The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 21, 2007 — Carol Reed’s masterpiece dives deep into the life and mind of screenwriter Graham Greene, one of Britain’s greatest postwar novelist.
Apr 23, 2007 — Louis Malle’s documentary work adopts certain tenets of cinéma direct—improvisation, minimal crew, the refusal to organize reality—and applies them to a consistently class-conscious, outsider perspective.
Mar 26, 2007 — Across five films, the Swedish director defined his guiding themes and cinematic style.
Jan 22, 2007 — Spencer Gordon Bennet’s eclectic science fiction–adventure movie bundles a serious patriotic message within its retelling of the Odysseus myth.
Dec 4, 2006 — A companion piece to Grey Gardens, this documentary stands on its own as a portrait of two women creatively passing the time as Rome burns.
Oct 16, 2006 — Screenwriter Carlos Cuarón delves into the character played by Luis De Icaza.
Sep 18, 2006 — Released in 1973, in the dying days of General Franco’s forty-year dictatorship, The Spirit of the Beehive soon established itself as the consummate masterpiece of Spanish cinema. Yet, strangely, many of the gifted artists who collaborated on Víctor Erice’s first...
Aug 14, 2006 — La collectionneuse is a strong, sensuously lush, deceptively slight film, a Riviera fruit with a bitter, uncompromising aftertaste. In retrospect, it is both classically Rohmeresque and atypical, as befits a film in which the director was still finding his way....
Jul 10, 2006 — In his unpredictable daily encounters with the gorilla Koko and her teacher, Barbet Schroeder foregrounds the quiddity of Koko’s situation in episodic fashion.
Jun 19, 2006 — Decades after its backyard birth, Jack Woods’s DIY horror movie has forged a model of inspiration for succeeding generations of effects artists and low-budget filmmakers.