The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 27, 2010 — Dismiss from your mind, momentarily at least, the John Ford we know, who could define himself with the three words “I make westerns.” Before Stagecoach (1939), Ford’s talking pictures played out in submarines, penitentiaries, and Scottish castles, in Mesopotamia, colonial...
The legendary television host reminisces about having Katharine Hepburn and Jean-Luc Godard on his show, shares that he “doesn't see how a movie would get any better” than Stagecoach, and celebrates David Lean and Noël Coward’s collaborations.
The cinematographer of Bound and The Matrix talks about the thrill of watching John Ford’s Stagecoach for the first time, praises Martin Scorsese’s love of music, and picks up a recommendation from his granddaughter—Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House.
On the Channel
Jan 20, 2026 — This month, leap into a century of cinema’s greatest stunts, feel the ache of thwarted romance and bittersweet yearning, or get into trouble with the Depression-era hustlers of Mervyn LeRoy’s pre-Code films.
Features
Mar 13, 2025 — While a film’s stars are forced to bear the responsibility of moving a narrative forward, supporting actors get to have fun providing comic relief or suggesting whole lives being lived beyond the screen.
On the Channel
Feb 18, 2025 — HIghlights this month include a look back at the Dogme 95 movement, a showcase of great supporting performances, and spotlights on directors Michael Mann, Alain Guiraudie, and Lee Chang-dong.
Jul 25, 2024 — During a tumultuous period in New York’s history, movies like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, and Shaft found excitement and squalor in one of the city’s most infamous tourist attractions.
May 18, 2022 — Just slightly northwest of Death Valley, in what is now eastern California, a mountain range carves out the eastern edge of the Owens Valley. Sculpted by bedrock pushed between tectonic faults during the late Proterozoic to Cambrian periods, the Inyo...
Features
May 1, 2014 — When Walter Wanger conceived the movie that would become Riot in Cell Block 11, he wasn’t thinking in terms of pop culture. The longtime independent film producer, with classics (and Criterion releases) such as Stagecoach and Foreign Correspondent to his...
Jan 28, 2025 — The first of eight collaborations between actor James Stewart and director Anthony Mann centers on a prize rifle that ends up being both a magical object and a cursed one, sending every man who possesses it to a doomed fate.