The Criterion Collection
Apr 30, 2009 — The concept of “obscenity” is tested when we dare to look at something that we desire to see but have forbidden ourselves to look at. When we feel that everything has been revealed, “obscenity” disappears and there is a certain...
Mar 17, 2008 — In its portrayal of the long international arm of crime families, Alberto Lattuada’s ingenious comedy offers a prescient look at globalization.
Essays
Aug 20, 2007 — David Mamet’s debut film was a welcome throwback to the primacy of character and careful story construction, at a time when narrative intricacy was in short supply on American movie screens.
Essays
May 22, 2006 — Luis Buñuel’s merciless satire concerns the smallness of our vision of progress and our narrow attempts to achieve it through rational or moralistic planning.
Aug 2, 2004 — The three film’s in Renoir’s trilogy are comic period fantasies in dazzling color, offering a kind of continuous, bustling choreography in which shifting power relations between upper and lower classes and between spectators and performers literally turn the world into...
Aug 25, 2026 — James Gray’s extraordinary debut feature is a painstakingly distilled tale of crime and family dysfunction, captured with a merciless gaze and a sharp attention to idiosyncratic detail.
The Daily
Jun 2, 2026 — Gorin will discuss films he’s selected as well as his own work and his collaborations with Jean-Luc Godard.
The Daily
Feb 3, 2026 — This year’s winners tell stories of trauma and triumph.
Jan 22, 2026 — At once earnest and fantastic, carefree and mindful, G. Aravindan’s richly imagined work of folklore channels the director’s deep spiritual vision through the form of a children’s story.
Aug 12, 2025 — This remarkably sensitive yet jarringly violent romance epitomizes director Youssef Chahine’s late-fifties hybrid style, which combined elements of Hollywood entertainment with an unmistakably Egyptian spirit.