The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jul 14, 2026 — In May of 1962, when Martin Ritt arrived in the Texas Panhandle town of Claude to begin filming Hud, he may have sensed that his career was about to change. Hud would be Ritt’s ninth feature but his first personal...
May 19, 2026 — Elevator doors open onto a warehouse floor bathed in red light, high above downtown Manhattan in early May 2024. Exposed concrete and visible ductwork frame a room where artists in green aprons, cosplaying as waiters, circulate among guests in suits...
Sep 10, 2024 — Andrew Haigh explores loss and queer loneliness in this exquisite, twilit tangle of lives and loves separated by space, time, and personal defenses.
Essays
Nov 19, 2019 — In 1989, film critic Raphaël Bassan coined the term cinéma du look. Describing a tendency in French cinema that had begun in the early eighties and would continue into the nineties, Bassan identified commonalities in the work of Jean-Jacques Beineix,...
Oct 15, 2019 — The witch has a long history in Western cinema. Nowadays, we tend to associate her with horror, but early depictions resist easy categorization. She appeared in American silent films as early as 1908 (in a short called The Witch). The...
Apr 21, 2014 — A real-life prison uprising inspired this two-fisted tale directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to make many more films about men in extreme situations.
Essays
May 15, 2000 — Horror movies take place in their own territory. The trick is to get us there. It doesn’t matter whether they start with fantastic premises and gothic settings, or with ordinary neighborhoods and daily experience, because the places and assumptions change...
The Daily
Jun 8, 2023 — The robust oeuvre features performances from Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Hanna Schygulla, and Ornella Muti.
Mar 10, 2023 — Primarily known as a costume and production designer, this multitalented visionary deserves to be more widely recognized as one of the most important creative forces behind the Czechoslovak New Wave.