Life in a Year

Aug 21, 2019 — One Scene One of my absolute favorite quotes from Douglas Sirk—and he has a million of ’em—was made in reference to Magnificent Obsession. “It is a combination of kitsch and craziness and trashiness,” he said (this isn’t the quote quite...

Aug 20, 2019 — For the past twelve months I’ve been re-plunging into Ingmar Bergman. It began with a conference in Lund, Sweden, in June of 2018, to mark the centennial of his birth; numerous experts, among them contributors to Criterion’s mammoth edition last...

Jun 11, 2019 — In the mid-1970s, a poet’s circus rolled through the northeast, manifesting the spirit and confusion of the era.

May 22, 2019 — Most critics won’t allow a comically absurd premise or a convoluted plot stand in the way of a good time.

Oct 1, 2018 — A breathtaking, rarely screened vérité document encapsulates the social and aesthetic sea change that transformed France in the spring of 1968.

Aug 30, 2018 — World premieres, the best of the fests, and half a dozen classics selected by guest director Jonathan Lethem.

Apr 17, 2018 — “Almost every Steven Spielberg movie has its antecedent in a TV show, a movie serial or a comic book,” wrote Michael Sragow when he spoke with Spielberg for Rolling Stone in 1981. “The one he feels [Raiders of the Lost...

Mar 20, 2018 — The careers of three iconic German artists—Bertolt Brecht, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Volker Schlöndorff—converged in this unflinching portrait of destructive genius.

Mar 20, 2018 — Graphic artist and filmmaker Sam Ashby, whose short The Colour of His Hair is featured on the Criterion Channel this week, speaks with us about a turbulent moment in UK queer history.

Aug 17, 2017 — Zhao Tao (Mountains May Depart) and Liao Fan (Black Coal, Thin Ice) are set to star in Jia Zhangke’s new film, Ash Is Purest White,” a project formerly known as “Money & Love,” reports Variety’s Elsa Keslassy. “An epic love...