Life

May 1, 2018 — Working within the strict rules and tight budget of a commissioned television project, one of France’s finest contemporary directors made an artistic breakthrough that would go on to define his career.

Oct 2, 2014 — People struggle to escape their socially dictated roles in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s moving, Douglas Sirk–inspired melodrama.

Jan 11, 2011 — Given the scarcity of information available in the sixties, director Byron Haskin did a remarkable job of representing some of the conditions on our nearest planetary neighbor, nearly a year before the first close-up views of the real Martian surface.

Feb 5, 2026 — In a collection of behind-the-scenes documentaries now playing on the Criterion Channel, legendary female performers assert their agency over their screen personae and find freedom in the glamour and artifice of their profession.

Oct 24, 2025 — This French art-horror master shocked audiences with a string of sexy vampire movies often centered on complex female friendships and women-ruled fantasy worlds.

Dec 12, 2023 — Deep Dives Beloved for his poetic observations of domestic life and intergenerational conflict, Yasujiro Ozu is an icon of international art-house cinema whose patient, exquisitely restrained style has influenced filmmakers around the world. But even though he directed more than...

Aug 22, 2023 — In 1962, the young Bo Widerberg threw a grenade into the complacent waters of Swedish cinema. It came in the form of four articles in the evening newspaper Expressen—followed by a book version titled Vision in 
Swedish Film—in which Widerberg...

Aug 10, 2023 — “You’re the company I waited so long for,” Dr. Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton) says to her three Self Replicating Automatons in Teknolust (2002), artist Lynn Hershman Leeson’s sci-fi farce about a scientist’s well-meaning pursuit of artificial life. Stone’s color-coded clones...

Jun 15, 2023 — A major star in the 1970s, she retired to serve as a Labour MP, and then returned to widespread acclaim.

Jul 12, 2022 — In David Lean’s Venice-set romance, a fleeting love affair prompts a woman’s self-exploration.