The Criterion Collection
Production Notes
Sep 3, 2018 — The producers behind our edition of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s masterpiece share stories they discovered from researching the film and the turbulent political climate that inspired it.
Aug 26, 2018 — Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought cinema to the center of Cuban society with this richly ambiguous portrait of postrevolutionary Havana.
Apr 29, 2019 — Sergio, the bourgeois Havana intellectual at the center of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s 1968 Memories of Underdevelopment, isn’t your typical movie protagonist. An idle, arrogant property owner with an easy swagger, Sergio is in many ways a rather distasteful individual, exploitative...
Aug 30, 2018 — By posing provocative questions about revolutionary politics, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea brought Cuban filmmaking onto the international stage.
Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...
The actor and filmmaker selects favorites like Touki Bouki, Memories of Underdevelopment, and Accattone; shouts out his recent collaborator Claire Denis; and discovers his own work on our shelves.
The filmmaker cites All That Jazz as a major influence on modern editing, reveals the connection between Memories of Underdevelopment and Trainspotting, and shares his theory on why a director’s first film is always their best.
The director of I’m Still Here shares why Andrei Rublev and Stranger Than Paradise consistently renew his faith in cinema, talks about the unique mix of documentary and fiction in Memories of Underdevelopment, and praises how Garrett Bradley’s Time shows...
The Daily
Dec 3, 2025 — The Academy Museum celebrates film presentation with a series of twenty-four new restorations.
Apr 23, 2024 — With its delirious images and audaciously poetic style, Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov’s hymn to revolution moves beyond ordinary logic to capture the mysterious beauty of collective utopia.