The Criterion Collection
Essays
Mar 5, 1990 — Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterwork is one of the greatest portraits of old age and loneliness ever brought to the screen.
Essays
Feb 1, 1988 — Based on the novel by W.T. Burnett, this heist film set in a nameless midwestern city offered moviegoers in 1950 a new view of crime.
Jan 4, 1988 — The Secret Agent (1936) came to life in the prime of Alfred Hitchcock’s British period. It arrived between the popular triumph of The 39 Steps and the box-office rejection of Sabotage, a more daringly downbeat work. Secret Agent partakes of...
Essays
Apr 19, 2004 — “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives,” has long been a favored metaphor in Japanese prose and poetry. This plant, the ukigusa (duckweed in English), floating aimlessly, carried by stronger currents, is seen as emblematic of our...
Essays
Apr 29, 2025 — A black-and-white version of Julian Schnabel’s portrait of his fellow artist and friend Jean-Michel Basquiat accentuates the film’s melancholy mood while highlighting the deep commitment of Jeffrey Wright’s performance.
The Daily
Apr 14, 2025 — The director of Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was ninety-four.
The Daily
Nov 13, 2024 — The country’s largest festival of nonfiction films presents 110 features this year, and nearly as many short films.