The Past

Apr 29, 2025 — In this exuberant and moving portrait of a Brooklyn sex worker, Sean Baker draws on themes he has explored throughout his career, depicting the workaday grind of twenty-first-century American existence with biting humor and clear-eyed humanity.

Apr 18, 2025 — Barry Jenkins interviews Charles Burnett, Céline Sciamma discusses Chantal Akerman—and more.

Apr 7, 2025 — He played Iceman, Jim Morrison, Doc Holliday, and even Batman as no one else would or could have.

Mar 13, 2025 — While a film’s stars are forced to bear the responsibility of moving a narrative forward, supporting actors get to have fun providing comic relief or suggesting whole lives being lived beyond the screen.

Feb 21, 2025 — This week we’re revisiting work by Zeinabu irene Davis, Chantal Akerman, Claude Lanzmann, Wang Bing, and Joan Micklin Silver.

Jan 14, 2025 — In his only directorial effort for the big screen, Richard Pryor takes the raw stuff of his life and alchemizes it as art, demonstrating the humor and vulnerability that made him a towering figure in American culture.

May 3, 2024 — Hiroshi Shimizu and Oscar Micheaux retrospectives open in New York and cinematographer Hélène Louvart talks about working with Varda, Wenders, and more.

Mar 20, 2024 — Ryan Clarke and S*an D. Henry-Smith—two curators behind New York City’s premier Black electronic music festival—talk about the films they selected for Radical Dreams, Underground Sounds, a collection now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Aug 1, 2023 — “Do you want me to turn them loose?” This is what cowboy Perce asks a sad-eyed Roslyn in John Huston’s elegiac The Misfits (1961), and that one question about untying the mustangs he and fellow wranglers Gay (Clark Gable) and...

Aug 1, 2023 — This year’s festival will premiere new work from Lav Diaz, Radu Jude, and Lucy Kerr and host conversations with Harmony Korine and Tsai Ming-liang.