A Hero

Aug 20, 2001 — Before Lars von Trier, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson there was Carl Th. Dreyer. The first great film artist to pursue the ineffable in cinema, Dreyer gave depth to what early silent filmmakers innately understood yet took...

Nov 15, 1994 — Andrzej Wajda’s third full-length film established the director as a leader of the new Polish cinema.

Jan 9, 2025 — MoMA’s festival of film preservation spotlights films from around the world, ranging from the silent era through the 1980s.

Jul 16, 2024 — In one of the most patient films he has ever made, Wim Wenders captures how everyday existence drifts into our dream lives.

Mar 27, 2024 — The director of the films that launched the Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub series made three virtuosic, melancholic dramas in the early 1960s.

Nov 5, 2021 — This week heads in all directions—noir, musicals, and the avant-garde.

Jun 11, 2021 — “The whole world is dying of panicky fright.” The opening on-screen text of Todd Haynes’s Poison promises an unsettled experience. Yet these words also might as well be predicting the puritanical response to the film that erupted from conservative quarters. After winning...

Mar 23, 2021 — “Pleasure,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh, “is a safer guide than either right or duty.” Surely this is true when it comes to watching films. While cinema can be edifying, most of us go to the...

Dec 29, 2020 — Channel Calendars The stars are aligned for the first month of the New Year on the Criterion Channel. We’re pleased to be kicking off 2021 with a tribute to Jane Fonda, whose greatest hits reflect her multifaceted career as a political activist...

Nov 25, 2020 — “Yes, life is a dream, but sometimes that dream is a fatal abyss.” Wanda in The White Sheik (1952) I have a vivid memory from the first film-studies class I enrolled in, a class on Italian neorealism, where the weekly...