The Criterion Collection
Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.
Aug 31, 2011 — French sociologist Roger Caillois proposed that every form of human recreation could be placed somewhere on a continuum between two terms: ludus and paidia. The first of these represents games defined almost wholly by their rule systems. Crossword puzzles and...
Aug 26, 2025 — Zeinabu irene Davis’s sole narrative feature is a vision of the past as it might have been, as well as an exploration of how history becomes a part of the everyday rhythms of Black life.
Sep 22, 2020 — Francesco Rosi’s film Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979) is based on Carlo Levi’s novelistic memoir of the same name, which became an instant classic of Italian literature when it appeared at the end of World War II, in 1945. In...
Apr 28, 2026 — As the 1950s began, Kinuyo Tanaka found herself at a turning point. She had been acting in films since she was fourteen, becoming one of Japan’s most beloved, admired, and prolific women stars. Now in her early forties, she saw...
Nov 13, 2025 — The director of Rat Trap and Monologue was an uncompromising artist who helped establish the Indian state of Kerala as a hub of bold political filmmaking.
Essays
Jun 17, 2025 — Mitchell Leisen’s marvelously chic and brilliantly constructed screwball classic revolves around a heroine who flounders through a succession of complications but always manages to come out ahead.
On the Channel
Nov 13, 2023 — Channel Calendars This December, take your pick from the cinematic gifts under our tree! We’ve got a spotlight on indie queen Parker Posey, major retrospectives dedicated to the towering artists Yasujiro Ozu and Ousmane Sembène, offbeat portraits of the animal...
Features
Aug 11, 2023 — Back in the early 1980s, people were still trying to figure hip-hop out.Now in its fiftieth year, this cultural movement built by DJs, rappers, break dancers, and graffiti writers began in New York, spreading from the South Bronx to the...
Features
Jul 9, 2021 — A raucous, fast-talking diva, the actor had a remarkable ability to convey both glamour and silliness, a gift that made her the queen of screwball comedy before her untimely death in 1942.