The Criterion Collection
Jul 7, 2015 — Our recollections of Robert Siodmak’s 1946 movie The Killers are apt to center on three primary elements: Ernest Hemingway’s story, so literally brought to the screen in the film’s opening scenes; Ava Gardner, carrying the full weight of that late-forties...
Dec 3, 2014 — “We were just in London, clubbing, all those things people did in the ’60s in the middle of London,” British actor Francesca Annis recalls, in an interview on the new Criterion release of Macbeth, of “crossing paths” with director Roman...
Dec 1, 2014 — Agroup of rich Italians is on a cruise off the coast of Sicily when one of their number—a moody, unhappy young woman—disappears. Murder, kidnapping, accident, suicide? Her boyfriend and her close friend search for her, but the search turns into...
May 12, 2014 — The Italian cinema expert describes the immense popularity of Dino Risi’s film in its home country, and the way it deepened the commedia all’italiana genre.
Short Takes
Jan 24, 2014 — Aki Kaurismäki first read Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème in 1976. The highly influential 1851 book—an episodic novel about a group of starving artists that also inspired Puccini’s 1896 opera La bohème—captured the Finnish filmmaker’s imagination and,...
Sneak Peeks
Oct 17, 2013 — Christiane’s countenance is one of the most memorable in all of horror cinema—yet you barely get to see the real face of the actor playing her. Edith Scob is an ethereal force in Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face as...
Essays
Aug 13, 2013 — John Frankenheimer burrows into the insidious side of the American sixties in his visually dazzling thriller.
May 7, 2013 — Blame it on the Madison. Or blame it on Arthur, Franz, and Odile’s gleeful race through the Louvre in an attempt to break the world record (held by an American, of course) for the quickest visit ever. Blame it on...
Oct 9, 2012 — British wartime audiences ate up these rule-breaking costume pictures—entertainments for a populace seeking escapism.
Essays
Sep 25, 2012 — No mere jigsaw movie, David Fincher’s thriller is also a nuanced character study, a satire of corporate culture, and a film about filmmaking.