The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
Feb 13, 2014 — Hiroshi Teshigahara may have never quite become a household name, but this uniquely talented Japanese filmmaker, who specialized in existential dramas peppered with surreal avant-garde touches, received a large dose of international acclaim for his 1964 Woman in the Dunes,...
Jun 26, 2012 — Hiroshi Inagaki’s action epic is as responsible for creating Toshiro Mifune’s legendary cinematic persona as the films of Kurosawa.
Essays
Oct 27, 2009 — Who speaks of Howards End these days? Who expounds on the virtues of this magnificent drama, whose traditional style seems almost as distant as its Edwardian setting? Seen today, years past its 1992 release, it strikes one as not only...
Essays
Sep 15, 2008 — Max Ophuls’s ingenious tale of Viennese cafe society conveys both the transience of individual passions and the durability of passion itself as a motivating force in human behavior.
Mar 14, 2005 — A director is naturally a man like everyone else. Yet his life isn’t normal. For us, seeing is a necessity. For a painter, too, the problem is to see. But while the painter has to discover a static reality, or...
Sep 29, 2003 — Fassbinder had long dreamed of a “German Hollywood film.” He sought not only success with the audience, but also professionalism. The auteur film in its purest form is an attempt to abolish the division of labor: the filmmaker represents in...
The Daily
Jul 24, 2026 — September will bring new films from Lee Chang-dong, Julia Loktev, Barbara Kopple, Mariano Llinás, and Takashi Miike.
The Daily
Jan 9, 2025 — MoMA’s festival of film preservation spotlights films from around the world, ranging from the silent era through the 1980s.
Oct 24, 2024 — The director of such classic political docudramas as On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa defied the conventions of nonfiction filmmaking with his innovative approach to collaboration and performance.
The Daily
Apr 26, 2024 — This week offers reflections on the work of Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Béla Tarr, Satyajit Ray, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Joan Chen.