The Criterion Collection
Dec 1, 2006 — We left St-Michel feeling uplifted and took a nice stroll south, past the Closerie des Lilas, the restaurant made famous by Hemingway, and through the Luxembourg gardens, where a film crew was laying dolly tracks and fitting counterweights on a...
Nov 13, 2006 — There’s a store called Stew Leonard’s near where I live. When you walk in, you can see the customer service rules hanging above the entrance. It’s simple—there are only two: Rule one: The customer is always right; Rule two: When...
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.
Essays
May 5, 1998 — Borrowing inspiration from doom-laden French crime movies like Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le samouraï and ancient Chinese chronicles of patriotic assassins, John Woo’s film is a passionate cinematic upheaval.
Jan 28, 1991 — The following review, one of the most renowned in the history of film criticism, appeared in The New Yorker magazine on October 28, 1972. It is reprinted with the permission of the author, Pauline Kael. Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in...
The general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival and the director of the Institut Lumière—whose film Lumière, le cinéma! is now playing on the Criterion Channel—shares his personal journey through cinema, highlighting such favorites as Pierrot le fou, 2046, Budd...
The writer and director talks about the connection between Le corbeau and Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom; praises the strength of Kira Muratova and Larisa Shepitko; and selects Deep Crimson for his friend, Arturo Ripstein.
The writer and director of Magellan praises the use of silence and space in Le samouraï, talks about how Mike Leigh and Kenji Mizoguchi explore the human condition in their films, and selects his good friend Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies.
The actor and director talks about the pleasures of watching Zazie dans le métro on a regular basis and his affinity for the films of Aki Kaurismäki.