American Fiction

Jan 7, 1985 — King Kong is unique in motion picture history. In the 51 years since its original release, its particular combination of unbridled imagination and ingenious craftsmanship have never been equalled. Not only has it stood the test of time, but King...

Dec 30, 2008 — It’s the last day of 2008, and all the balloting is finally done. Here’s a rundown of how Criterion rated in the best DVDs of the year polls: The Sight & Sound list included Criterion’s “gripping morality tale” Death of...

Feb 19, 2026 — Though in many ways the quintessential company man, the director brought an intimate understanding of the margins of American society to the films he made for Warner Bros. in the 1930s.

Jul 31, 2025 — Series celebrating a giant of American cinema are on in Boston, Chicago, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.

May 21, 2025 — The exiled American director of Try and Get Me! and Hell Drivers depicted crime and violence as the inevitable results of capitalist competition.

Sep 27, 2023 — After winning a handful of top awards in Beijing, the novelist-turned-filmmaker’s thirteenth fictional feature arrives in New York.

Jan 30, 2023 — Celebrate Black History Month with a collection of films that survey African American history on-screen, a look at literary legend James Baldwin’s cinematic legacy, and a retrospective devoted to the independent trailblazer Oscar Micheaux.

Nov 22, 2022 — Spike Lee’s transcendent portrait of an American hero is an urgent call for the nation to live up to everything it claims to be.

Aug 14, 2018 — Reimagining the story of a Mexican American folk hero, this revisionist western ushered in a new era in both Chicano and independent filmmaking.

Mar 30, 2018 — This spectacular and technically ambitious Hollywood musical is a priceless window onto American pop culture’s view of itself in the 1930s.