The Criterion Collection
The writer and director talks about Luis Buñuel’s surreal combination of the mundane and the absurd, shares what he learned from Martin Scorsese’s early shorts, and selects formative favorites like If. . . . and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The Daily
Sep 30, 2021 — Fresh out of luck in Texas City, a fast-talking porn star aims to get back to LA.
The director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High talks about one of her favorite actors, Peter Lorre; Federico Fellini’s “ultimate explanation of creativity”; and her choice for the most heartbreaking film of all time.
Kristin Ross is a professor of comparative literature at New York University. She is the author of numerous books, including Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (1995) and Communal Luxury.
May 11, 2021 — When Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out, in the summer of 1982, I was almost exactly the same age as Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton, getting ready to start my sophomore year in high school. Like Stacy’s world-weary older...
The Daily
Aug 28, 2026 — Revisiting work by Whit Stillman, Frederick Wiseman, Nathaniel Dorsky—and lots of road movies.
The Daily
Aug 5, 2026 — MIFF 2026 revives films by Manoel de Oliveira, Lino Brocka, Mary Stephen, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Michael Almereyda, and Mary Harron.
On the Channel
Jul 17, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, crank up the volume on our playlist of (actually good) rock biopics that go beyond cliché to explore the elusive place where inspiration sparks and musical legends are born. Our Southern Gothic...
Essays
Jul 14, 2026 — In May of 1962, when Martin Ritt arrived in the Texas Panhandle town of Claude to begin filming Hud, he may have sensed that his career was about to change. Hud would be Ritt’s ninth feature but his first personal...
Jul 9, 2026 — Deep Dives One of the most mischievous figures in world cinema, Věra Chytilová is still best known for Daisies, the daring 1966 film whose gonzo vision of female rebellion and empowerment launched her into the public eye. This Czechoslovak New...