The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 31, 2000 — Those who felt that Scandinavian cinema had passed into retirement along with Ingmar Bergman should be startled by Insomnia. This immaculately constructed psychological thriller sets a benchmark for other Scandinavian directors to match, and is one of the most unusual...
Jan 27, 2026 — Unencumbered by the white gaze, Reginald Hudlin’s groundbreaking feature-film debut is a celebration of a Black community in all its diversity, featuring fully realized characters who exist not as spectacle but as reality.
Jul 23, 2024 — Chen Kaige’s sweeping epic chronicles the history of twentieth-century China through the story of two childhood friends, contrasting the unchanging traditions of their Beijing-opera milieu with the nation’s swift and turbulent transformation.
The Daily
Sep 14, 2020 — Golden Lion for Chloé Zhao! Plus a look at what the critics have to say about all the award winners.
Jun 11, 2018 — Building on a rich lineage of gothic fairy tales and noirish melodramas, this lavishly stylized curio has an ominous beauty all its own.
May 29, 2018 — John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy is a milestone along several different paths of movie history, all of which converged at the majestically seedy crossroads of Times Square in the spring of 1968.
The Daily
May 7, 2018 — And it’s May ’68 all over again in New York, D.C., and London. Plus Bergman in L.A., Tarkovsky in San Sebastián, and more.
Feb 20, 2017 — Joan Crawford delivers one of her greatest performances in Michael Curtiz’s unsparing look at class, ambition, and the all-consuming intensity of maternal love.
Essays
May 24, 2016 — In The Player, Robert Altman’s early nineties comeback film, the director brilliantly skewers Hollywood—getting all the details right, as only he could—while constructing his own kind of Hollywood Movie.
Nov 17, 2014 — Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable’s effortless banter is pure magic, but Frank Capra’s comedy is rooted in the reality of the times.