The Better Way

Aug 10, 2023 — “You’re the company I waited so long for,” Dr. Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton) says to her three Self Replicating Automatons in Teknolust (2002), artist Lynn Hershman Leeson’s sci-fi farce about a scientist’s well-meaning pursuit of artificial life. Stone’s color-coded clones...

Aug 1, 2023 — “Do you want me to turn them loose?” This is what cowboy Perce asks a sad-eyed Roslyn in John Huston’s elegiac The Misfits (1961), and that one question about untying the mustangs he and fellow wranglers Gay (Clark Gable) and...

Jul 10, 2023 — Writer-archivist-filmmaker Jenni Olson and critic Caden Mark Gardner discuss Masc, a collection of films on the Criterion Channel that explores the many forms of masculinity beyond the realm of cisgender men.

Jun 9, 2023 — One of Hollywood’s most beloved actors showed a turbulent, sometimes downright sinister side in his collaborations with director Anthony Mann, which include the classic westerns Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie.

Mar 21, 2023 — Fiction by Lee Chang-dong, a spotlight on Cary Grant, and essays on Stan Brakhage are among this month’s highlights.

Jan 25, 2023 — Critical favorites include new films by Ira Sachs, Roger Ross Williams, William Oldroyd, and Raine Allen-Miller.

Jan 19, 2023 — The frequent collaborators talk about their close friendship, the paths that led them to each other, and the artistic values they share.

Jan 13, 2023 — This week’s eclectic round touches on experimental milestones, restorations, Mexican cinema, a Japanese series, and movies about movies.

Jan 9, 2023 — The films in the Criterion Channel collection Free Jazz chronicle the development of a deeply experimental music that has baffled and enthralled listeners in equal measure.

Dec 13, 2022 — A departure from the tales of sex and violence that defined Black cinema in the early 1970s, Michael Schultz’s beloved coming-of-age film celebrates the emotional bonds among a group of young Black men.