The Best in Hell

Sep 13, 2004 — Fifteen years ago I received a letter from a young film director in Texas, who enclosed a tape of his first film, with the unlikely title It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. It might as well have...

Feb 1, 2022 — Douglas Sirk’s 1956 masterpiece is a visceral tragedy that lays bare the spiritual malaise of the ruling class.

Aug 8, 2021 — This month on the Channel, dive into the films of John Huston, Jean Harlow, Josephine Baker, and other cinematic icons.

Feb 25, 2014 — A testament to Steven Soderbergh’s versatility, this story of a boy growing up during the Great Depression is a tender but tough-minded look at a child’s inner world.

Nov 21, 2024 — Dennis Hopper’s bleakly nihilistic drama struggled to find an audience after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but time has revealed it to be one of the most hardcore films about disaffected youth ever made.

Feb 21, 2023 — On the verge of implosion, the band rages through a performance of their song “Circle Sky” in a psychedelic, politically trenchant sequence from director Bob Rafelson’s debut feature.

Apr 2, 2021 — This week people are writing and talking about Eric Rohmer, Michael Mann, Adam Curtis, the new Jump Cut, and the king of the “geezer teasers.”

Dec 29, 2020 — Channel Calendars The stars are aligned for the first month of the New Year on the Criterion Channel. We’re pleased to be kicking off 2021 with a tribute to Jane Fonda, whose greatest hits reflect her multifaceted career as a political activist...

Jul 14, 2020 — Bruce Lee seemed born to be on-screen. At three months old, he appeared as an infant in a Hong Kong movie called Golden Gate Girl (1941). After he died suddenly of cerebral edema in 1973 at the age of thirty-two,...

Jul 24, 2019 — New films by Josh and Benny Safdie, Marielle Heller, Pablo Larraín, Kasi Lemmons, Rian Johnson, Robert Eggers, Steven Soderbergh, and Lou Ye are heading to the festival.