A Canterbury Tale

Jul 19, 2010 — “Why do you want to dance?” “Why do you want to live?” A question followed by another question stands at the beating heart of The Red Shoes. It’s an entirely rhetorical exchange, but it underscores the power and the mystery...

Jun 16, 1992 — Of the 18 movies made by the filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, none was as personally and artistically fulfilling as The Tales of Hoffmann. This dazzling screen adaptation of the Offenbach opera—a visual, sonic, and sensual delight—marked...

Jan 28, 2021 — Channel Calendars We’re thrilled to be celebrating Black History Month on the Criterion Channel with a lineup that salutes African American filmmaking pioneers like Gordon Parks and Madeline Anderson, spotlights the brilliant career of actor and activist Ruby Dee, presents...

Dec 9, 2025 — In one of cinema’s greatest love stories, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger use the mercurial beauty of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides to evoke the unruly passions of an indelible heroine.

Nov 13, 2012 — Rejecting the orientalism of other adaptations, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s take on the classic tales is humane and erotic.

Jul 24, 2018 — A feast of sumptuous color and cinematic imagination, Powell and Pressburger’s postwar masterpiece is also a powerful reckoning with recent history.

Mar 28, 2022 — At once euphoric and elegiac, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary captures the members of the Band on the brink of spiritual and physical collapse as they mount their transcendent final send-off.

Nov 13, 2012 — Moving to Chaucer’s gray-skied England, Pier Paolo Pasolini pushed his trilogy into darker realms.

Mar 3, 2022 — Retrospectives, exhibitions, and new publications celebrate the work of an endlessly fascinating artist.

These two filmmakers forged an alliance that lasted from the late thirties to the early seventies, making their mark on the world of British cinema by always going against its realist strain.