The Criterion Collection
Essays
Apr 19, 2004 — “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives,” has long been a favored metaphor in Japanese prose and poetry. This plant, the ukigusa (duckweed in English), floating aimlessly, carried by stronger currents, is seen as emblematic of our...
Oct 23, 2024 — This once-maligned horror film is an unsparing exploration of sexual violence, remarkably centered on a complex, fully realized female protagonist, played courageously by Barbara Hershey.
On the Channel
May 26, 2021 — Channel Calendars Next month, the Criterion Channel celebrates Pride Month with a host of extraordinary queer-themed films, including a new installment of our Queersighted series focusing on taboo-breaking artists, a trio of outré underground classics from John Waters, and a restrospective...
Features
Oct 26, 2020 — The very first romantic kiss between men on American television happens in Marlon Riggs’s groundbreaking film Tongues Untied. That kiss is between two Black men, and one of them is Riggs himself. As of this writing, if you look up...
On the Channel
Sep 30, 2020 — Genre fans rejoice! October kicks off with a ’70s Horror series and the head-spinningly eclectic films of the New Korean Cinema.
Oct 26, 2011 — Performances The galumphing hulk who terrorized early sound cinema audiences in Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932), Boris Karloff was the movies’ politest monster. Even in his darkest on-screen moments, the London-born Karloff (né William Henry Pratt) exhibited a regal...
The Daily
May 4, 2026 — L’Alliance New York presents a series of films by a director ripe for discovery in the U.S.
Jun 22, 2021 — The multi-hyphenate artist’s staggering and frequently autobiographical body of work reimagines the depiction of Black people in American culture, encouraging us to question everything we see.
Sep 17, 2019 — Fusing the melodrama of Douglas Sirk and the ballyhoo of William Castle, John Waters’ sixth feature, Polyester (1981), was a departure from the scrofulous 16 mm mode of production he had made his cult name plying to midnight-movie crowds in...
Mar 19, 2019 — New work by the artist and filmmaker is on view in the UK and Norway and at the Big Ears Festival.