At Criterion, cinema is king, but the play is also the thing. Here’s a selection of films that adapt great works of theater for the screen.

Jun 27, 2005 — Like his earlier adaptations of Terence Rattigan plays, Anthony Asquith’s late work is bereft of heavy-handed directorial flourishes.

Sep 18, 2025 — No movie star was bigger in the 1970s, and he won an Oscar for directing Ordinary People. But Sundance may be his most impactful legacy.

Mar 10, 2023 — While Hollywood celebrates itself, MoMA spotlights video artists.

Mar 24, 2021 — Performances By the time The Manchurian Candidate was released in 1962, Frank Sinatra had been on American screens and in American hearts for nearly two decades. His bobby-soxers had been displaced by Elvis fans, who had been displaced by Beatles...

Aug 31, 2020 — Documentaries lead the charge this month on the Criterion Channel, with a wide-ranging offering of nonfiction films as formally imaginative and emotionally riveting as any scripted drama.

May 4, 2020 — “You’ve never seen prairie grass with the wind leaning on it, have you, Diz?”Jean Arthur asks this poetic, expressively peculiar question of Thomas Mitchell in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and we understand her yearning for truth...

Dec 1, 2025 — One of the most vital playwrights of our era was also an award-winning screenwriter.

Jan 22, 2025 — New films by Richard Linklater, Bong Joon Ho, Radu Jude, and Lucile Hadžihalilović are set for the seventy-fifth edition.

Jan 8, 2025 — We’re looking forward to new work from Richard Linklater, Bong Joon Ho, Kelly Reichardt, Christian Petzold, Chloé Zhao, Sebastián Lelio, and many other filmmakers.