The Criterion Collection
Sep 29, 2003 — In May 1981, in the midst of shooting Lola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder sketched out his next film project: Sybille Schmitz. On the cover, he had written, “Story for a Feature Film*.” The asterisk pointed to this footnote: “It is possible...
Essays
Oct 15, 2001 — Preston Sturges’s beloved comedy provides insights into the way Hollywood formulas work on us.
Nov 6, 1989 — If you had to choose one movie to have with you while stranded on an island, the choice might well be Lawrence of Arabia. Considered by many as one of the greatest films ever made, it received seven Academy Awards...
Dec 1, 1986 — Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is one cult film that has also won over the cultivated buff. As Peter Morris remarks (in his Dictionary of Films): “Though one of the subtlest films of the genre, containing little...
Jun 14, 2023 — In her deeply empathetic documentaries, the British filmmaker illuminates the lives of ordinary people who have quietly created new identities and possibilities for themselves.
The Daily
Mar 29, 2019 — Fresh assessments of the work of Chris Marker and Stanley Kubrick, an interview with Kent Jones, and that stellar year for American cinema, 1999.
Feb 3, 2015 — Jean-Luc Godard returned to the character-driven intensity of his earlier films with this satirical but serious-minded take on men, women, and money.
Essays
Jan 16, 2024 — Drawing on the influence of a wide range of genres, John Sayles creates a densely layered narrative that unfolds across two timelines and explores the long-hidden secrets of a small border town in Texas.
Aug 25, 2020 — Set among immigrants and laborers in an unglamorous corner of the South of France, Toni (1935) fulfills Jean Renoir’s wish to make a film in “a style as close as possible to that of daily encounters,” as he wrote in...
The Daily
Nov 11, 2018 — Cold War leads the nominations for this year’s European Film Awards, while Ray & Liz scores in Thessaloniki.