The Criterion Collection
Nov 16, 2008 — Chungking Express (1994) was the Masculin féminin of the 1990s, a pop-art movie about cool twentysomethings looking for love in the city that has replaced Paris as the center of the world-cinema imagination. What Jean-Luc Godard did for “the children...
May 12, 2008 — This intensely personal work about a self-destructive young man would help alleviate Louis Malle’s doubts about his career.
Nov 8, 1999 — The virgin of Orleans and those matters that surrounded her death began to interest me when the shepherd girl’s canonization in 1920* once again drew the attention of the public-at-large to the events and actions involving her—and not only in...
Essays
Jul 21, 1998 — Samurai III, Duel at Ganryu Island, is the last and best part of Hiroshi Inagaki’s Trilogy. In contrast to the earlier, more action-oriented Samurai I and II, this final section shows its hero Musashi (Toshiro Mifune) struggling with questions as...
Essays
Oct 12, 1987 — Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling Cinemascope epic is set squarely within the traditions of the Japanese film genre known as the “Chambara.”
Dec 1, 1986 — Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is one cult film that has also won over the cultivated buff. As Peter Morris remarks (in his Dictionary of Films): “Though one of the subtlest films of the genre, containing little...
Jul 10, 2015 — Sean Baker is a writer-director and cocreator of the television show Greg the Bunny. His movies include Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012), and Tangerine (2015). He says, “Writing this list was a little like Sophie’s choice for me. And...
Oct 30, 2008 — This week, the New York Times compiled its special annual holiday movie preview, and judging by Charles Taylor and Stephanie Zacharek’s enthusiasm for a slew of upcoming DVD releases for November and December, it seems critics are looking forward to...
The Daily
May 6, 2026 — Erige Sehiri’s Promised Sky opens the New York African Film Festival and screens as part of Seattle’s African Pictures program.
The Daily
Dec 2, 2025 — Even as he carries on winning awards, Jafar Panahi is sentenced to another year in prison.