The Criterion Collection
Essays
Sep 17, 2009 — Director René Clément had conveyed the darker aspects of human nature in 1952’s heartbreaking Forbidden Games, which became an international, award-winning hit despite the rawness and melancholy of its antiwar message. The bitter irony and willingness to grapple with the...
Apr 22, 2025 — The majestic landscape of Provence takes center stage in Claude Berri’s two-film adaptation of an epic tale by Marcel Pagnol, a cinematic treasure that remains an abiding source of comfort for French viewers.
The Daily
Jul 24, 2024 — The retrospective lays the groundwork for the release of a new restoration of Army of Shadows.
Jan 26, 2023 — This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.
Sep 3, 2021 — In the thirty-fifth edition of the Italian festival dedicated to restored films, an eclectic lineup underscores the transportive physicality of cinema after a long year stuck at home.
Features
Aug 9, 2018 — An annual destination for cinephiles from around the world, this film festival in Bologna is a magical place to discover the richness of cinema’s past.
The Daily
Jul 31, 2020 — This week we’re reading about Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc Godard, Luchino Visconti, Amy Seimetz, and the cinematic allure of fictional cults.
Features
Nov 15, 2019 — It’s a strange feeling: adoring cinema while at the same time always sensing that it’s not made for you. This is how I felt growing up, at least. I came of age watching movies, crushing on them so hard that...
Essays
Aug 24, 2010 — I n a photograph of Josef von Sternberg from 1937, he looks like a character from one of his own films: a turbaned magus with elegantly trimmed beard and mustache, holding a cigarette as he gazes out obliquely, with the...
The Daily
Feb 16, 2018 — “The responsibility of being a gay film critic,” writes Michael Koresky, “to borrow a phrase from the great Robin Wood, is to be honest about your responses as an individualized viewer, and to balance questions around identity with a film’s...