Happy Times ( Xinfu shiguang

Mar 9, 2026 — The comprehensive retrospective can be a daunting prospect, but programmer David Schwartz has spotlit five essential features.

Feb 19, 2026 — Though in many ways the quintessential company man, the director brought an intimate understanding of the margins of American society to the films he made for Warner Bros. in the 1930s.

Feb 5, 2026 — In a collection of behind-the-scenes documentaries now playing on the Criterion Channel, legendary female performers assert their agency over their screen personae and find freedom in the glamour and artifice of their profession.

Jan 29, 2026 — Jonathan Glazer’s enigmatic second feature explores the terrors of being desperate for love—and the vulnerability, loneliness, and difficulty in understanding other people that might drive this state.

Jan 9, 2026 — The director of some of the bleakest films ever made once claimed all they were all comedies—except one.

Oct 20, 2025 — The Mexican director’s oeuvre, spanning half a century, is undeniably dark but also deeply humane.

Sep 30, 2025 — Made with a formal control unparalleled in modern American cinema, the films of this utterly distinctive auteur seek to contain and understand an uncontainable, unknowable world.

Sep 25, 2025 — To celebrate Robert Altman’s centennial, we invited five writers—Howard Hampton, Bruce LaBruce, Violet Lucca, Christina Newland, and Carlos Valladares—to each explore a favorite lesser-known gem from the great director’s filmography.

Sep 5, 2025 — We’re listening in this week on conversations with Charlie Kaufman, Alice Diop, and Zeinabu irene Davis.

Jun 12, 2025 — The acclaimed crime writer joins a producer of the 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley to discuss the cinematic incarnations of Patricia Highsmith’s shape-shifting, quintessentially American antihero.