Author Spotlight

Peter Becker

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Welcome to Our New Site

Check out our first redesign in ten years, with richer publishing, smoother e-commerce, and direct links to FilmStruck—and it even looks great on your phone!

By Peter Becker

Introducing FilmStruck

Combining Turner Classic Movies’ programming experience with Criterion’s library of films and supplemental content made all the sense in the world.

By Peter Becker

Commemorating William Becker at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards

At the gala for the New York Film Critics Circle’s 2016 awards dinner Criterion president Peter Becker accepted an award on behalf of his father, Criterion cofounder William Becker. His remarks are reproduced here.

By Peter Becker

A Conversation with Volker Schlöndorff
This past August, on the occasion of Volker Schlöndorff’s being selected for a Silver Medallion award by the Telluride Film Festival, Criterion’s Peter Becker talked with the German filmmaker about his long career. A short version of the convers…

By Peter Becker

Re: Format

Last November, when we announced that we would start releasing dual-format editions, we hoped that we had found an alternative that would address our concerns about packaging costs across two formats, while guaranteeing that both DVD and Blu-

By Peter Becker

Why Dual-Format?

We answer some questions about our decision to begin releasing dual-format editions, including both DVD and Blu-ray discs in one package.

By Peter Becker

Emperor 2.0
We’re getting a huge amount of mail about our edition of The Last Emperor, specifically about the aspect ratio, which is 2:1. Some people seem to believe that we’ve lost our minds, forsaken our mission, and taken it upon ourselves to crop the sid…

By Peter Becker

Red, White, and Blog
We’ve been getting some questions about the three children’s classics from Janus Films. One good customer writes: “I’m wondering what the situation with The Red Balloon, White Mane, and Paddle to the Sea is. They are listed on the Criterion p…

By Peter Becker

Double Trouble
It’s been one of those weeks. First we learned we’d made a mastering error on our Mala Noche edition. Then the first run of the new collectors’ set Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks shipped with the wrong disc—the Essential Art House: 50 Years…

By Peter Becker

Ang Lee on Ingmar Bergman
From an interview with Ang Lee in the Northwest Asia Weekly: NWAW: Two years ago, you recorded an introduction for the Criterion Collection DVD of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, a film that had a tremendous impact on you as a student in Taiwa…

By Peter Becker

Voyagers
Longtime Criterionites remember the days when we were a part of the Voyager Company. Voyager had a long history of innovations, hooking up laserdisc players to early Macintosh computers to explore the world’s museums or inventing interactive softwa…

By Peter Becker

The Adventures of Pierre et Bertrand
Some people have seen an impossible number of movies, and the most astonishing part is that they actually remember them all. Pierre Rissient, who is very much on our minds these days, is one of those. Producer, director, distributor, talent spotter, …

By Peter Becker

Reality at 25/24 Frames per Second
Here’s a Criterion discussion that won’t die. It has to do with Berlin Alexanderplatz, and it came up again this week, thanks to a couple of customers writing in. We were standing there in a clump outside our production manager’s door—the dis…

By Peter Becker

Here, There, and Everywhere
Over the past month or so, it seems as though glancing references to Criterion are popping up everywhere. This morning, I saw Bob Stein, one of the original founders of Criterion, in New York magazine, being interviewed for his fashion sense. And the…

By Peter Becker

Blogged Down

It was bound to happen. After a good start for the blog, a quiet stretch. The year has gotten off to a busy start. Every minute there seems to be a meeting with a new player about a new technology or a new way to use an old technology. We've been to

By Peter Becker

iSalute

We have always been a Mac shop. For us, it hasn't just been a technological choice. It's a state of mind. There is something about Apple that feels like home. Our companies were founded at the same time, and in a sense they both grow out of the same

By Peter Becker

On Five
It’s the season when a lot of things arrive on five. Yesterday Tony, who does authoring for us, brought in gorgeously authored doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant on Grand Street, in flavors like marzipan and pomegranate jelly. John Gudelj, our main …

By Peter Becker

Mission Accomplished (gulp)
Well, it’s not exactly writer’s block, but it’s related. I’ve been trying to get this blog entry posted since Tuesday afternoon, but there’s always something that takes me away from the task at hand. I’m procrastinating, and I know why: I…

By Peter Becker

La rive gauche, Part 2

We left St-Michel feeling uplifted and took a nice stroll south, past the Closerie des Lilas, the restaurant made famous by Hemingway, and through the Luxembourg gardens, where a film crew was laying dolly tracks and fitting counterweights on a small

By Peter Becker

La rive gauche

We've been all over the city in the past couple of days, lugging around the fourteen-pound Janus box in a prototype Janus tote, feeling a little like traveling salesmen, but it's okay, because Paris is just so beautiful, even on these gray fall days.

By Peter Becker

Home Away from Home
Paris. We landed here yesterday at midday, and after a quick stop at our hotel, executive producer Fumiko Takagi and I headed straight to the offices of TF1 and Canal+ in Issy-les-Moulineaux for meetings. Issy is not what you think of when you think …

By Peter Becker

Beautiful People

At the Museum of the Moving Image tonight, Peter Cowie is presenting his new book on Louise Brooks, Lulu Forever, and they are digitally screening our new Pandora's Box restoration with the Gillian Anderson score. I don’t think I’ve ever been so

By Peter Becker

Honor Thy Father
The New York Times ran a really nice piece about the Janus box this morning. It started on the front page of the Arts section and jumped to another half page inside. It featured big pictures from M, L'Avventura, Seven Samurai, The Virgin Spring, and …

By Peter Becker

Brass Tacks (and Brooches)
I don't know if it's the question we get asked most often or just the one that people ask with the greatest sense of urgency, but here it is: Where does Criterion stand on HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Disc? As you may have noticed, Jon Mulvaney has been under …

By Peter Becker