Features

The chaos of a rapidly changing world and a politically turbulent decade come into focus in a series of science-fiction films made in the 1970s, now playing on the Criterion Channel.

Deep Dives

The arrival of sound proved an enormous challenge for the geniuses of silent comedy. But Harold Lloyd, with his unflappable determination, finally made a successful transition.

With a mixture of intuition, craft, and an endless curiosity about how cinema can be used to shock and provoke, the Spanish master left us with a rich body of work that stands as a testament to the power of surrealism.

The director of Margaret and Manchester by the Sea celebrates Hollywood’s greatest humanist, whose films are featured in a series now playing on the Criterion Channel.

We asked some of our friends if they had underappreciated films from the past decade that they wanted to champion. Here’s what they chose.

A key collaborator on Wim Wenders’ sci-fi magnum opus, Michael Almereyda shares a personal reflection written while the film was still taking shape in the editing room.

One of Juliette Binoche’s closest collaborators explains how the actor placed herself at the heart of artistic creation, maintaining an independence that allowed her to become a true creative partner to some of the world’s greatest filmmakers.

One Scene

A boy-meets-girl seduction accelerates at absurd speed in Catherine Breillat’s controversial coming-of-age film, transporting us to a realm beyond naturalism.

Songbook

Heard three times in Andrea Arnold’s coming-of-age drama, the R&B legend’s cover of “California Dreamin’ ” highlights the teenage heroine’s yearning for connection and escape.

Performances

Played with icy restraint, the bully at the heart of Irving Rapper’s classic woman’s picture is a prime example of how Hollywood melodramas shaped the archetype of the villainous mother.

Whether sublimated or made explicit, that longing feeling so specific to the queer experience has always existed in the movies. A new series on the Criterion Channel dives into this richly layered but long-suppressed cinematic history.

Taking the spotlight today on the Criterion Channel, the animated work of this legendary multimedia artist is fueled by a wildly surrealist imagination and idiosyncratic perspectives on the female psyche.

Dark Passages

From the squalid to the generic, cheap hotels serve as a quintessential habitat for the lonely, transitory people in crime cinema.

With megawatt performers in front of the camera and remarkable talent behind the scenes, the golden-age MGM musical became Hollywood’s most utopian expression of joy.

One Scene

The director of Synonyms reflects on the subtle physicality of Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya during one long, meandering conversation in the French New Wave classic.

In the wake of World War II, the director transformed himself from a maker of warmhearted comedies and dramas into one of the most influential architects of the modern disaster movie.

Songbook

Hong Kong pop icon Faye Wong made her screen breakthrough in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, a film that also features her hypnotic cover version of the Cranberries’ hit “Dreams.”

Deep Dives

In one of his most underrated gems, now playing on the Criterion Channel, the Bengali master explored the futility of words and the power of a look.

Dark Passages

Pessimism, melancholy, and corruption come in with the tide in the greatest seaside noirs, including classics by Josef von Sternberg, Ingmar Bergman, and Marcel Carné.

One Scene

The director of Audition and First Love dives into the haunting moral ambiguity of Akira Kurosawa’s crime masterpiece.

In their stillness and melancholy, the B-movie masterpieces of one of Hollywood’s most ingenious producers pushed against the official optimism of American culture during World War II.

Charlie Chaplin earned a remarkable level of autonomy at the height of his career, but he also cultivated a team of loyal collaborators who helped him bring his dreams to the screen.

Veteran French director Bertrand Tavernier reflects on how one of his greatest mentors fused two seemingly contradictory influences—that of the Resistance and of American genre filmmaking—into a remarkably cohesive body of work.

One Scene

In one of the most overpowering moments in any concert documentary, D. A. Pennebaker immortalized soul icon Otis Redding as both palpable presence and luminescent mystery.