Bullet to the Head

Feb 10, 2023 — We head this week to Germany before and after the war and then revisit gruesome killings in Japan and France.

Jun 17, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, celebrate the hundredth birthday of the great Harry Dean Stanton, delight in the twists and thrills of our Murderous Melodramas collection, or binge the surreal cult-favorite TV series The Prisoner. There’s so...

Jan 26, 2024 — We gather essays and interviews related to series spotlighting Ousmane Sembène, Serge Daney, Skip Norman, Iranian cinema, and the Oscars.

Jun 5, 2017 — Known for playing sexy noir toughs, Ralph Meeker underwent a startling transformation as the anguished, slovenly male lead in Jack Garfein’s psychological drama.

Apr 2, 2017 — What defines noir acting? In her latest Dark Passages column, Imogen Sara Smith examines the stylistic variety in some of the genre’s most iconic male performances, including Burt Lancaster in The Killers and Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly.

Mar 25, 2015 — Long unheralded and at last rediscovered, actor-director Robert Montgomery’s Ride the Pink Horse is one of the key Hollywood features of 1947, the year film noir flooded the screen like a ruptured reservoir of India ink. Adapted from the popular...

Feb 18, 2014 — The immediacy of an ongoing war electrifies Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful second Hollywood feature.

Oct 30, 2025 — Classics of the genre—including Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession and David Cronenberg’s The Fly—explore the gory extremes of corporeal experience.

Sep 9, 2022 — New films by Andrew Dominik, Paul Schrader, Rebecca Zlotowski, Alice Diop, and Florian Zeller premiere in Venice.

Dec 4, 2019 — Songbook Midway through Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009), the plot pivots on a song. “You’ve got some weird shit in here,” says Joanne (Kierston Wareing,), riffling through the CDs in her new boyfriend’s car. It’s the morning after a boozy...