The Criterion Collection
Jul 9, 2007 — This unforgettable drama about damaged adolescents combines Jean Cocteau’s penchant for mythic poetry and Jean-Pierre Melville's knack for crafting intricate schemes.
Oct 24, 2005 — Jean-Pierre Melville’s great film flirts with macho extremism and slips over into dream and poetry just as it has us most alarmed.
Feb 16, 2004 — Ronald Neame’s Tunes of Glory (1960), which was widely admired when it was first released, has subsequently kept a low profile. This says more about critical attitudes and British film culture than it does about the quality of the movie....
Jun 23, 2003 — A very brief history of the seminal documentary by Alain Resnais
Essays
Jan 11, 1999 — David Lean followed his prodigious adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations with this brilliant crystallization of Dickens’ Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy’s Progress. It deploys the cinema’s special powers of dash and immediacy to convey all the venturesomeness and...
Mar 22, 1993 — Elizabethan prodigal prodigy Christopher Marlowe, whose tantalizingly brief life ended in political assassination, wrote a history play, in the mid-1590s, about the 1327 political assassinations of England’s Edward II and his lover and boyhood friend, Piers Gaveston. Rarely performed, Edward...
Feb 24, 2012 — The writer reflects on the decades-long creative collaboration and friendship between his father, playwright and television writer Elihu Winer, and John Voelker, judge and author.
Oct 6, 2010 — In response to our invitation to contribute his list of favorite Criterion titles, director Wes Anderson wrote, “I thought my take on a top-ten list might be to simply quote myself from the brief fan letters I periodically write to...
The Daily
Jun 18, 2026 — Martin Scorsese, Agnès Varda, Lars von Trier, and Katharine Hepburn are just a few of the names you might be adding to your summer reading list.
Feb 19, 2025 — Gus Van Sant’s lyrical exploration of addiction and faith—adapted from an autobiographical novel by James Fogle—influenced cinematic drug depictions throughout the nineties and helped to initiate a wave of American independent filmmaking.