The Criterion Collection
Oct 23, 2006 — The New Zealand director’s debut feature is a bridge between her tentative, probing film school works and her subsequent female character studies.
Jan 24, 2018 — One of the most memorable sequences in the silent classic People on Sunday explores the experience of being photographed and the tension between still and moving images.
The Daily
Feb 19, 2026 — In more than forty nonfiction features, he tried, as he said, “to create dramatic structures out of ordinary experience.”
Apr 23, 2024 — With its delirious images and audaciously poetic style, Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov’s hymn to revolution moves beyond ordinary logic to capture the mysterious beauty of collective utopia.
Aug 23, 2022 — With one foot in naturalism and the other in dreams and poetry, Marcel Carné’s visually rousing drama is an ode to the daily vicissitudes of ordinary Parisians.
Sep 28, 2021 — Melvin Van Peebles’s feature debut riffs on the French New Wave to tell a love story that portrays interracial intimacy and unflinchingly confronts the distortions of racism.
Mar 30, 2021 — Mike Leigh’s midcareer masterpiece is one of the finest examples of his ability to construct riveting drama from ordinary life.
Jun 18, 2019 — In his idiosyncratic, award-winning second film, Bruno Dumont uses the story of an alienated police detective to investigate the most elemental aspects of human experience.
Oct 23, 2012 — After winning an Oscar, John Schlesinger used his newfound artistic freedom to make a personal film in which homosexuality is treated as groundbreakingly ordinary.