The Criterion Collection
The Daily
Oct 24, 2019 — A retrospective in Vienna focuses on the guerrilla heroes of partisan cinema.
Mar 18, 2016 — Meg Baird is a founding member of the experimental folk collective Espers (Drag City). She continues to perform and produce solo work under her own name, and she is the vocalist and drummer in Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop). Her most...
Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...
Essays
May 13, 2002 — In Barbet Schroeder’s portrait of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, we watch a seemingly amiable, thoroughly pompous despot attempt to transform himself into a figure of heroic proportions.
Essays
Sep 18, 2000 — Drenched in mud and rain, Lars von Trier’s breakthrough film inhabits a true twilight zone, bereft of heroes and integrity.
Sep 1, 1992 — The evolution of Jason and the Argonauts began in the late 1950s, after the initial success of 20 Million Miles to Earth. Harryhausen and his producer, Charles Schneer, decided to get away from doing “monster-on-the-loose” stories and try something more...
The writer and director of Blue Heron shares how John Cassavetes inspired her own approach to independent filmmaking, praises The Watermelon Woman and Not a Pretty Picture as essential works of hybrid cinema, and talks about her personal connection to...
Dec 9, 2025 — In one of cinema’s greatest love stories, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger use the mercurial beauty of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides to evoke the unruly passions of an indelible heroine.
May 21, 2021 — Known for her resilient heroines, the prolific Japanese actor finds agency through moments of hesitation in one of her seventeen collaborations with Mikio Naruse.
Nov 19, 2008 — Allan Arkush is an Emmy-winning television director and executive producer of NBC’s hit series Heroes. Arkush's directing credits also include the Ramones’ cult classic Rock ’n’ Roll High School, which Rolling Stone magazine named as one of the top-10 rock...