The Criterion Collection
Aug 6, 2021 — At a perilous moment in the history of the western, a series of films by Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott stood out for their no-nonsense lucidity.
Essays
Dec 11, 2013 — This political drama was made in Mexico at a revolutionary moment and represents an extraordinary confluence of international talent.
Nov 20, 2012 — For a brief, shining moment, the genteel Japanese studio mutated into a fun house of grim ghouls and slimy aliens.
May 13, 2010 — Samuel Beam is an American singer-songwriter (and former film studies professor!) better known by the stage name Iron and Wine. His last album was 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog, and a follow-up is in the works. When selecting his top ten...
Jan 15, 2009 — I have never seen New York look so beautifully grand as it did during my trip to Paris this New Year’s. Maybe I should explain. It was my great fortune to be visiting the City of Light while the intensely...
Dec 29, 2008 — If I had not seen The Lady Vanishes at the age of seven, I might never have become a film critic. I was the fifth child of parents well into middle age: clearly an “accident,” as I was ten-years-plus younger...
Dec 15, 2008 — Flash back to September 1968. The Swedish Film Week in Sorrento, Italy, with its alfresco suppers and its excursions to Capri and Pompeii. Ingmar Bergman was expected, and he and Liv Ullmann were assigned a luxurious villa for the duration....
Nov 20, 2008 — In honor of her introduction to the collection, with An Angel at My Table, we asked director Jane Campion to contribute a list of Criterion films that are on her mind at the moment. Campion’s debut feature, Sweetie, is also...
Oct 16, 2008 — While in New York for the premiere of Ashes of Time Redux, Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai and his long-time cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, sat down with Leonard Lopate for the radio host’s daily show. In the course of discussing the...
Jan 1, 2007 — I’ve started writing this several times, and each time I’ve gotten diverted. Originally, I wrote about our troops in Iraq and the fact that we had sent along DVDs for the holidays, but I had a hard time equating our...