The First Year

Aug 6, 2019 — Once, in 1977, Werner Herzog read a news item about a volcano that was supposed to erupt in Guadeloupe and one man living there who refused to evacuate with the rest of the island’s population. Herzog being Herzog, he immediately...

Nov 13, 2014 — Michael Lennick, visual effects supervisor, writer, filmmaker, self described sci-fi geek, and friend of the Criterion Collection, died last week in Toronto. Early in his career, Michael created special video effects for David Cronenberg’s films Videodrome and The Dead Zone....

Jul 26, 2011 — To a secular eye, Jean-Pierre Melville’s sixth feature film, Léon Morin, Priest (1961), is about almost anything except religion: the deleterious effects of sexual repression, the moral bleariness of wartime and life under occupation, the harsh inflections of history in...

Jun 22, 2011 — Theresa Russell is attracted to the very things that repel most actors. In 1976’s The Last Tycoon, her first movie (and Elia Kazan’s last), she is unafraid of seeming to do very little. Young actresses like to show you they...

Oct 24, 2005 — When Samurai Rebellion premiered, on May 27, 1967, the original Japanese title was Joiuchi—hairyo tsuma shimatsu, which means something like Rebellion—Receive the Wife. This title indicates the two concerns of the film: the social impact of an unheard-of act of...

Sep 6, 1999 — The subject of loneliness and the observation of the isolated person has always interested me. Even as a child, I couldn’t help but notice those who didn’t fit in for one reason or another—myself included. In life, and for my...

Mar 30, 1992 — John Schlesinger’s controversial masterpiece made moviegoers squirm with its bold, bleak portrayal of unrequited love, gay and otherwise, and it remains as jolting and thought-provoking as ever.

Aug 13, 2018 — This year’s edition will feature new work from Tsai Ming-liang, Jodie Mack, Albert Serra, and Laida Lertxundi.

Jun 9, 2026 — Over the course of four decades, the great Mauritanian French filmmaker Med Hondo created a stylistically diverse, politically trenchant body of work that frequently tapped into his own Pan-African roots and explored the existential and material stresses of Black people...

Feb 11, 2026 — Opening Friday: Noir City in Seattle, the Nitrate Film Festival in Los Angeles, and Cinéma Du Cashiers in New York.