The Criterion Collection
Essays
Aug 19, 2002 — René Clair’s musical comedy comprises a window on a particular lost black and white neverworld—bouncy with melody, soaked in spring light, wistful about the conflicted relationship between serendipity and love.
The writer and director talks about being inspired by Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball at a young age, selects a pair of films that portray the human impact of war, and praises Nina Hoss's performance in Phoenix.
The actor talks about My Darling Clementine and his newfound love of westerns, praises the timeless exploration of morality in 12 Angry Men, and looks back on auditioning for No Country for Old Men.
The actor and star of Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio talks about the power of political films disguised as comedies, such as To Be or Not to Be and Divorce Italian Style; shares her love for Japanese horror cinema; and reminisces...
The comedian, actor, and writer recalls wearing out videotapes of Mothra vs. Godzilla; praises Sound of Metal and its star, Riz Ahmed; and talks about the power and importance of seeing love between two Asian men depicted on-screen in Happy...
Jan 28, 2020 — Motherhood is a recurring subject in the films of Pedro Almodóvar. The mothers in his movies are fierce, passionate, and resourceful—often in varying combinations, and to varying extremes. In Almodóvar’s darkly satirical fourth feature, What Have I Done to Deserve...
May 30, 2025 — The director discusses her path from neuroscience to cinema and the childhood memory that inspired her short August Visitor, a film about culture and intergenerational understanding.
Mar 23, 2021 — “Pleasure,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh, “is a safer guide than either right or duty.” Surely this is true when it comes to watching films. While cinema can be edifying, most of us go to the...
Apr 16, 2018 — Just before the release of her new film You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay spoke with us about her early moviegoing life in Glasgow, the version of herself that emerges on set, and the mind-expanding power of chess.
Apr 5, 2017 — At eighty-eight years old, Agnès Varda is still blossoming as an artist. Long known primarily as a filmmaker, a vocation she took up more than half a century ago, the French iconoclast is now in what she gleefully describes as...