The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jan 23, 2017 — In his radical debut feature, Ousmane Sembène reveals the agony of the postcolonial experience through the story of a Senegalese migrant abused by her French employers.
Feb 24, 2014 — A film of explosive passions, Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-age triumph is about much more than just physical pleasure.
Jul 31, 2012 — Aki Kaurismäki’s latest working-class fable is his warmest, and his most political.
Oct 18, 2011 — Hair, There, and Everywhere Are the Leningrad Cowboys for real? With pointy pompadours reaching to impossible heights above their expressionless faces and needlelike winklepicker shoes that could have been torn from the feet of oversize elves, they might be a...
Essays
Aug 31, 2011 — A man and a woman are married in a small town. The wedding procession follows them to a canal barge, of which he is the master. His crew, an old salt and a young boy, await them there. The couple...
Apr 21, 2009 — Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows being selected to represent France at...
Sep 3, 2007 — Ataxi, without a client in the car or anywhere else in sight, goes around Helsinki’s Senate Square, a place that resonates with history, having seen more patriotism, class struggle, and celebration than any other place in faraway Finland. It stood...
Nov 5, 2015 — Julien Duvivier’s early sound films offer emotionally rich explorations of life in prewar France.
On the Channel
Jul 17, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, crank up the volume on our playlist of (actually good) rock biopics that go beyond cliché to explore the elusive place where inspiration sparks and musical legends are born. Our Southern Gothic...
On the Channel
Feb 27, 2023 — Among the highlights this month is a series celebrating Oscar nominee Michelle Yeoh, an international star who began her career as one of Hong Kong cinema’s fiercest action heroes.