**** The World in His Arms .

Oct 25, 2012 — The following piece by Sunday Bloody Sunday screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt originally appeared as the introduction to the 1971 U.S. publication of the script. A friend of mine who had started scrubbing at fourteen and went on to be a barmaid...

Apr 22, 2024 — Fiercely committed to the possibilities of political art, the trailblazing director talks about how her intersectional understanding of feminism imbues her films, three of which are now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Sep 6, 2023 — Poor Things and The Beast are critical favorites, Ferrari comes alive when the big race is on, and verdicts are split on The Killer.

May 31, 2022 — The jury gave awards to nearly half the competition, but some critical favorites missed out.

Sep 30, 2019 — Critics are enthralled by a mobster’s three-and-a-half-hour alternative history of the mid-twentieth century.

Sep 17, 2019 — Also this month: Hollywood stars writing and reading and a novel that reimagines the intertwined lives of Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl.

Apr 16, 2019 — Most proper New Waves of the 1960s came equipped with a rough balance of assimilable superstars and genuine radicals, and for the Czechoslovaks, the guerrilla flank was led by Jan Němec. Jiří Menzel was adored globally for his wry humor,...

May 8, 2018 — In his uncharacteristic final masterpiece, the great Hollywood melodramatist Frank Borzage approaches the shadowy violence of film noir with his unique brand of romanticism.

Jan 19, 2018 — Two marvels of midcentury social commentary now streaming on the Criterion Channel show how progress can be a one-step-forward, two-steps-backward process.

Sep 23, 2011 — Performances Lillian Gish once said, “I’ve never been in style, so I can never go out of style.” The silent-screen legend was being modest, but she was clearly on to something—something that Charles Laughton grasped when he cast her as...