Life or Something Like It

Apr 3, 2020 — Everyone remembers their first time with Toshiro Mifune. With almost anyone else, such a first would be recollected with a shrug or a casual “it was . . . fine.” But Mifune induces delirious and perfect recall: of him flat...

Mar 17, 2020 — Released in, or rather let loose upon, the first year of the new millennium, Spike Lee’s febrile and ferocious media satire Bamboozled—the fifteenth feature-length “joint” of a prolific career—found its writer-director in an unflinching mode and an unforgiving mood. According...

Mar 11, 2020 — One Scene With his Oscar-nominated debut feature, Beasts of the Southern Wild, director Benh Zeitlin brought to the screen a vision of Louisiana that combined the unique flavors and textures of his adopted home state with the magical twists and...

Mar 3, 2020 — American cinema is over 125 years old, and African Americans have been a part of it from the beginning. This participation has often been fraught, stymied, and curtailed, but the desire to use motion pictures to craft a self-image has...

Feb 28, 2020 — Bong Joon-ho picks twenty directors to watch. Also in the spotlight this week are Jennie Livingston, Jerome Hiler, Dušan Makavejev, and Ritwik Ghatak.

Feb 18, 2020 — In what was no doubt an appeal to subtitle-averse audiences, advertisements for the U.S. release of Teorema (1968) trumpeted, “There are only 923 words spoken in Teorema—but it says everything!” A meager few of those utterances are expended in an...

Jan 27, 2020 — Jason Polan and his drawing of King Kong We’re deeply saddened today by the passing of our friend Jason Polan. Jason was an integral part of the Criterion family for over a decade, responsible for, among many other things, the monthly...

Jan 2, 2020 — Steven Spielberg, Sofia Coppola, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Chloé Zhao, and Joanna Hogg are among the many directors ready to roll out their latest features.

Nov 21, 2019 — A richly varied showcase of Korean films made between 1996 and 2003 opens in New York.

Oct 7, 2019 — One Scene Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike has directed more than a hundred features, and almost three decades into his career he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Throughout his ferocious, often controversial body of work, he has contorted disparate genres...