The Criterion Collection
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...
Sep 2, 2021 — Translated into English for the first time, this afterword to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s novelization of his film explores the director’s attraction to fiction writing and how the art form differs from narrative cinema.
Features
Nov 23, 2018 — The work of James Agee (1909–1955) remains one of the touchstones of American movie criticism. An extraordinarily versatile writer, he won acclaim as a novelist, a poet, and a screenwriter (his scripts for The African Queen and The Night of the...
Essays
Apr 25, 2017 — After a string of ill-fated productions, Francis Ford Coppola channeled his feelings of self-doubt in this deeply personal take on S. E. Hinton’s beloved novel.
The Daily
Aug 5, 2026 — MIFF 2026 revives films by Manoel de Oliveira, Lino Brocka, Mary Stephen, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Michael Almereyda, and Mary Harron.
May 19, 2026 — “Last night, I was in the Kingdom of Shadows,” proclaimed Maxim Gorky, writing about an 1896 projection of films by Auguste and Louis Lumière in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. “Suddenly a strange flicker passes through the screen and...
The Daily
Apr 30, 2026 — The festival presents new work by Isabel Sandoval, Kogonada, Ildikó Enyedi, and more.
Apr 28, 2026 — As the 1950s began, Kinuyo Tanaka found herself at a turning point. She had been acting in films since she was fourteen, becoming one of Japan’s most beloved, admired, and prolific women stars. Now in her early forties, she saw...
The Daily
Apr 14, 2026 — New films from Radu Jude, Clio Barnard, Lisandro Alonso, and Alain Cavalier are headed to Cannes.
Jan 28, 2025 — The first of eight collaborations between actor James Stewart and director Anthony Mann centers on a prize rifle that ends up being both a magical object and a cursed one, sending every man who possesses it to a doomed fate.