The Influence

Aug 16, 2011 — “It is my best film. I always loved it. I always believed in it. It is real cinema, done for cinema—like art for art.” That was Roman Polanski’s view of Cul-de-sac in 1970, four years after its release and just...

Mar 21, 2011 — Living Room The cinema of Mikio Naruse is one of heartbreak but also one of indomitable poise. Melodrama is the director’s stock-in-trade. His stories are inhabited by people, generally women, imprisoned in their domestic and professional circumstances by the status...

Nov 23, 2010 — Easy Rider is a record of a certain time in American history, and a chronicle of a culture clash that never quite ended.

Mar 17, 2010 — 1. A Park—Night A man aflame is running directly toward camera. This image, which comes from Nicholas Ray’s initial treatment for Rebel Without a Cause, might stand at the head of almost any of Ray’s movies, since it so clearly...

Sep 15, 2008 — Max Ophuls’s 1952 comedy celebrates existence by presenting a world full of unresolvable contradictions.

Jun 27, 2005 — Kô Nakahira’s taboo-busting melodrama heralded a reinvention of Japanese cinema.

Oct 19, 1998 — Jean-Luc Godard’s stripped-down science-fiction drama depicts a computer-controlled society at war with artists, thinkers, and lovers.

Jul 17, 2025 — Among this month’s highlights are a spotlight on ’90s soundtracks, a celebration of Hong Kong icon Sammo Hung, and a retrospective of the work of Spanish auteur Bigas Luna.

Aug 31, 2020 — Documentaries lead the charge this month on the Criterion Channel, with a wide-ranging offering of nonfiction films as formally imaginative and emotionally riveting as any scripted drama.

Mar 11, 1991 — Lawrence Kasdan’s second directorial effort is a story about the sixties generation's idealism—as well as his most personal movie.