Spotlight
Under the Influence
In this ongoing series of videos, contemporary filmmakers talk to us about the movies that have had a lasting impact on their work.
Current
An online magazine covering film culture past and present
Out of the Blue’s Teenage Wasteland
Dennis Hopper’s bleakly nihilistic drama struggled to find an audience after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but time has revealed it to be one of the most hardcore films about disaffected youth ever made.
Funny Girl: A Feeling Deep in Your Soul
William Wyler’s adaptation of the Broadway musical celebrates the indomitability of vaudeville legend Fanny Brice, embodied by Barbra Streisand in an incandescent and remarkably vulnerable performance.
Ray Yeung’s Top 10
The director of All Shall Be Well chooses a selection of films that reflect the joys and sorrows of life and explore themes of love, grief, ambition, and sacrifice.
The Criterion Channel’s December 2024 Lineup
Spend the holiday season with the Pope of Trash, the Master of Suspense, MTV Productions’s turn-of-the-century thrills, and Columbia Pictures’s pre-Code button-pushers.
Scarface: Gangster Style
Filled with expressionistic shadows and pungent details of life in the criminal underworld, this seminal tale of money and violence was among director Howard Hawks’s favorite of his own films.
The Psychosocial Dread at the Heart of Japanese Horror
From Kaneto Shindo to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the masters of the genre over the past half-century have tapped into a deep well of cultural anxiety, exploring everything from the sins of their nation’s feudal past to the dangers of new technologies.
Lionel Rogosin, Between Empathy and Outrage
The director of such classic political docudramas as On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa defied the conventions of nonfiction filmmaking with his innovative approach to collaboration and performance.
Misogyny Incarnate: The Unspeakable Truth of The Entity
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.
Lana Wilson’s Top 10
The Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker chooses a selection of favorite movies that reflect the pain and beauty of human connection, including masterpieces by Yasujiro Ozu, Mike Leigh, and Aki Kaurismäki.
Gummo: It Feels Like Home
In his entrancingly deviant directorial debut, Harmony Korine captures life in an impoverished, tragedy-stricken small town in all its beautiful fragility.
The Criterion Channel’s November 2024 Lineup
This month, celebrate Noirvember with a dazzlingly dark lineup of hard-boiled pleasures.
Demon Pond: Here Comes the Flood
This jolt of delicious weirdness from Japanese New Wave master Masahiro Shinoda is both a reverent salute to Kabuki and a self-consciously postmodern take on its traditions.
