The Criterion Collection
Essays
Nov 25, 2020 — “Yes, life is a dream, but sometimes that dream is a fatal abyss.” Wanda in The White Sheik (1952) I have a vivid memory from the first film-studies class I enrolled in, a class on Italian neorealism, where the weekly...
Oct 16, 2013 — Georges Franju deftly balances fantasy and realism, clinical detachment and operatic emotion, beauty and pain, all presided over by Edith Scob’s haunting, haunted eyes.
Dec 13, 2013 — Metin Erksan’s shocking and sensuous tale of greed and rural life was part of a vibrant Turkish cinema of the fifties and sixties.
Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...
Essays
Aug 18, 2022 — With an obsessive attention to detail and tiny gestures, Ronald Bronstein’s debut feature film turns the tale of one neurotic Brooklyn man into a furious work of personal cinema.
Jun 13, 2012 — Tasteful British cinema got a refreshing dose of amorality with Danny Boyle’s stylish and violent tale of greed and paranoia.
A tantalizing labyrinth, a warped tale of wayward love, a high-flying feat of adventure filmmaking, a pop-culture phenomenon, a document of a fearless director, and early works from a legend of world cinema
Sep 28, 2022 — A long-obscure landmark of the Iranian New Wave, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s daringly ambiguous portrait of feudalism’s demise mirrors the revolutionary times in which it was made.
Jan 22, 2026 — A deft mixture of family epic, romantic melodrama, landscape cinema, and comedy, Burkinabe director Idrissa Ouédraogo’s landmark film balances the universality of its themes with the fierce individuality of its characters.
Jan 22, 2026 — A singular achievement in Arab film history, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina’s sweeping political epic is a memorial to the lives lost in the struggle for Algerian independence.