Portrait from Life

Mar 29, 2016 — Les Blank’s long-lost documentary revels in the trippy, eccentric world of and surrounding Tulsa Sound pioneer Leon Russell, transforming what might have been a standard concert movie into a genuine work of art.

Feb 23, 2016 — Without any overt topical references, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s and the dawning countercultural revolution.

Aug 13, 2013 — John Frankenheimer burrows into the insidious side of the American sixties in his visually dazzling thriller.

May 18, 2010 — Nicolas Roeg’s first solo outing as a director is an astonishing visual poem, by turns violent, innocent, and elegiac.

Oct 24, 2005 — Hideo Gosha’s swordplay drama captures rebellion against the Japanese feudal system, pitting its twin protagonists against each other but also, together, against the very notion of authority itself.

Sep 19, 2005 — Jane Campion is a rarity, not simply because she is a world-class female director, but because she has devoted her career to exploring female subjectivity.

May 15, 2000 — Vagabond has been called Agnès Varda’s Ulysses, and with good reason. The comparison with James Joyce’s era-defining epic novel extends well beyond a recognizable similarity between the two artists. Both writer and filmmaker occupy vanguard positions in the history of...

Feb 1, 2011 — This essay was originally published in the booklet accompanying the 2006 DVD release of The Double Life of Véronique. A new life experience is in the air today, a perception that explodes the form of the linear narrative and renders...

Aug 26, 2018 — Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought cinema to the center of Cuban society with this richly ambiguous portrait of postrevolutionary Havana.

May 14, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, set out on an epic journey with our Odysseys collection, or revisit the foundational Bond classics that introduced the silver screen’s most iconic superspy. A spotlight on Courtney Love’s acting career reveals...