Coming Attractions: The Criterion Channel’s September 2019 Lineup

We’re pushing social, political, and cultural boundaries this September with masterworks from fearless filmmakers like John Schlesinger, Barbara Kopple, Lina Wertmüller, Euzhan Palcy, and Jean-Pierre Melville. Plus, a Laurence Olivier career retrospective, a series of movies about busting out of the big house, and a selection of twisty, offbeat favorites from Rian Johnson.

* indicates programming available only in the U.S.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

Back to Work
This Labor Day, celebrate your hard-earned day off with three brilliant comedies that find humor in the contradictions and complications of the modern industrial workplace: Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936), The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951), Mon oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

Short + Feature: Long Roads Home
On the Border and Kaili Blues
Two rising-star Chinese filmmakers explore themes of identity and connection to one’s roots in these dreamy, hypnotic road movies.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989)
Criterion Collection Edition #953

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

Creative Marriages: Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais
Behold the lyrical, surreal dream worlds of one of the most miraculous actor-director partnerships in French cinema. This series pairs Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946) and Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1946).

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

Double Feature: She’s Leaving Home
Late Spring and 35 Shots of Rum
These twin masterpieces see Claire Denis finding inspiration in one of Yasujiro Ozu’s most beautiful domestic dramas—each conveying profound truths with infinite subtlety and grace.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

Saturday Matinee: A Hard Day’s Night
Richard Lester’s raucous, anything-goes movie musical captured the moment when John, Paul, George, and Ringo officially became the idols of their generation and changed music forever.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

Jailbreak!
With pulse-pounding tension and life-or-death drama, these joint-busting classics find master filmmakers putting their own thrilling spin on the art of the escape. The series features Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937), Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947), Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948), Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953), A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956),  Le trou (Jacques Becker, 1960), Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981), and Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986).

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

David Lynch: The Art Life (Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm, 2016)
Criterion Collection Edition #895

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

Short + Feature: Reclaimed Images
Mobilize* and Touki Bouki
Two boundary-pushing filmmakers bring an experimental edge to these dazzling explorations of colonialism, tradition, and modernity.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

Harlan County USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976)
Criterion Collection Edition #334

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

Double Feature: Drama Queen of England
Oh! What a Lovely War and Sparrows Can’t Sing
The acclaimed film adaptation of theater director Joan Littlewood’s groundbreaking, experimental World War I musical satire, paired with her only foray into directing for film.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

Saturday Matinee: Pather Panchali
With resplendent photography informed by its young protagonist’s sense of discovery, Satyajit Ray’s debut is a naturalistic and poetic depiction of rural Bengali life.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Starring Laurence Olivier
Featuring a 1973 interview with Olivier
A tribute to the artist heralded as the greatest actor of his generation, who wed the gravitas of a classically trained thespian with the dashing charisma of a modern movie star throughout his inimitable career. Featuring: Perfect Understanding (Cyril Gardner, 1933), Fire over England (William K. Howard, 1937), Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939), That Hamilton Woman (Alexander Korda, 1941), 49th Parallel (Michael Powell, 1941), Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944), Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948), Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955), The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960), Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969), Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976), War Requiem (Derek Jarman, 1989).

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Tanner ’88 (Robert Altman, 1988)
Criterion Collection Edition #258

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

Short + Feature: War-Torn Youth
The Chicken and Come and See
The ravages of war are seen through the eyes of its youngest victims in these shattering tales of children forced to grow up too soon.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)
Criterion Collection Edition #560

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

Shorts for Days: Cityscapes
Featuring a new introduction by Criterion Channel programmer Penelope Bartlett
The hustle and bustle of the modern metropolis inspires a range of filmmakers in these miniature city symphonies that pulse with the rhythms and happenstance poetry of the urban landscape, including À propos de Nice (Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman, 1930), N.U. (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1948), Daybreak Express (D. A. Pennebaker, 1953), Sunday in Peking (Chris Marker, 1956), Surface Tension (Hollis Frampton, 1968), The Black Balloon (Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie, 2012).

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

Double Feature: Murder Most Funny
Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ruling Class
Murder, insanity, and revenge are the macabre ingredients of these devilish black comedies, wicked send-ups of the British class system carried off with a droll, distinctively English wit.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

Saturday Matinee: No Greater Glory
One of the unsung masterpieces of 1930s cinema, Frank Borzage’s adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s novel The Paul Street Boys is one of the greatest and most powerful antiwar films ever made.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

Rian Johnson’s Adventures in Moviegoing
The director of inventive indie hits like Looper and Brick sat down with Alicia Malone to present a lineup of time- and mind-bending favorites, including La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1963), 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963), World on a Wire (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973), F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1975), Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979), and Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, 2013).

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

Short + Feature: Hail Mary Full of Grace?
Misterio and Viridiana
Two audacious Spanish films take a decidedly irreverent view of the Catholic faith.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

Directed by Lina Wertmüller
Featuring Behind the White Glasses, a documentary portrait of Wertmüller from 2015
Get liberated with the irreverent, provocative, wickedly entertaining films of the trailblazing Italian iconoclast. The series features The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973), All Screwed Up (1974), Swept Away (1974), Seven Beauties (1975), Summer Night (1986), and Ferdinando and Carolina (1999).

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

Directed by Christian Petzold
Featuring a new introduction by critic Girish Shambu
Devastatingly stylish, elegantly restrained, and profoundly emotional slow-burn spellbinders from the contemporary German auteur: Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), Barbara (2012), Phoenix (2014)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Double Feature: Phantom Worlds
Yella and Carnival of Souls
Chilling tales of existential dread and spectral mystery in Herk Harvey’s legendary surrealist nightmare and Christian Petzold’s loose modern remake

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

The Circus (Charles Chaplin, 1928)
Criterion Collection Edition #996

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

The Complete Jean-Pierre Melville
Featuring a profile of Meville from the series Cinéastes de notre temps
Ice-cool noirs and piercing dramas from the trench-coat-sporting, sunglasses-wearing, chain-smoking maverick. This career-spanning retrospective features 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946), Le silence de la mer (1949), Les enfants terribles (1950), When You Read This Letter (1953)*, Bob le flambeur (1956), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Leon Morin, Priest (1961), Le doulos (1962), Magnet of Doom (1963), Le deuxième souffle (1966), Le samouraï (1967), Army of Shadows (1969), Le cercle rouge (1970), and Un flic (1972).

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

Observations on Film Art #31: Comedy, Suspense, and Three-Point Lighting in To Be or Not To Be
Professor Kristin Thompson explores how Ernst Lubitsch and cinematographer Rudolph Maté make sophisticated use of lighting to mark the film’s daring shifts in in tone and genre.