The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 11, 2024 — In this semiautobiographical meditation on the fickle nature of creative genius, Federico Fellini opens his arms wide to the enigmas of childhood, religion, art, sex, and love—mysteries with no solution.
Jun 18, 2019 — Bruno Dumont’s remarkable first feature examines the intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the French provinces.
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.
Essays
Jun 25, 2015 — German director Bernhard Wicki proved his uncommon cinematic skill with his heartbreaking tale of teen soldiers sent off to die near the end of World War II.
Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.
Essays
Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?
Jan 21, 2008 — The feminist politics of Agnès Varda’s marital drama were ahead of their time, but it is on the level of form that the film is so unsettling and calls up contradictory interpretations.
Jan 20, 2026 — A smash hit at the box office, this electrifying adventure film established the team of director Michael Curtiz and actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as one of the most iconic creative partnerships in Hollywood.
Essays
Oct 26, 2021 — Considered his first directly political film, Satyajit Ray’s 1960 masterpiece explores how the denial of self-knowledge, a void neither religion nor Western rationalism can fill, takes a toll on women in Indian society.
Features
Jan 29, 2021 — Dark Passages A nightclub floor show with dancers kicking and tapping under a scrim of cigarette smoke and the murmuration of an indifferent crowd. Couples listlessly swaying in a second-floor ballroom, the men clutching rolls of tickets and the ladies...