The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
Aug 18, 2016 — Beloved Hollywood veteran Arthur Hiller passed away yesterday at the age of ninety-two. In a career that spanned five decades and more than thirty films, he demonstrated remarkable versatility, with credits ranging from Neil Simon comedies (The Out-of-Towners, Plaza Suite)...
Jun 28, 2016 — When Stanley Kubrick bought the motion picture rights to the 1958 thriller Red Alert, by the retired Royal Air Force navigator Peter George, he meant to direct an action film about a nuclear war triggered by a solitary madman. Some...
Jun 14, 2016 — Alexander Hall’s 1941 film showcased Robert Montgomery’s star power and, with its premise of a death revoked, provided much-needed comic relief to war-worried audiences.
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.
Jul 13, 2015 — “I think that in a few years, in ten, in twenty, or thirty years, we shall know whether Hiroshima mon amour was the most important film since the war, the first modern film of sound cinema.” That was Eric Rohmer,...
Feb 24, 2015 — Federico Fellini’s fragmentary and picturesque tale of death and debauchery in ancient Rome is a surreal take on reality.
Features
Jun 12, 2014 — The filmmaker’s latest offering at the film festival reaffirms the author’s faith in him.
Dec 10, 2013 — In 1998, I interviewed Little Edie Beale, the surviving star of 1976’s Grey Gardens, one of the Maysles brothers’ numerous masterworks (Gimme Shelter, Meet Marlon Brando, and With Love from Truman are equal in technical and emotional innovation). Miss Beale,...
Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.
Jul 30, 2013 — Guillermo del Toro’s ghostly fable beautifully reflects the director’s fascination with the personal and the political.