The Criterion Collection
Essays
Mar 30, 1992 — John Schlesinger’s controversial masterpiece made moviegoers squirm with its bold, bleak portrayal of unrequited love, gay and otherwise, and it remains as jolting and thought-provoking as ever.
The artist, musician, and director of Heart of a Dog shouts out Guy Maddin as one of her favorite filmmakers, praises the first scene in Sunday Bloody Sunday, and can’t resist Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life.
Essays
Oct 25, 2012 — The following piece by Sunday Bloody Sunday screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt originally appeared as the introduction to the 1971 U.S. publication of the script. A friend of mine who had started scrubbing at fourteen and went on to be a barmaid...
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.
On the Channel
Sep 3, 2019 — In the early sixties, John Schlesinger made a name for himself as part of the British New Wave, as the energetic, gritty realism of his first few features—A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, and Darling (for which Julie Christie won...
Sneak Peeks
Oct 24, 2012 — A highly sophisticated look at sex, relationships, and loneliness, John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday was controversial when it was released in 1971, mainly as a result of the casualness with which it depicts intimacy between two members of the same...
Mar 18, 2016 — For the past thirty years, the British Film Institute has been honoring the best in contemporary and classic LGBT cinema from around the world, with its annual BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival. In celebration of the festival’s three-decade anniversary...
On the Channel
Dec 1, 2021 — Celebrate the holidays with our 21-film Alfred Hitchcock retrospective and a series dedicated to collaborations between female directors and cinematographers.
Aug 28, 2019 — Check out what’s in store next month on our streaming service!
The Daily
Feb 20, 2026 — Steven Soderbergh talks and two retrospectives showcase work by Raymond Depardon and John Schlesinger.