The Criterion Collection
Sep 3, 2007 — I’m on a flight back from the Telluride Film Festival and two and a half great days in the mountains. Telluride has been an important festival for Criterion and Janus for years. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with filmmakers...
Jan 1, 2007 — I’ve started writing this several times, and each time I’ve gotten diverted. Originally, I wrote about our troops in Iraq and the fact that we had sent along DVDs for the holidays, but I had a hard time equating our...
Essays
Dec 31, 2000 — Those who felt that Scandinavian cinema had passed into retirement along with Ingmar Bergman should be startled by Insomnia. This immaculately constructed psychological thriller sets a benchmark for other Scandinavian directors to match, and is one of the most unusual...
Jan 28, 1991 — The following review, one of the most renowned in the history of film criticism, appeared in The New Yorker magazine on October 28, 1972. It is reprinted with the permission of the author, Pauline Kael. Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in...
The Criterion Closet’s very first guest stops by the Mobile Closet at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he examines the technical brilliance of a scene in Notorious, shares why he feels a kinship with Wes Anderson, and talks about...
The general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival and the director of the Institut Lumière—whose film Lumière, le cinéma! is now playing on the Criterion Channel—shares his personal journey through cinema, highlighting such favorites as Pierrot le fou, 2046, Budd...
The writer and director reminisces about seeing Short Cuts at the Venice Film Festival, selects Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence out of love for Ryuichi Sakamoto, and takes home the one Stanley Kubrick film he hasn’t see.
The prolific German actor recalls the time he met Paul Morrissey on a plane, the festival encounter that led to his first film shot in the United States, and his experience working with Lars von Trier.
The acclaimed band talks about Japanese films about family, the rock music in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and a festival viewing experience of Carnival of Souls.