A Brief Affair

Feb 24, 2022 — Next month on the Criterion Channel, we’re pushing the envelope with a series of the pre-Code films made by Paramount Pictures, a centenary tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini, and a collection of groundbreaking concert documentaries.

Dec 21, 2017 — No one has captured the complexities of forbidden love with more intimacy than Celia Johnson in David Lean’s classic romance.

Dec 12, 2017 — Alexander Payne skewers the absurdities of American politics in this tale of a high-school presidential campaign gone ugly.

Jul 29, 2014 — Combining a tragic romance and the story of a workers’ strike, this musical melodrama is perhaps Jacques Demy’s most neglected masterpiece.

Mar 27, 2012 — The mysterious letter was signed “Joe.” David Lean’s lawyer had sent me a batch of old correspondence. Struggling with a biography of Lean, I was desperate for any leads, and this one seemed worth following up. But how does one...

Jan 17, 2005 — Along with Touchez pas au grisbi and Le Trou, Casque d’or is now widely recognized as the summit of Jacques Becker’s achievement as a filmmaker.

Dec 2, 1990 — In Martin Scorsese’s hands, the camera is not simply a recording device, but an x-ray machine—and it shows us close-ups of the human soul.

Aug 8, 2025 — This week: Edward Yang, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and alternative lists of the best films of the twenty-first century.

Jan 27, 2021 — A film that centers on a transgender person or storyline enters the culture like any other movie. The difference lies in the discourse around it. A pervasive disregard for the realities of trans experience beyond the screen is evident in...

Sep 4, 2019 — After Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, it’s Timothée Chalamet’s turn to lead the English to the Battle of Agincourt.