Sep 28, 2010 — “The past, again and again.” —Major Jack Celliers, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Nagisa Oshima’s filmmaking career began with the risen sun—or rather, with the promise of a sun soon to rise: Tomorrow’s Sun (1959), a dizzyingly designed faux “coming attraction”...

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.

Jul 6, 2020 — Songbook In the blue moonlight of a humid December night, an escape is underway. A man in army fatigues runs from an open-air cell with a rolled-up rug in one hand and a sword in the other, stolen from someone...

The writer and director reminisces about seeing Short Cuts at the Venice Film Festival, selects Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence out of love for Ryuichi Sakamoto, and takes home the one Stanley Kubrick film he hasn’t see.

The musician and member of Portishead talks about the overwhelming experience of watching Antichrist, a score he cowrote for The Passion of Joan of Arc, and his memory of a BBC broadcast of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

Paul Mayersberg started as a film critic, worked as an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville, Joseph Losey, and Roger Corman, and became the screenwriter of The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Eureka, and Croupier. He is the...

Jun 1, 2017 — Earlier this spring, Ryuichi Sakamoto gave an exquisitely intimate concert at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Surrounded by a small audience in the venue’s opulent Veterans Room, the renowned Japanese composer was positioned in the center of the...

Oct 13, 2010 — In a new Slate article titled “Cracked Actor,” critic Jessica Winter takes an enjoyable, affectionate look back at the film career of that slender shape-shifter David Bowie, on the occasion of the Criterion release of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. In...

Dec 16, 2024 — Next year’s programming kicks off with some of our favorite actors, including Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, and David Bowie.

May 13, 2024 — Among this month’s highlights are a bustling summer barbecue of amply peopled movies full of unforgettable performances, a collection of films with great synth soundtracks, and Adventures in Moviegoing with Paul Schrader.