The Criterion Collection
The Daily
Feb 28, 2018 — A few days ago, we ran an essay here by Pico Iyer on Satyajit Ray’s The Hero (1966), followed by Meheli Sen’s comments on Uttam Kumar’s performance within the context of his stardom. Iyer has more to say and, writing...
Essays
Nov 22, 1999 — Grand Illusion is the masterpiece that earned Jean Renoir enormous acclaim in the United States, exciting the admiration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and running for 26 weeks in New York after its opening in September 1938. Banned in Italy...
The Daily
Sep 30, 2024 — Showered with accolades, loved, admired, and feared, Smith was one of the most accomplished stars of the stage and screen.
Sep 10, 2024 — Andrew Haigh explores loss and queer loneliness in this exquisite, twilit tangle of lives and loves separated by space, time, and personal defenses.
On the Channel
Jun 29, 2022 — This month on the Channel brings a collection of boxing movies, a survey of film noir steeped in expressionistic color, and a tribute to the classic Hollywood director Henry King.
Sep 28, 2016 — “King of the Nudies” Russ Meyer injects his transgressive exuberance into this big-studio send-up of Hollywood debauchery.
Jan 5, 2016 — Toshiya Fujita’s two-film saga set exuberant, manga-inspired martial-arts choreography against a backdrop of a Japanese society in transition to unfold a vivid tale of epic vengeance.
Aug 9, 2011 — Gillo Pontecorvo’s incendiary epic commemorates the popular uprising that had succeeded in ousting the French from Algeria in July 1962.
The Daily
Aug 4, 2025 — The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) is restored, a series is on in New York, and another heads to Austin.
Jul 24, 2025 — Directed by Jack Bond, It Couldn’t Happen Here is a strange and compelling document of the synth-pop duo at the height of their success, as well as a darkly absurdist send-up of provincial England in the Thatcher era.