The Criterion Collection
Essays
Oct 18, 2004 — Nixon as Hamlet, Nixon as Lear, Nixon as Blanche DuBois, Nixon as Krapp—clutching every last tape to his breast with the wild fury and despair of a man on the precipice . . . Nixon in his study, poring over...
Essays
May 15, 2000 — Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, the first fully-achieved feature by the woman who would become the premiere female director of her generation, dazzled when it opened, and looks even more timely today in its tackling of the fashionable...
Essays
Nov 22, 1999 — Grand Illusion is the masterpiece that earned Jean Renoir enormous acclaim in the United States, exciting the admiration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and running for 26 weeks in New York after its opening in September 1938. Banned in Italy...
Jan 16, 2020 — Deep Dives The question that was asked of the great actors and actresses of silent film with the coming of sound was simple: Could they speak? Could they adapt the styles they had developed to the demands of dialogue and...
Sep 29, 2020 — In this masterpiece from the father of modern Indonesian cinema, Usmar Ismail, a violent military culture grips the nation in the years following a brutal revolution.
Jan 28, 2019 — With WR: Mysteries of the Organism, the late Serbian director made what Amos Vogel called “one of the most important subversive masterpieces of the 1970s.”
The Daily
Jul 30, 2018 — Retrospectives of the French master’s work are playing in New York and Berkeley, with Washington to follow in September.
Feb 10, 2015 — The late film scholar beautifully analyzes the visual lyricism of the French master’s legendary short work.
Jun 19, 2024 — A masterpiece from the golden age of Mexican cinema, Emilio Fernández’s film is a prime example of the cabaretera film, an offshoot of the popular “prostitute melodrama” genre.
On the Channel
Aug 16, 2018 — The Oscar-winning director talks about drawing inspiration from the intimacy and naturalism of the documentary masterpiece Chronicle of a Summer.