Heads of State

Mar 29, 2017 — Film journalist Mark Harris stopped by Criterion to chat about the growing pains that five Hollywood filmmakers experienced during World War II.

Dec 11, 2012 — Cinema is both an educational tool and a vessel for kinetic, avant-garde expression for filmmaker and activist Godfrey Reggio.

Oct 25, 2012 — The following piece by Sunday Bloody Sunday screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt originally appeared as the introduction to the 1971 U.S. publication of the script. A friend of mine who had started scrubbing at fourteen and went on to be a barmaid...

May 13, 2011 — Craig McCall’s labor of love documentary Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, a darling of the film festival circuit over the past year, opens today in New York and in a couple of weeks in Los Angeles. A...

Mar 15, 2011 — In Edward Yang’s cinema in general, and in Yi Yi in particular, character and environment are inseparable.

Jul 13, 2010 — At the author’s request, Japanese names are given here in their traditional form: surname first. Nineteen thirty-six was a decisive year for imperial Japan, marked by extreme violence at home and abroad. In the very early morning of February 26,...

Sep 18, 2006 — Nobuo Nakagawa’s legendary, genre-­busting Japanese masterpiece explores the infernal desires that tempt us during our mortal existence—and the afterlife agonies awaiting those who succumb.

May 14, 2018 — In the singular world of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, auteurist homage and social consciousness are joined by some of the most lovingly filmed dogs in contemporary cinema.

Apr 27, 2023 — Over the course of her four-decade career, the pioneering Indian documentary filmmaker has demonstrated the important roles that joy and pleasure play in the process of political change.

May 31, 2022 — Billy Wilder’s classic film noir is a powerful meditation on masculinity, desire, and the fantasies of white America.