The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 24, 2004 — By piling on naturalistic details to keep the heat constantly in our minds, Akira Kurosawa creates a visual and behavioral excess that highlights the fixation of his hero on retrieving his stolen gun.
Essays
Oct 18, 1994 — Val Lewton’s cinematic diamond-in-the-rough has been recognized for decades as a definitive chiller, but it was conceived as a title, with no story or notion in mind, and as a way of generating cash for RKO.
In Theaters
Mar 15, 2019 — More than thirty years after his death, there seems no shortage of discoveries left to be made about the artistic life of Orson Welles. This weekend, fans are in for a treat as a new documentary about the filmmaker’s little-known...
Sep 1, 2016 — Balancing epic scale with lyrical intimacy, Orson Welles inflects the spirit of Shakespeare’s history plays with his own zest for cinematic invention.
Short Takes
Nov 5, 2015 — Director Guillermo del Toro isn’t shy about the wealth of influences that have shaped his dark and fantastical cinematic worlds. In a piece published earlier this month in the Guardian, the acclaimed Mexican filmmaker cited a range of inspirations for...
Essays
Dec 6, 1987 — Mike Nichols’s treatment of a young man’s initiation into the mysteries of sex at the hands of an older married woman has become a model for this common fantasy.
The Daily
Jul 9, 2024 — Both Columbia Pictures and Marcello Mastroianni turn 100 this year, and Locarno and Venice are set to celebrate.
Apr 16, 2024 — Unfolding in elaborately choreographed long takes, this sublime adaptation of László Krasznahorkai’s novel The Melancholy of Resistance captures the weight of time and the mood of fascism with a haunting palpability.
Jul 28, 2021 — The Contemporary World Cinema and Discovery programs are set, and the festival has added new gala and special presentations.
The Daily
Nov 29, 2019 — American gangsters, Chinese filmmakers, and a Czech animator are featured in this week’s round.