The Criterion Collection
Jul 26, 2019 — Brought to harrowing life in this film adaptation, George Orwell’s dystopian vision continues to ring true today. But so does his belief in the power of love and hope to overthrow the darkness.
Sep 23, 2013 — The neorealist master and the Hollywood icon forged a brilliant artistic path together, despite the backlash their controversial romance generated.
Essays
Aug 19, 2002 — René Clair’s musical comedy comprises a window on a particular lost black and white neverworld—bouncy with melody, soaked in spring light, wistful about the conflicted relationship between serendipity and love.
Oct 19, 2023 — Her entrance in the film is impossible to forget. She swings into the scene to serve a patron some coffee, holding a cup in one hand and a book in the other. Her diamond-shaped face is obscured, but her aura...
Mar 12, 2019 — By dint of perseverance, Harold Lloyd, the modest son of Burchard, Nebraska, became the prince of Hollywood, California, where he lived the Horatio Alger dream. His life and his memorable films alike echo Alger’s theme of young men who apply...
Aug 30, 2017 — “Can there be any clearer signal of reality warping as we hurtle toward imminent apocalypse than the fact that Alexander Payne has made a life-affirming film?” asks Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. “Venice opener Downsizing takes the long road getting...
Aug 26, 2025 — Alice Wu’s feature debut is a romantic comedy in which the most compelling relationship is the one between a young queer Chinese American woman and her long-widowed mother.
Nov 18, 2025 — Though the first two decades of the Iranian filmmaker’s career have long been underappreciated, this fertile period yielded philosophical and restlessly innovative works that reinvigorated both documentary and narrative-fiction cinema.
The Daily
Nov 2, 2020 — He became a star in the 1960s as 007 and carried on winning over fresh waves of fans through the 1990s.
Oct 10, 2017 — Two singing mermaid sisters take 1980s Poland by storm in this extravagantly mounted musical-horror hybrid.