The Criterion Collection
Essays
Sep 15, 2008 — Max Ophuls’s 1952 comedy celebrates existence by presenting a world full of unresolvable contradictions.
May 12, 2008 — This intensely personal work about a self-destructive young man would help alleviate Louis Malle’s doubts about his career.
Feb 19, 2007 — A powerful document of anti-Nazi propaganda, Powell and Pressburger’s war drama consolidated their partnership and showed a way forward for British cinema.
Essays
Jul 11, 2005 — Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story balances realism and fantasy.
Essays
Aug 2, 2004 — This kinetic and ineffably voluptuous musical is the happiest and most exuberant ripple in Jean Renoir’s career as a river of personal expression.
Sep 29, 2003 — Fassbinder had long dreamed of a “German Hollywood film.” He sought not only success with the audience, but also professionalism. The auteur film in its purest form is an attempt to abolish the division of labor: the filmmaker represents in...
Apr 28, 2003 — François Truffaut’s third Antoine Doinel installment is a perpetual juggling act by which harsh truths are disguised as light jokes.
Essays
Jun 5, 1995 — Kenji Mizoguchi departed abruptly from his earlier sentimental films into a world of acute realism with this bold critique of the position of women in contemporary Japanese society.
Oct 29, 1990 — Luis Buñuel’s ode to obsessive love is injected with the biting subversive wit, symbolism, originality and surreal touches that distinguish his finest achievements.
On the Channel
Jun 17, 2026 — Channel Calendars This month on the Criterion Channel, celebrate the hundredth birthday of the great Harry Dean Stanton, delight in the twists and thrills of our Murderous Melodramas collection, or binge the surreal cult-favorite TV series The Prisoner. There’s so...