The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jul 18, 2017 — During a period of personal turmoil, Andrei Tarkovsky created this enigmatic masterpiece, which explores spiritual and metaphysical mysteries through the prism of a science-fiction epic.
Essays
Jan 23, 2017 — In his radical debut feature, Ousmane Sembène reveals the agony of the postcolonial experience through the story of a Senegalese migrant abused by her French employers.
On the Channel
Dec 6, 2016 — Photo by Janet Pierson In the late eighties and early nineties, American independent film was coming into its own both artistically and commercially, and John Pierson was at the center of the movement. Once described by the New York Times...
Apr 20, 2015 — "Afilm about India without elephants and tiger hunts”—this was how Jean Renoir described his objective in making The River. Guided by Rumer Godden’s autobiographical novel, he rejected the India of exotic action and spectacle to make a meditative, almost mystical...
Jun 11, 2013 — Ingmar Bergman’s classic character study is a moving depiction of aging and regret but also joy and forgiveness.
Jun 25, 2012 — For this Edinburgh-based writer and filmmaker, Hitchcock’s Scottish caper is both fantasy and reality.
Short Takes
May 17, 2012 — The latest comedy by Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom, had its world premiere yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival, and was very warmly received. We hope Anderson is having better luck communicating with French interviewers than he did when he and...
Apr 26, 2011 — At once prestigious literary adaptation and slapstick buddy flick, this is something like a lowbrow art film, an egghead monster movie, a hilarious paean to reckless indulgence, and perhaps the most widely released midnight movie ever made.
Essays
Apr 25, 2005 — Andrzej Wajda’s first feature film marks the beginning of the Polish School, the paradigm of Polish cinema that arose from the political and cultural thaw of the mid-1950s.
Essays
Mar 5, 1990 — Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterwork is one of the greatest portraits of old age and loneliness ever brought to the screen.