Criterion

Go behind the scenes of the universally acclaimed movie.

The Criterion Channel is officially open for business on April 8.

The Criterion Collection has emerged as the gold standard of boutique home-video releasing outfits, both in terms of their eclecticism and access. It seems like they’re always unveiling some big new project, whether it’s a restoration of an aging classic, a spotlight on a more obscure curio (their House disc remains a top seller), or a handsome release for current pictures. And a tweet today announced what may be their most staggeringly ambitious project, a box set the like of which dwarf any the company has attempted before. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project has been suddenly supplanted as the must-have gift for the movie obsessive in your life.

It’s Criterion season again, and this June the Criterion Collection is adding a whole bunch of unmissable classics from around the world. Take a trip to Provence with the newly-restored Marseille Trilogy, marvel at Alfred Hitchcock’s silent thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, and tremble at Kenji Mizoguchi’s wartime ghost story Ugetsu. Then, strap in for Nicholas Ray’s film noir debut They Live By Night, and marvel at a young Dustin Hoffman in Sam Peckinpah’s shocking, controversial Straw Dogs. If you need any more convincing that any one of these movies is worth spending the extra money on (they are), we’ve got the deets from the Criterion press release right here.

It’s that time of year again: Halloween month is the harbinger of the gift-giving season, retail stores throwing up the snowflake decorations before Thanksgiving is even a blip on our radars. But, for cinephiles, October is the month when Criterion announces their new releases for the following January, and next year’s slate, with three directors joining the collection for the first time, looks fantastic.

There are few things more enjoyable as a cinephile than watching a movie from the Criterion Collection or listening to director Guillermo del Toro talk about art history and his favorite genre films. So with this week’s announcement that the Criterion Collection would be going very heavy on the del Toro films in their October lineup, we may actually be in danger of suffering too much of a good thing. We didn’t know that was possible, either.

Quick, without thinking, what’s the biggest problem with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, and the smorgasbord of competing video-streaming platforms available in today’s crowded marketplace? If your answer was “They took X-Men: Evolution off of Netflix, like, what’s that all about” then I am glad to have found a kindred spirit at long last, but the much more common response tends to be “Most of t

Criterion continues to add some of the best films in cinema history to their collection year after year, and their releases have become collector’s items for hardcore cinephiles. It’s not just fans like you and me who are into what Criterion’s putting out—many famous directors and stars are also hugely into the releases, and several of them have visited the Criterion Closet over the years to make and recommend some selections to like-minded viewers. The latest famous face to visit the company’s special closet is none other than Edgar Wright, who makes some really great selections.

David Cronenberg's 'Naked Lunch' -- the film 'The Simpsons' mocked when Bart and his friends snuck into it and Nelson Muntz came out saying "I can think of at least two things wrong with that title" -- is getting the Criterion Collection Blu-ray treatment this April, alongside cult classic 'Repo Man' and more.

The Criterion Collection is ending the year with one of the best months of new announcements in quite some time. For March, we're getting two Blu-ray upgrades, and four new releases of titles by Terrence Malick, Fritz Lang, Charlie Chaplin and Robert Bresson. If you love movies, there's going to be a couple here to excite you.