The Swissmakers

May 26, 2016 — During the conductor and composer’s visit—a day after he’d led the New York Philharmonic in a live orchestral performance of the score to City Lights—we talked about his love for early cinema, the delicate process of restoring Chaplin’s music, and...

May 19, 2016 — In the late 1950s, when Shindo chose to create a nearly dialogue-free portrait of a family living on a remote island, he was taking a great chance, putting the fate of his struggling production company Kindai Eiga Kyokai on the...

May 17, 2016 — Before the release of his new film Sunset Song, the beloved filmmaker stopped by the Criterion kitchen for lunch and became especially animated when our discussion drifted toward two of his great loves: the plays of Anton Chekhov and musicals...

Apr 29, 2016 — This July brings two new Criterion releases in the United Kingdom: Stanley Kubrick’s satirical Cold War masterpiece Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Howard Brookner’s Burroughs: The Movie.

Apr 14, 2016 — In honor of our disc release last week of the classic John Frankenheimer thriller The Manchurian Candidate, we sat down to talk about the film with the director’s widow, actor Evans Frankenheimer.

Mar 25, 2016 — Director Ben Wheatley discusses his favorite films, which include Godard’s Weekend. After watching it, he says, “I almost felt like I’d had the stack of cards in my head rearranged and reprogrammed.”

Mar 15, 2016 — Set during the height of McCarthy-era paranoia and arriving in 1962, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Frankenheimer’s high-anxiety Communist conspiracy thriller tapped into the darkest fears of Cold War America.

Feb 23, 2016 — Without any overt topical references, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s and the dawning countercultural revolution.

Feb 9, 2016 — Jan Troell’s narration of one Swedish couple’s arduous journey to America portrays the migratory quality of marriage—of “finding that you think of this person who is not you, or this place that is not the land of your birth, as...

Jan 11, 2016 — In honor of the great cinematographer, our technical director shares some memories of encountering the man and his work.