Family Plot

Mar 21, 2017 — A “celluloid atrocity” overflowing with deviant shenanigans, John Waters’s low-budget satire makes mincemeat of the peace-and-love era.

Feb 20, 2017 — Joan Crawford delivers one of her greatest performances in Michael Curtiz’s unsparing look at class, ambition, and the all-consuming intensity of maternal love.

Feb 11, 2017 — Ermanno Olmi captures the dignity of work in this painterly vision of late nineteenth-century rural Italy.

Dec 13, 2016 — John Huston’s meticulously calibrated crime film combines nail-biting suspense with a mood of Chekhovian regret.

Nov 11, 2016 — This week’s Friday Night Double Feature on the Criterion Channel demonstrates how much suspense a superb director can wring from an intriguing premise without resorting to yelling “boo!” or splashing gore.

Nov 8, 2016 — This adaptation of one of the most influential series in manga history is a delirious mix of breathtaking swordplay and pop vulgarity.

Oct 26, 2016 — The tropes of light comedy give way to a Kafkaesque nightmare in this incendiary critique of moral rot in Franco-era Spain.

Jul 20, 2016 — In his staggeringly ambitious masterwork A Touch of Zen, Chinese filmmaker King Hu imbues dynamic scenes of combat with balletic grace and audacious stylistic experimentation.

Jul 5, 2016 — Arthur Hiller’s 1979 comedy pairs Alan Arkin and Peter Falk as unlikely comrades in a madcap farce that lands every laugh.

Mar 24, 2016 — With Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day finally available in the U.S., screenwriter Hung Hung talks about his working relationship with Yang, the film’s truncated distribution and slow path to acclaim, and the real-life roots of its narrative.