The Best of the Martial Arts Films

Mar 27, 2024 — The director of the films that launched the Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub series made three virtuosic, melancholic dramas in the early 1960s.

May 26, 2022 — Shimmy into summer with our centennial tribute to Judy Garland and two career-spanning series dedicated to queer filmmakers Ulrike Ottinger and Terence Davies.

Jun 25, 2015 — German director Bernhard Wicki proved his uncommon cinematic skill with his heartbreaking tale of teen soldiers sent off to die near the end of World War II.

Aug 3, 2010 — Sanshiro Sugata: A Career Blooms Moviegoers the world over know Akira Kurosawa for Rashomon (1950) and the international classics that followed—Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, High and Low. The filmmaker’s dazzling technique made his genre tales about samurai...

Jan 9, 2023 — The films in the Criterion Channel collection Free Jazz chronicle the development of a deeply experimental music that has baffled and enthralled listeners in equal measure.

Jul 7, 2021 — In the 1990s, Hong Kong was home to a staggering number of the most gifted and charismatic actors in the world. It’s impossible to imagine the films of Wong Kar Wai—or the global art-house phenomenon they generated—without these extraordinary performers;...

Feb 20, 2018 — In this wildly inventive revenge drama, director Kon Ichikawa blurs the line between stage and screen, infusing kabuki traditions with his own extravagant visual sensibility.

May 19, 2026 — “Last night, I was in the Kingdom of Shadows,” proclaimed Maxim Gorky, writing about an 1896 projection of films by Auguste and Louis Lumière in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. “Suddenly a strange flicker passes through the screen and...

Jun 11, 2018 — New on the shelves this season are volumes on David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Ernst Lubitsch.

Mar 16, 2023 — While the competition juries have their say, critics spotlight a few favorites from the gala premieres.