The Criterion Collection
Apr 26, 2016 — “It is not an exaggeration to say that before Primary, documentary as we know it today—the art of candid observation—didn’t exist,” writes Thom Powers.
Mar 23, 2016 — We had come to expect Chantal Akerman’s periodic gifts of small and large cinematic gems. Certain of this flow, we were devastated when, all too abruptly, we were forced to think of her latest film, so beautiful, as her last.
Essays
Mar 17, 2016 — Decades later, Ingmar Bergman’s self-reflexive masterpiece remains a provocative enigma worthy of close investigation.
Features
Jan 5, 2016 — The late Haskell Wexler wore many hats—he was an independent, impassioned documentarian; a commercial Hollywood cinematographer; a political and social activist; an institutional (even union) contrarian. He was also an exemplar of how to live.
Dec 8, 2015 — In Speedy, Harold Lloyd, a comic genius who thought of himself as a quintessentially average American man, places his optimistic everyman character within the context of a society in shift, to great comedic effect.
Nov 18, 2015 — Richard Brooks’s In Cold Blood applied cinematic specificity and flair to the literary realism of Truman Capote’s classic “nonfiction novel.”
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.
Essays
Nov 12, 2015 — Michael Haneke’s politically prescient drama explores the tenuous, uneasy connections between inhabitants of a globally interwoven Europe.
Oct 15, 2015 — Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are cast against type—and funnyman director Ettore Scola gets serious—in this humane drama set in Fascist Italy.
Aug 13, 2015 — The films Agnès Varda made while living on the West Coast of the United States are some of the most searching and challenging of her stellar career.