Too Beautiful for You

May 4, 2020 — “You’ve never seen prairie grass with the wind leaning on it, have you, Diz?”Jean Arthur asks this poetic, expressively peculiar question of Thomas Mitchell in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and we understand her yearning for truth...

Oct 18, 2022 — Drawing from Latin American folklore, Jayro Bustamente conjures an intimate, supernatural tale that engages with Guatemala’s history of violence.

Mar 5, 2018 — Along with 132 short films and a slew of masterclasses, installations, discussions, and other events, the Berlin International Film Festival presented 253 features this year. I managed to catch twenty-seven of them, and Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, winner of...

May 17, 2017 — Welcome to the first entry of the Daily at the Criterion Collection. For those of you who don’t know me, since 2003 I’ve been gathering links to essential—or simply fun—reading, news stories, and items of interest into a sort of...

Dec 12, 2016 — Patriotic masterminds choreograph capers from secret headquarters while dashing secret agents execute their plans by the light of flashing blades and gunfire. Jeopardy escalates second to second until our heroes and heroines escape by the skin of their teeth. Spy...

Jun 11, 2013 — Ingmar Bergman’s classic character study is a moving depiction of aging and regret but also joy and forgiveness.

May 18, 2010 — Nicolas Roeg’s first solo outing as a director is an astonishing visual poem, by turns violent, innocent, and elegiac.

Apr 28, 2003 — François Truffaut’s short Antoine Doinel film exposes an entire universe of male adolescent experience.

Sep 11, 2017 — In this documentary portrait of the Newport Folk Festival, Murray Lerner captured seismic changes in American music and politics.

Nov 3, 2015 — We present an excerpt from the book David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, by Dennis Lim.