The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 31, 2000 — Those who felt that Scandinavian cinema had passed into retirement along with Ingmar Bergman should be startled by Insomnia. This immaculately constructed psychological thriller sets a benchmark for other Scandinavian directors to match, and is one of the most unusual...
Essays
Dec 9, 1990 — Michael Powell’s war thriller ranks alongside Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent as one of the two finest amalgams of suspense and propaganda to grace the big screen during the years 1939-45.
Essays
Sep 5, 1988 — A wild mixture of gangster thriller, slapstick comedy, and bittersweet romance, François Truffaut’s second film was one of the signal works of the French New Wave.
A Pan-African musical spectacular; an essential queer 1990s romance; an irresistible rock-and-soul comedy; an antifascist fairy tale; an urgent moral thriller; an antiheroic portrait of a famed explorer; three paeans to bodies in motion; a masterpiece of early-1970s American alienation;...
One of the steamiest erotic thrillers ever made; a strikingly raw debut feature; a prescient ecofeminist parable; a moving tale of generational trauma and healing; a freewheeling showbiz drama; a crime thriller set in postwar Japan; and a loving snapshot...
Three indelible tales of Black urban life; a 1960s revenge thriller; a blockbuster biblical comedy; a glittering pre-Code jewel; the most sensual Hollywood noir; six woman-centered features from Japan; and a ravishing vision of a world where humans have forsaken...
An X-ray of corporate America; an existential noir thriller; four pre-Code movie musicals; a gonzo revenge thriller; a psychologically complex western; a nearly wordless comedic achievement; and a benchmark of independent cinema.
The writer and director talks about the innovative low-budget filmmaking of Detour, shares her love for The Battle of Algiers and its unrelenting “metronome of tension,” and praises Costa-Gavras as the inventor of the political thriller.