If I Were for Real

Jun 24, 2020 — It was audiences, not critics, that made hits out of such movies as St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Batman Forever (1995), and Phone Booth (2002).

Feb 26, 2020 — Karel Zeman belonged to an obsessive fringe fellowship of moviemakers that stretched right back to the medium’s first formative days—a lineage of auteurs who believed in cinema as a full-blown daydream machine, capable of realizing inhabitable fantasias. These were filmmakers—practical-effects...

Jan 14, 2020 — There’s been a whole of kvetching, but also a bit of celebrating since the nominations were announced on Monday.

Dec 30, 2019 — We asked some of our friends if they had underappreciated films from the past decade that they wanted to champion. Here’s what they chose.

Oct 15, 2019 — Born in Denmark to a wealthy family in 1879, Benjamin Christensen dropped out of medical school to receive training as an opera singer, only to lose his singing voice to what was diagnosed as an incurable nervous illness. He then...

Jul 25, 2018 — After languishing for decades in John Waters’ attic, never-before-seen footage from the set of Female Trouble has made its way onto our newly released edition of the film.

May 20, 2018 — A lifelong movie collector remembers the thrill of discovering the granddaddy of all monsters on Super 8.

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...

Mar 24, 2016 — With Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day finally available in the U.S., screenwriter Hung Hung talks about his working relationship with Yang, the film’s truncated distribution and slow path to acclaim, and the real-life roots of its narrative.

Apr 16, 2013 — With its idiosyncratic humor, killer soundtrack, and middle finger to Reagan-era politics, Alex Cox’s film was the perfect cult hit for the golden age of the video store.