The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 12, 2020 — In the early 1950s, director John Sturges, then under contract at MGM, read a condensed version of Paul Brickhill’s memoir The Great Escape, which details the mass escape of downed fighter pilots from the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III...
Features
Aug 21, 2019 — One Scene One of my absolute favorite quotes from Douglas Sirk—and he has a million of ’em—was made in reference to Magnificent Obsession. “It is a combination of kitsch and craziness and trashiness,” he said (this isn’t the quote quite...
May 24, 2019 — Elia Suleiman, who returned to Cannes this year with his latest film, talks with us about comedy as a form of political resistance.
Aug 20, 2018 — A haven for punks and drifters, 1980s downtown New York is captured in all its grit and romance in Susan Seidelman’s Palme d’Or–nominated debut feature.
Jun 11, 2018 — Building on a rich lineage of gothic fairy tales and noirish melodramas, this lavishly stylized curio has an ominous beauty all its own.
Feb 14, 2018 — With her acclaimed new film Western opening in theaters this week, we spoke with German director Valeska Grisebach on the romantic ideals of the quintessential American genre.
Dec 12, 2017 — Alexander Payne skewers the absurdities of American politics in this tale of a high-school presidential campaign gone ugly.
Essays
Jul 18, 2017 — During a period of personal turmoil, Andrei Tarkovsky created this enigmatic masterpiece, which explores spiritual and metaphysical mysteries through the prism of a science-fiction epic.
Features
May 2, 2017 — On a trip to the Library of Congress’s Mostly Lost workshop—affectionately known as “film-geek heaven”—Imogen Sara Smith joined early-cinema aficionados in uncovering treasures from the vaults.
Apr 17, 2017 — A group of Cuba’s most seasoned musicians became an international sensation upon the release of this acclaimed documentary portrait.