The Greatest Show Ever

May 20, 2009 — The title alone screams incongruity. Shohei Imamura’s 1961 black-and-white caper movie Pigs and Battleships bursts with the confusion and exuberance of a cross-cultural encounter. In its lively portrayal of enthusiastic Japanese locals welcoming the U.S. Navy on R&R to the...

Nov 2, 2006 — I don't know if it's the question we get asked most often or just the one that people ask with the greatest sense of urgency, but here it is: Where does Criterion stand on HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Disc? As you...

Jun 21, 1999 — Laurence Olivier’s Henry V today seems like nothing less than a miracle in answer to the Chorus’s call for “a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.” It’s a dazzling adaptation of a Shakespeare play, made...

Dec 8, 2020 — Frederick Wiseman’s documentary ranks high in the latest round of lists of the best films and television of 2020.

Apr 23, 2007 — Louis Malle’s documentary work adopts certain tenets of cinéma direct—improvisation, minimal crew, the refusal to organize reality—and applies them to a consistently class-conscious, outsider perspective.

Oct 27, 2023 — We’re revisiting Infernal Affairs, Lisandro Alonso’s Los muertos, and some of the first reviews posted at Reverse Shot.

May 24, 2023 — Two of Cannes’s favorite directors, Aki Kaurismäki and Wes Anderson, return to the competition.

Oct 7, 2022 — Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Assayas, Sally Potter, John Smith, Edgar Wright, and Ethan Hawke have a lot to say.

Jul 20, 2022 — The festival will screen new restorations of films by Edward Yang, Jean Eustache, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Yasujiro Ozu.

Aug 11, 2020 — The Complete Films of Agnès Varda In September 2018, I screened Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places for the Michigan State University Film Collective. We had a lively discussion that went past the scheduled ending time. As I was getting...