The actor joins the director of his new film The Piano Lesson in the Criterion Closet, where they shout out the importance of Menace II Society, reflect on the beauty of Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda’s artistic relationship, and praise...

Jul 12, 2011 — Naked is the angriest, most bitterly critical attack on the false values of society that Mike Leigh, Britain’s constant chronicler of the tragic comedy of desperate lives, has ever made. Its audacity is that the attack is mounted through a...

Apr 18, 2019 — Michael Imperioli is an actor, director, and writer. He is best known for his role on The Sopranos, for which he won an Emmy Award in 2004. He has also appeared in many films, including Goodfellas, Jungle Fever, Bad Boys,...

Oct 16, 2024 — This year’s special anniversary edition will open with Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation, The Piano Lesson.

The writer and director of Sinners talks about the impact of seeing Malcolm X in his youth, compares the work of Michael Mann and Christopher Nolan, and praises the rebellious spirit of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

Nov 22, 2022 — Spike Lee’s transcendent portrait of an American hero is an urgent call for the nation to live up to everything it claims to be.

Aug 27, 2026 — The illuminating 1982 documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine follows the celebrated author on a journey through the American South, as he attempts to reckon with the legacy and losses of the civil rights movement.

Jun 25, 2024 — A collection on the Criterion Channel charts the evolution of the synthesizer—from its infancy in the 1950s to its maturity in the 1980s—and its transformative impact on film music.

May 6, 2024 — Perhaps the most hard-to-categorize of the great Hollywood studios came into its own with a string of critically acclaimed films based on popular books and plays, including Born Yesterday, A Raisin in the Sun, and From Here to Eternity.