The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 27, 2014 — Howard Hawks was both a skillful Hollywood craftsman and a deeply personal artist, and this western of uncommon wit and grandeur is among his greatest and quirkiest films.
Essays
Jan 7, 2014 — Satyajit Ray was ailing when he made them, but these three works from the great filmmaker’s final years show an artist at the height of his powers.
Dec 16, 2013 — A melodramatic investigation of family and class, Kim Ki-young’s film exorcises some demons of 1960s South Korean society.
Nov 28, 2010 — “What we need are good old American—and that’s not to be confused with European—Art Films.” So declared the then twenty-nine-year-old beatnik Method actor Dennis Hopper in an unpublished 1965 manifesto. “The whole damn country’s one big real place to utilize...
Jan 26, 2010 — Today, most people’s knowledge of George Bernard Shaw doesn’t extend much further than his classic comedy Pygmalion. But the legendary playwright and theater critic (1856–1950) wrote more than sixty plays. In February, we at the Criterion Collection will do our part...
Oct 20, 2008 — Though he had been directing films since the silent era, Kenji Mizoguchi didn’t become an international sensation until after the Second World War, benefiting from a new fascination with Japan’s cinematic output.
Aug 18, 2008 — This modest-scale psychological drama by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger follows an explosives expert with a drinking problem who harbors a great deal of bitterness.
Jan 14, 2008 — As Japan was coming out of World War II, Akira Kurosawa was coming into his own as a filmmaker.
Feb 21, 2007 — It was bound to happen. After a good start for the blog, a quiet stretch. The year has gotten off to a busy start. Every minute there seems to be a meeting with a new player about a new technology...
Essays
Oct 31, 1988 — This ingenious and entertaining crime thriller marks what its director Stanley Kubrick would like to think of as the real beginning of his career.