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
Glen Pitre Looks Back on a Louisiana Cinema Landmark
The director of Belizaire the Cajun talks about his pioneering depiction of the Cajun French community and the transformative impact the Sundance Institute had on his film career.
Romeo and Juliet: Star-Crossed Spectacle
Entrenched as an authoritative adaptation, this Oscar-winning hit is still admired, taught, and studied today for its spectacular re-creation of the past and its reinvention of the Shakespearean spoken word.
Finding a Home in the Avant-Garde
Desperately seeking community in her college years, the writer discovered the world of experimental cinema when she stumbled on a short-film program at an art-house in Manchester, England.
Under the Sign of Sadness: Zbigniew Preisner’s Three Colors Scores
One of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s closest collaborators, the Polish composer suffuses the quotidian images that appear throughout Blue, White, and Red with deep poetry and sacred meaning.
Bergman Island: Form and Feeling
In this shape-shifting exploration of creativity, couplehood, and artistic influence, Mia Hansen-Løve offers a glimpse at the existential heavy lift required by her deceptively simple autofictions.
The Criterion Channel’s February 2023 Lineup
Celebrate Black History Month with a collection of films that survey African American history on-screen, a look at literary legend James Baldwin’s cinematic legacy, and a retrospective devoted to the independent trailblazer Oscar Micheaux.
Bright Lights, Dark Dreams: Alejandro Galindo in Morelia
This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection: Staying Power
Filled with evocative images and guided by the unique aesthetic sensibility of the landlocked kingdom of Lesotho, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s film is an exploration of the power of grief that is paradoxically uplifting.
Something Human: A Conversation with Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell
The frequent collaborators talk about their close friendship, the paths that led them to each other, and the artistic values they share.
Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy: Straight to the Bottom of the River
One of contemporary cinema’s most provocative filmmakers launched his career with three deeply unnerving, deliriously genre-blending portraits of Europe.
Imitation of Life: On Passing Between
In its ambivalence toward its provocative themes, John M. Stahl’s groundbreaking exploration of racial identity demonstrates the insolubility of Hollywood’s representational conundrum.
Their Sounds Were Watching God
The films in the Criterion Channel collection Free Jazz chronicle the development of a deeply experimental music that has baffled and enthralled listeners in equal measure.
