The Conductor

Feb 22, 2011 — It wasn’t intended. No one could have predicted it. But Sweet Smell of Success turned out to be a terminus where several movie genres and subgenres converged and curdled, producing a uniquely delicious perfume of everlasting cynicism. Inhale deeply. And...

Jul 24, 2018 — A feast of sumptuous color and cinematic imagination, Powell and Pressburger’s postwar masterpiece is also a powerful reckoning with recent history.

Jul 26, 2022 — The festival selects urgent documentaries, starry portraits, and family dramas.

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...

May 15, 2000 — Twenty-five years after its first appearance, Bergman’s film of The Magic Flute remains the finest screen version of an opera ever produced. Shot in sumptuous color by Sven Nykvist, and featuring some of the finest Nordic singers of the day,...

Jan 17, 2023 — One of contemporary cinema’s most provocative filmmakers launched his career with three deeply unnerving, deliriously genre-blending portraits of Europe.

Dec 30, 2021 — Claire Denis, Martin Scorsese, Park Chan-wook, Kelly Reichardt, David Cronenberg, Josephine Decker, Yorgos Lanthimos, Mia Hansen-Løve—the list goes on.

Aug 4, 2023 — Look who’s talking: Carl Franklin, Claire Simon, Ira Sachs, Jim Jarmusch, Sally Potter, Laura Citarella, Christoph Hochhäusler . . .

Aug 3, 2021 — With two short films and his acclaimed debut feature, No Data Plan, now playing on the Criterion Channel, the Filipino American filmmaker discusses his vision of the immigrant experience.

Feb 7, 2018 — Last week, the SXSW Film Festival presented 132 features lined up for its 2018 edition running from March 9 through 18. Today, the festival announces that Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs will be this year’s Closing Night Film—and it’s added...