The Hindenburg

In the span of a mere sixteen years, this German wunderkind made an astonishing forty-four movies that run the gamut from melodramas to period pieces to science fiction.

Feb 23, 2012 — Author John Voelker (a.k.a. Robert Traver) met musician Duke Ellington on the set of Anatomy of a Murder; he wrote this piece about the experience for the Detroit News Sunday Magazine in 1967.

Feb 22, 2012 — Oren Moverman, who appears as a visitor to the theater in Vanya on 42nd Street, is the cowriter and director of the 2010 Oscar-nominated The Messenger. He served as a screenwriter on I’m Not There, Married Life, and Jesus’ Son,...

Jan 19, 2012 — Writer, teacher, and performer Susie Bright is a trailblazer in the academic study of pornography and eroticism in mainstream cinema. The sex-positive feminist is the author of the books Susie Bright’s Erotic Screen, Volume 1: 1967–1989 and Big Sex Little...

Dec 13, 2011 — The English actor Dominic Monaghan is best known for his roles as Meriadoc Brandybuck in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Charlie Pace on the series Lost. Monaghan writes, “I’m embarrassed to say most of my film...

Dec 13, 2011 — Seijun Suzuki’s delirious, absurdist deconstruction of the crime genre is the strangest film the director made at Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest film company.

Nov 29, 2011 — Author Michael Korda (Charmed Lives: A Family Romance) writes: Few things are more challenging than picking ten favorites out of such a long list of distinguished films as that of Criterion, and it seems only fair to point out that,...

Nov 17, 2011 — We met award-winning actor Alec Baldwin on Twitter (@AlecBaldwin) and asked him to contribute a Criterion Top 10. His response was immediate and enthusiastic. Baldwin’s film credits include Beetlejuice, Miami Blues, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Cooler (for...

The world’s most famous Finnish filmmaker excels at a distinctive and effortless mix of scalpel-sharp comedy and spare, pitch-perfect visual storytelling.

Oct 25, 2011 — The film is made up of a succession of small visions, observed and executed with apparent ease but thought through with such exquisite care and attention that the experience becomes overwhelming.