The Criterion Collection
Essays
Apr 17, 2012 — Maybe it is something to do with the sensual seductiveness of cinema: as new-millennium Americans, we care nothing for Japanese poetry, little for Japanese painting and fiction, and certainly too much for Japanese cartoons, and yet Yasujiro Ozu, the least...
Jul 7, 2008 — Every decade since 1984 the Toronto International Film Festival has conducted a poll of film scholars, critics, and directors to determine the ten best movies in the history of Canadian cinema. This top-ten list has changed somewhat over the years,...
Jan 14, 2025 — In this digressive, intensely interior masterpiece, Jean Eustache mines the dramas of his past romances while also capturing the disillusionment of young Parisians in the aftermath of May 1968.
Essays
Apr 29, 2025 — In this exuberant and moving portrait of a Brooklyn sex worker, Sean Baker draws on themes he has explored throughout his career, depicting the workaday grind of twenty-first-century American existence with biting humor and clear-eyed humanity.
Mar 18, 2025 — In what he described as his “first serious drama,” Charlie Chaplin channeled the influence of modernist literature, foreign cinema, and his European travels into a work of striking formal sophistication.
Nov 3, 2009 — If ever there was a European art film that could be all things to all people, it’s Wim Wenders’s 1987 masterpiece.
Oct 18, 2022 — Drawing from Latin American folklore, Jayro Bustamente conjures an intimate, supernatural tale that engages with Guatemala’s history of violence.
Sep 21, 2015 — Krzysztof Kieślowski’s political and philosophical rumination, which marked an important turning point in the director's career, imagines a young man's life branching off in three possible directions.
Dec 10, 2024 — In this brilliant adaptation, Joel and Ethan Coen find a kindred spirit in novelist Cormac McCarthy, whose abiding themes—including destiny, the American West, and the contest between our better natures and our survival instinct—mirror their own.
Oct 29, 2018 — Supporting roles bring potent flavor to classic Hollywood’s darkest genre. In the first installment of a series, Imogen Sara Smith pays tribute to the queen of character actors: Thelma Ritter.