The Criterion Collection
Essays
Sep 8, 1998 — In David Lean’s Summertime, in which Rossano Brazzi seduces Katharine Hepburn—an aging, repressed Ohio “working girl” on vacation in Venice—the Continental lover reached his pinnacle and approached his end. In the next decade, he would be embodied by Marcello Mastroianni,...
Essays
Apr 6, 1993 — Robert Altman’s darkly witty, gleefully close-to-bone satire of Hollywood is also a return to the infinitely sly and supple virtuosity that marked his great work of the ‘70s.
Dec 9, 1991 — This rarely seen, overlooked gem, featuring what may be one of Marlon Brando’s most fascinating characterizations, was Gillo Pontecorvo’s worthy follow-up to his political masterpiece The Battle of Algiers. The brilliant radical Italian director achieved something unique in cinema, by...
Essays
Dec 9, 1991 — We used as much of the actual detail of physical things and of technique as we could possibly cram in, and as many players reflecting the endless variety of character and emotion of the real men as dramatization would allow.
Essays
Jun 3, 1991 — Robert Montgomery stars in the Oscar-nominated role of Joe Pendleton, a lug of a boxer accidentally spirited off to heaven before his time, while Claude Rains is the title character whose job it is to find a way for Pendleton...
Essays
Oct 31, 1988 — This ingenious and entertaining crime thriller marks what its director Stanley Kubrick would like to think of as the real beginning of his career.
Jan 4, 1988 — The Secret Agent (1936) came to life in the prime of Alfred Hitchcock’s British period. It arrived between the popular triumph of The 39 Steps and the box-office rejection of Sabotage, a more daringly downbeat work. Secret Agent partakes of...
The filmmaker looks back on seeing Dr. Strangelove in the cinema with his parents as a teenager, talks about a failed attempt to show one of his favorite movies to Robert Crumb, and shares how All About My Mother inspired...
The actor, writer, and director shares what makes Michael Haneke and Robert Bresson such exceptional filmmakers, praises the cinematography of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and talks about the power of representation in Do the Right Thing and El Norte.
The actor talks about the experience of sharing The Princess Bride with his son, celebrates the transportive quality of Do the Right Thing, and selects formative favorites like Withnail and I and Monty Python’s Life of Brian.