In the Blood

Aug 29, 2012 — With humor and melancholy, Franc Roddam’s coming-of-age drama, based on the Who’s iconic album, shows us a g-g-generation on the edge.

Jul 24, 2012 — Trained as a musician, Jean Grémillon became one of French cinema’s most lyrical artists. His most beloved films were made during World War II.

Jun 20, 2012 — I have John Schlesinger to thank for my role in Harold and Maude. I’d been in Sunday Bloody Sunday for John. He had given Hal Ashby my name to look up when Hal was interviewing all the famous English dames...

Oct 17, 2011 — Scratch the surface of a contemporary J-horror classic like Ringu (1998) or any of the Ju-on films (2000–03) and you’ll glimpse Yabu no naka no kuroneko (Black Cat from the Grove), released in the U.S. as simply Kuroneko (1968). Shot...

We have a killer selection of Japanese gangster films—or yakuza pictures—all from the genre’s heyday in the fifties and sixties.

Mar 22, 2011 — In 1985, deep into the twelve-year reign of the Reagan-Bush administration, Rob Epstein mounted a Hollywood stage with Richard Schmiechen, both men resplendent in tuxedos. Epstein was only twenty-nine years old. The director had just made history, with producer Schmiechen,...

The continuing cultural fascination with World War II has ensured that it’s the conflict most represented in cinema, and the Criterion Collection indeed contains more works about that massive conflagration than any other.

Aug 18, 2010 — Before Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus showed up on American and European screens in 1959, what would later be known as the “art film” came in only a few shades of glum: Bergmanesque existentialism, Japanese samurai tragedy, stories of Italian peasant...

Aug 13, 2010 — The Docks of New York When John Grierson, the Scotsman whose absolute devotion to realism on film—he coined the word documentary and created the National Film Board of Canada—was asked how he’d enjoyed a screening of a now-lost Josef von Sternberg...

This singularly audacious B-movie visionary made purposefully crude, elegantly stripped-down films that laid bare the dark side of American culture.