The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jun 25, 1989 — A thoroughgoing investigation of the terms “bravery” and “cowardice,” Stanley Kubrick’s early work offers far more than a mere “anti-war” statement, paring with almost surgical precision to the heart of the fear, hubris and mendacity that keep the war machine...
Visual Analysis
May 9, 2018 — Under the Influence In 1988, David Simon was a journalist shadowing detectives at the Baltimore Police Department for his first book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. On midnight shifts, one of the sergeants would regularly screen movies for his squad,...
Oct 23, 2010 — In 1945, a teenage Stanley Kubrick was given a job as staff photographer at Look magazine, where he published more than nine hundred striking images, most of them in the realist style of New York School street photography. By the...
Essays
Jan 21, 2025 — In his first Hollywood film, British director Stephen Frears dives into the nihilistic world of Jim Thompson’s fiction, delivering an adaptation profoundly attuned to the novelist’s sense of ineluctable suffering.
Sep 23, 2015 — Bruce Beresford draws on a controversial episode of Australian colonial history from 1901 to create an electrifying drama that questions the moral certitude of war.
Production Notes
Aug 5, 2010 — I work in the editorial department here at Criterion, and I’ve recently taken it on myself to do a little poking around at the office, to find out what my colleagues have going on and share that with visitors to...
Short Takes
Jul 26, 2016 — On what would have been the iconic filmmaker’s eighty-eighth birthday, we’re celebrating him with a selection of essays, photos, and videos from our releases.
On the Channel
Jun 22, 2023 — Our latest slate of programs dives into one of science fiction’s favorite themes, the film career of one of rock and roll’s greatest icons, and midcentury pulp from across the Atlantic.
Sep 4, 2019 — The late actor became an icon of his generation with this moody, brilliant non-performance, informed by his intimate knowledge of chaos and death.
The Daily
Feb 10, 2020 — The ragman’s son became one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, working most memorably with Wilder, Minnelli, and Kubrick.