The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jun 13, 2005 — Godard’s famous claim that Au hasard Balthazar is “the world in an hour and a half” suggests how dense, how immense Bresson’s brief, elliptical tale about the life and death of a donkey is. The film’s steady accumulation of incident,...
Essays
Oct 18, 2004 — Nixon as Hamlet, Nixon as Lear, Nixon as Blanche DuBois, Nixon as Krapp—clutching every last tape to his breast with the wild fury and despair of a man on the precipice . . . Nixon in his study, poring over...
Jack Mathews is the author of The Battle of "Brazil" (Crown) and film critic for Newsday.
Sep 29, 2020 — In this masterpiece from the father of modern Indonesian cinema, Usmar Ismail, a violent military culture grips the nation in the years following a brutal revolution.
Sneak Peeks
Sep 14, 2016 — Asian-cinema expert Tony Rayns unpacks the significance of Zatoichi’s name and the strict social hierarchy that the character so gleefully upends.
The Daily
Aug 31, 2026 — The festival’s showcase of nineteen new restorations spans more than half a century of cinema history.
The Daily
Jun 26, 2026 — We’re tracking the unconventional flows of Zidane, Eephus, and Castration Movie; plus Pedro Costa on Mizoguchi and Tourneur.
Mar 24, 2026 — In this true-crime epic, Martin Scorsese combines his career-long exploration of amoral gangsterism with a sobering meditation on what it means to live on American soil.
The Daily
Jan 23, 2026 — This week: Max Ophuls, Erich von Stroheim, David Lynch, the Biden years, and the best of 1935.