The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 16, 2023 — Inspired by golden-age monster movies and the story of a real-life mass murderer, Peter Bogdanovich’s debut feature evokes the psychic dread of America in the 1960s, a decade defined by long-distance and increasingly high-profile gun violence.
Essays
Sep 21, 2021 — Johnnie To pays homage to Akira Kurosawa in this martial arts drama about the virtue of struggle and self-improvement.
Jun 17, 2021 — The first real lesbian kiss in a film is an honor that rightfully belongs to Mädchen in Uniform. It’s true that a year earlier, in 1930, Marlene Dietrich played a tux-clad chanteuse who snogs a woman in a nightclub audience...
Short Takes
May 24, 2017 — For my top-prize pick from the 1970s, I’ve chosen a film that enjoyed great commercial success while also stirring up international controversy. Though it was one of the highest-grossing German films of the decade, Volker Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Günter Grass’s...
Essays
Mar 17, 2016 — Decades later, Ingmar Bergman’s self-reflexive masterpiece remains a provocative enigma worthy of close investigation.
Aug 15, 2011 — Celebrated as Stanley Kubrick’s first mature film and made when he was only twenty-eight years old, The Killing (1956) is remarkable for boldly announcing so many of the stylistic and thematic preoccupations that would become important constants of his cinema....