The First Year

Mar 18, 2025 — In what he described as his “first serious drama,” Charlie Chaplin channeled the influence of modernist literature, foreign cinema, and his European travels into a work of striking formal sophistication.

Jun 18, 2024 — We’re diving deeper this month into a new Elaine May biography and memoirs from Susan Seidelman and Griffin Dunne.

Jan 12, 2024 — This week’s given us essays on Chantal Akerman and Edward Yang and conversations with Takeshi Kitano and Robert Bresson.

Oct 5, 2022 — Highlights include new work from Chinonye Chukwu, Lars von Trier, Elegance Bratton, and Jerzy Skolimowski.

Sep 28, 2022 — A high point of early Argentine cinema, Mario Soffici’s 1939 film about the plight of plantation workers is an unflinching examination of exploitation and violence.

Mar 18, 2022 — With a collection of her films now available on the Criterion Channel, the director behind Still Processing discusses the radically personal nature of her work.

Jan 27, 2022 — As John Cameron Mitchell’s newly restored second feature returns to theaters, many wonder if it could possibly be made today.

Aug 17, 2021 — D. A. Pennebaker turns his camera on Stephen Sondheim and the cast of his breakthrough musical in this revelatory documentary about artists at work.

Aug 3, 2021 — With two short films and his acclaimed debut feature, No Data Plan, now playing on the Criterion Channel, the Filipino American filmmaker discusses his vision of the immigrant experience.

Mar 10, 2021 — For about five minutes in Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View, the lights go down on our movie and we’re shown another—an increasingly deranged propaganda short designed to suss out whether someone is Parallax material. That is to say, an...