The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jan 23, 2017 — In his radical debut feature, Ousmane Sembène reveals the agony of the postcolonial experience through the story of a Senegalese migrant abused by her French employers.
Nov 16, 2016 — The joy of new love collides with the anxieties of everyday life in Paul Thomas Anderson’s off-kilter foray into romantic comedy.
Nov 8, 2016 — This adaptation of one of the most influential series in manga history is a delirious mix of breathtaking swordplay and pop vulgarity.
Essays
Oct 26, 2016 — The tropes of light comedy give way to a Kafkaesque nightmare in this incendiary critique of moral rot in Franco-era Spain.
Sep 27, 2016 — This monumental meditation on the Ten Commandments captures the spiritual undercurrents of life in late-Communist Poland.
Apr 26, 2016 — “It is not an exaggeration to say that before Primary, documentary as we know it today—the art of candid observation—didn’t exist,” writes Thom Powers.
Mar 24, 2016 — With Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day finally available in the U.S., screenwriter Hung Hung talks about his working relationship with Yang, the film’s truncated distribution and slow path to acclaim, and the real-life roots of its narrative.
Essays
Feb 24, 2016 — Fifty years after its initial release, Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well is only now emerging as a dazzling peer of the classics of 1960s Italian cinema.
Nov 18, 2015 — Richard Brooks’s In Cold Blood applied cinematic specificity and flair to the literary realism of Truman Capote’s classic “nonfiction novel.”
Jun 17, 2015 — Taking the form of a casual conversation, Louis Malle’s film about transformative experiences is an outgrowth of its writer-stars’ experimental theater days.