The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jun 25, 2013 — How Claude Lanzmann made a thoughtful film about the unthinkable and unfilmable.
Jun 19, 2013 — Disorienting, brutal, and bloody beautiful, František Vláčil’s epic is a dark medieval vision teeming with cinematic invention.
Apr 22, 2013 — A vivid portrait of a ruthless murderer, Laurence Olivier’s Technicolor Shakespeare adaptation is back in a killer restoration.
Essays
Nov 23, 2008 — The possession of a real voice is always a marvel, an almost religious thing.
Feb 24, 2026 — For this existential noir, Joel and Ethan Coen drew inspiration from crime-fiction master James M. Cain’s lean, hard-boiled style and interest in the quotidian world of work.
Oct 27, 2025 — The self-trained filmmaker examined postindependence Nigerien society in morality tales that showcased his visual ingenuity and sly sense of humor.
The Daily
Feb 3, 2025 — The vibe in Park City was unsettling, but critics and juries discovered plenty of films to fall for.
On the Channel
Feb 25, 2021 — Channel Calendars Giddy up, movie lovers! This month on the Channel, our Black Westerns series leads the charge, highlighting films that have challenged the myths of the Old West to tell the stories of African Americans on the frontier. And...
Dec 10, 2019 — Rock music, as director Wim Wenders once joked in an interview, offered to him and other Germans of his generation the “only alternative to Beethoven.” There is likely as much truth as hyperbole in the statement; considering the role that...
May 14, 2019 — It all comes down to that first wink. About half an hour through Michael Haneke’s 1997 cause célèbre Funny Games, Paul (Arno Frisch), one of the two politely psychotic young home invaders who’ve taken a family captive, leads one of his...