The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jun 13, 1988 — G. W. Pabst lends humanity and depth to his adaptation of a play by Bertolt Brecht—one of the last great works of German cinema's richest period.
Essays
Feb 8, 1988 — Sidney Lumet’s courtroom drama explores the process of law in human hands, where prejudice, fear, weakness, and even weather can divert the carriage of justice.
Essays
Feb 1, 1988 — Charles Laughton’s classic has the feel and the force of an American folk fable; yet, it also mixes rural humor with gothic humor, biblical quotation and Freudian symbolism, and everyday realities with a near-mythic confrontation between the forces of good...
Essays
Oct 12, 1987 — Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling Cinemascope epic is set squarely within the traditions of the Japanese film genre known as the “Chambara.”
Nov 17, 1986 — The best of all the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn comedies, Adam’s Rib is as fresh and topical today as it was in 1949 when it was first released. Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor, this...
Essays
Nov 10, 1986 — Max Ophuls’s masterpiece is a transformation of a conventional subject into an avant-garde adventure, and a spectacular stylistic breakthrough in the utilization of wide screen and color.
Essays
Dec 9, 1985 — Movie thrillers may come and go, but after half a century, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps still reigns supreme. And not only for the sheer, breathless excitement of the story; the seamless construction; the chilling, beautifully realized atmosphere; and the...