The Criterion Collection
Production Notes
Jul 7, 2016 — In honor of the director, we look back at his quintessentially American narratives.
Sneak Peeks
Mar 31, 2016 — Since its initial release more than half a century ago, Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves has been lauded as one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Loosely adapted from a novel by Luigi Bartolini, the film centers on a father’s quest—with his...
Production Notes
Mar 21, 2016 — 1. This week, we’re proud to release our long-awaited 4K restoration of Edward Yang’s 1991 masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day. Long unavailable on home video in the United States, this incomparable work of Taiwanese cinema is now out on Blu-ray and DVD,...
Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.
Nov 17, 2015 — Satyajit Ray began his filmmaking career by offering a vision of the young Apu, the character he would go on to follow throughout the three films of his stunning breakthrough epic.
Sneak Peeks
Jun 16, 2015 — For our release of A Master Builder, Jonathan Demme’s film of André Gregory and Wallace Shawn’s Henrik Ibsen adaptation, we turned to writer and New York culture maven Fran Lebowitz, a friend of Gregory and Shawn’s, to talk to the...
May 29, 2015 — A shocking chapter of Soviet Czechoslovakian history is dramatized in Costa-Gavras’s controversial follow-up to Z.
Sneak Peeks
Dec 2, 2014 — Les Blank’s documentaries focusing on musicians are wonderfully easygoing and authentic. Watching films like A Well Spent Life, a 1971 portrait of Texas blues guitarist Mance Lipscomb, one senses a relationship of total trust between subjects and filmmakers. In this...
Features
Oct 2, 2014 — The following is a chapter on The Innocents from cinematographer Freddie Francis’s memoir, The Straight Story from “Moby Dick” to “Glory.” It is reproduced here courtesy of Scarecrow Press. The last picture I worked on as a cinematographer in my...
Film Guides
Jan 6, 2014 — Critics commonly describe Throne of Blood (1957) as Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth. While this description is certainly not untrue, the film is much more than a direct cinematic translation of a literary text. Kurosawa’s movie is a brilliant synthesis...