The Criterion Collection
On the Channel
Mar 30, 2017 — Released in 1973, near the end of General Franco’s military dictatorship, Víctor Erice’s strikingly poetic first film, The Spirit of the Beehive, reflects on the earliest days of the regime, depicting the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in an...
On the Channel
Dec 12, 2016 — Patriotic masterminds choreograph capers from secret headquarters while dashing secret agents execute their plans by the light of flashing blades and gunfire. Jeopardy escalates second to second until our heroes and heroines escape by the skin of their teeth. Spy...
Short Takes
Nov 18, 2016 — Artists across all mediums have long been obsessed with the challenge of evoking dream states, but film—with its oneiric combinations of light and shadow, and its ability to manipulate time and space—has particularly uncanny access to our nighttime reveries. Whether...
Oct 18, 2016 — Guillermo del Toro’s anti–Wizard of Oz refracts the surreal traumas of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of a young girl.
Features
Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.
May 25, 2016 — For the past ten years, we’ve been proudly welcoming the Bronx-based school’s students into our Criterion family. As the 2016 school year ends, we’re thrilled to watch another class of young filmmakers express their vision and employ what they’ve learned...
Apr 12, 2016 — Howard Hawks’s 1939 aviation classic Only Angels Have Wings is an exemplar of the auteurist Hollywood entertainer’s capability to fuse “a personal existential statement and a delightful piece of showmanship.”
In Theaters
Nov 19, 2015 — There’s no better time than a crisp Sunday evening in November to cozy up and take in a spooky Victorian ghost story. This weekend, if you’re in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, you can do just that.
Nov 4, 2015 — In the midst of a tumultuous period in his life and career, Ingmar Bergman made one of his most ebullient comedies.
In Theaters
Jul 30, 2015 — Repertory PicksTonight, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley is welcoming the great Spanish director Víctor Erice (The Spirit of the Beehive, El sur), to talk about his career with film scholar Richard Peña. In addition to screening all of Erice’s...