The Criterion Collection
Essays
Nov 10, 1986 — Max Ophuls’s masterpiece is a transformation of a conventional subject into an avant-garde adventure, and a spectacular stylistic breakthrough in the utilization of wide screen and color.
Aug 17, 2015 — François Truffaut’s love letter to the movies is a lightheartedly self-reflexive symphony of camera movement and musical flourish.
Feb 24, 2026 — For this existential noir, Joel and Ethan Coen drew inspiration from crime-fiction master James M. Cain’s lean, hard-boiled style and interest in the quotidian world of work.
Essays
Jul 19, 2022 — Centered on a grieving theater director and his driver, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning drama is a quiet meditation on the mysteries of communication, the flexibility of truth, and the search for honesty.
Essays
Aug 14, 2012 — The camera never stops moving in the Dardenne brothers’ portrait of a troubled teenage girl desperate for a job.
Essays
Oct 4, 2011 — No film better illustrates Pier Paolo Pasolini’s challenge to conventional representations, to the social and cultural consensus, than his 1976 masterwork.
Apr 25, 2011 — In 1981, the legendary critic went all out for Blow Out, which she thought was De Palma's most mature work to date.
Sep 21, 2010 — Warrendale: Man of ActionAllan King was one of cinema’s most acute chroniclers of unadorned reality, but the term documentary seems too puny to describe the intense, passionate stories he contrived to fashion from that reality. King’s early nonfiction features are...
Mar 30, 2010 — The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with precious few directors of his generation....
Oct 21, 2025 — Set in a postcard-perfect American town, David Cronenberg’s provocative take on the old-fashioned crime thriller examines the pleasure we derive from cinematic violence and the construction of patriarchal impunity.