The Criterion Collection
Sep 21, 2015 — Krzysztof Kieślowski’s political and philosophical rumination, which marked an important turning point in the director's career, imagines a young man's life branching off in three possible directions.
May 22, 2015 — A music star burns brightly and flames out beautifully in Mark Rydell’s visceral rock-and-roll film, starring a sensational Bette Midler.
Feb 1, 2011 — When Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Véronique was first screened at Cannes, in 1991, the critical reception was rapturous. Georgia Brown declared in the Village Voice, “Anything I say about [the film] is merely a labored minuet danced around...
Sep 26, 2010 — The Thin Red Line, arguably the greatest war film ever made, ended two decades of silence from Terrence Malick, cinema’s wandering auteur. The silence wasn’t entirely self-imposed, since during this time he tried to launch a few productions—including a tale...
Essays
May 27, 2010 — Dismiss from your mind, momentarily at least, the John Ford we know, who could define himself with the three words “I make westerns.” Before Stagecoach (1939), Ford’s talking pictures played out in submarines, penitentiaries, and Scottish castles, in Mesopotamia, colonial...
Short Takes
Feb 5, 2010 — Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (Knopf) begins with an epigram that pretty well sums up Altman’s attitude toward “truth” and “realism” in cinema and life. “I don’t think anybody remembers the truth, the facts,” the great filmmaker said. “You remember...
Dec 1, 2009 — This nonfiction masterwork by David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin is a terrifying snapshot of the sudden collapse of the sixties.
Dec 1, 2009 — The deeply disturbing drama of this landmark documentary about the Rolling Stones sprang from the disturbing drama of the times.
Essays
Apr 21, 2009 — “Just takes a few months to get to be a hundred. If you’re in the right place at the right time.” I first saw Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece The Wages of Fear when the restored version was released in the U.S.,...
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.