Latest news with #CriterionChannel
Washington Post
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
How censors tried — and failed — to keep LGBT voices out of the movies
What exactly is 'queer cinema' — and how should we understand it today? Michael Koresky has devoted much of his career to answering this question. As curator of the Criterion Channel's Queersighted series, he's shone new light on LGBTQ+ themes by juxtaposing rarely seen gems of world cinema with more famous films, both expected ('Mulholland Drive') and less so ('Addams Family Values'). His book on the British filmmaker Terence Davies argued that the queerness of Davies's work derived from not just the director's homosexuality but also how his oeuvre 'deviates from the formal and cultural concerns of his cinematic contemporaries.' In 'Films of Endearment,' Koresky and his mother revisited movies they'd first watched when he was growing up, including the camp classic 'Mommie Dearest,' whose 'abhorrent delights' they had shared even before Koresky came out to her 'as though they were part of some as yet untranslated language.'
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Brian Cox Decided to Become a Character Actor After Visiting Hollywood: ‘It Really Gave Me the Creeps'
Brian Cox has become an icon in the U.S. thanks in part to roles in 'Succession' and 'X-Men,' but the acclaimed Scottish actor is revealing just how much he decided to pivot his career when he relocated to the States. Cox said during a discussion with Issac Butler for the Criterion Channel's 'The Craft of Acting' series (in the below video) that he made the decision to pursue supporting roles after getting his start on the West End in theater. After breaking out in the U.S., he proudly embraced being a character actor instead of a leading man. More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' 'I came to that decision much later because I had been a leading actor [in England]. I'd done a lot of theater, a lot of television, stuff like that. But when I decided to come here, I just didn't want to go that route,' Cox said. 'I came here in the '70s. I remember going to Hollywood […] and I really didn't like it. It really gave me the creeps, actually. I thought, 'Well, I got that out of my system, right?' But, I still wanted to do movies, and I wanted to do American movies because that was my inspiration when I was a child. So what happened was that I decided to become a character actor.' Cox cited how he was inspired by late supporting actors from the Golden Age of cinema to bring gravitas to each role, regardless of how many scenes his character appeared in. 'I'm so influenced by people like William Deist and William Bendix and all those supporting actors of the '30s and '40s and what they did. I mean, they were the boosters of those films. Without them, there would be nothing, you know?' Cox said. 'I thought, 'That's my job. That's what I'll do. I'll be happy to do that.' Also, the challenge of giving an arc to a part, which is really difficult when you've only got three scenes and then there doesn't seem to be a connection [between them]. There is an inner connection; it's never the outer connection. That's why I decided to be a character actor.' And it turned out to be a career-making decision: Cox has won two Olivier Awards, an Emmy, and a Golden Globe across his storied career. Cox has also lamented the current state of Hollywood today in recent years, saying in 2024 that TV has replaced films as the best mode of creativity for actors. 'What's happened is that television is doing what cinema used to do,' Cox said. 'I think cinema is in a very bad way. I think it's lost its place because of, partly, the grandiose element between Marvel, DC and all of that. And I think it's beginning to implode, actually. You're kind of losing the plot.' Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Atlantic
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Best Way to Watch Movies This Summer
The question that beguiles almost every film fan, from the obsessive cineast to the casual enthusiast, is the simplest one: What should I watch next? Endless carousels on streaming services that feature very little of note don't provide much help. As a way to avoid decision paralysis, I always have at least one movie-viewing project going, a way to check boxes and spur myself toward new things to explore—be it running through an influential director's filmography, checking out the cinema of a particular country or era, or going one by one through a long-running series. Plenty of obvious candidates exist for these kinds of efforts, such as the diverse works of Stanley Kubrick or the films considered part of the French New Wave. But I've identified 12 collections that feel a little more idiosyncratic—more varied, and somewhat harder to find. They're ordered by how daunting they may seem based on the number of entries involved. The list starts with a simple trilogy of masterpieces and ends with a century-spanning challenge that only the nerdiest viewers are likely to undertake. The Apu Trilogy (1955–59) The defining work of the director Satyajit Ray's long career, The Apu Trilogy, played a significant role in bringing international attention to Indian cinema. But the films, released in the late '50s, also marked a seminal moment in multipart cinematic storytelling. Ray fashioned a bildungsroman that charts the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of Apu, a boy who moves from rural Bengal to Calcutta, as his country dramatically changes in the early 20th century. The director's style is careful, poetic, and light on melodrama, but he involves the viewer so intimately in Apu's world that every major development hits with devastating force. The Apu Trilogy sits on every canonical-movie syllabus and has had obvious influence on filmmakers around the world, but this is not some homework assignment to get through; each of these films is sweet, relatable, and engrossing. As a bonus, check out The Music Room, which helped further bolster Ray's reputation around the same time. Where to start: The three films in the trilogy, Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu, are available to stream on the Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and Max. The Koker trilogy (1987–94) The Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was always somewhat dismissive of the notion that these three movies were linked beyond their setting: the village of Koker, in northern Iran. But in addition to establishing Kiarostami as a globally recognized artist (and possibly his nation's greatest director), the works conjure a beguiling magic when viewed in order of release. The first, Where Is the Friend's House?, follows a grade-schooler who tries to find a schoolmate's home in rural Iran. The second, And Life Goes On, dramatizes the director's efforts to locate the actors involved with the prior movie after a devastating earthquake, and the third, Through the Olive Trees, revolves around the making of a small scene in the second. Together, they illustrate how Kiarostami blended fact and fiction, cinematic tricks and reality, as he examined the complexity of existence. Afterward, watch the wonderful drama Taste of Cherry, which the filmmaker considered to be an unofficial follow-up to the trilogy. The adventures of Antoine Doinel (1959–79) François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films have much in common with The Apu Trilogy: They're stunning coming-of-age tales about a boy. But unlike Ray's movies (which were made over the course of four years), Truffaut's series starred the same actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud) over the course of two decades. The five installments chart a young Parisian's life as he grows from a rebellious teenager to a lovesick 20-something, married 30-something, and divorced 40-something. The saga is ambitious but lovely, and a great way to experience Truffaut's own growth as a director. He began as a rebel voice in the French New Wave, and went on to become one of the country's most revered artists. Six Moral Tales (1963–72) Another titan of the French New Wave, the director Éric Rohmer, has an intimidating (but wonderful) filmography dotted with various thematically linked stories. His most famous project is known as Six Moral Tales: a group of works produced over a nine-year period beginning in the early '60s. The entries each deal with complex, quiet crises of romance and temptation, always told with different characters and with evolving style. While they're often quite meditative and low on action, the tension of each unresolved choice, the flirtatious energy, and the gorgeous vacation settings make them perfect summer viewing. Where to start: The series begins with the short film The Bakery Girl of Monceau; all six movies, including the outstanding My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee, are streaming on the Criterion Channel. Dekalog (1988) It's clear from watching his work that the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski began his career as a documentarian—many of his dramas starred nonprofessional actors and were typically grounded in social realism. Those aesthetics are all present in his totemic Dekalog, 10 one-hour films that aired on Polish television in 1988. Set in a Warsaw tower block, each installment reckons with one of the Ten Commandments. The series is an austere, challenging, and perhaps overwhelming magnum opus. But while the films are sometimes direct and political, they can also be wryly funny and surreal. Kieślowski went on to create another grand series, the wonderful Three Colors, but there is nothing quite like the experience of taking in every angle of Dekalog. Where to start: Dekalog is best viewed in Commandment order, but you'll likely need to buy the Criterion box set of the collected works in order to see them. Kieślowski extended two episodes to feature length, and they are more readily accessible: A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love, both available to stream on the Criterion Channel. The films of Claire Denis Tackling any director's body of work is a fun challenge—this whole list could have been populated with great artists whose films are a delight to delve through, such as Martin Scorsese, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Wong Kar-wai. Denis is one such great pick: She's among France's most exciting contemporary voices, having pushed the boundaries throughout her nearly 40-year career. Her debut feature, Chocolat, is a period piece that ran directly at the history of French colonial life in Cameroon; it startled audiences at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Denis has been surprising viewers ever since, making harsh yet involving works of drama, satire, and spiky romance. There's the thoughtful realism of 35 Shots of Rum and Nénette and Boni, bewildering genre movies such as the space-set High Life and the cannibal horror Trouble Every Day, and her transcendent masterpiece Beau Travail, which transposes the action of Herman Melville's Billy Budd to the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti. There is no 'easy' film in her oeuvre, but there's nothing boring, either—and Denis, still working in her late 70s, has shown no interest in slowing down. Twin Peaks (1990–2017) Much of David Lynch and Mark Frost's sprawling achievement exists on television, and Lynch himself (usually seen as the primary auteur) stepped away from the show for some periods. But as admirers continue to sift through Lynch's legacy after his death in January, it's becoming clearer that Twin Peaks is his most exemplary work. The show has a serialized, soapy premise that hooks the viewer from the first minute; it's also resolutely uninterested in answering big mysteries in a straightforward manner. Its tale is one to puzzle over for the rest of your life: beautiful, haunting, often hilarious, unforgettable. Plus, if you marathon the entire series—including the beguiling prequel film Fire Walk With Me —you'll see how Lynch adapted his distinctive aesthetic across three very different visual mediums: network television, arthouse cinema, and prestige cable. Where to start: Each of the show's three seasons is streaming on Mubi and Paramount+. Watch Fire Walk With Me (available on the Criterion Channel and Max) right before embarking on Season 3, known as Twin Peaks: The Return. The best known cinematic 'new waves' originate from countries such as France, Romania, and Taiwan—places where artistic explosions happened all at once, in many cases spurred by societal upheaval. But one of the most interesting (and still underexplored) is what's known as the American 'No Wave' movement, which began in the late 1970s. These films are loosely defined by ultra-indie storytelling and inspired by punk rock, glam fashion, and arthouse cinema. Enduring and vital directors such as Jim Jarmusch, Susan Seidelman, and Lizzie Borden came out of this school, along with less heralded figures such as Jamie Nares and the team of Scott B and Beth B. Where to start: Begin with Smithereens, a 1982 indie from Seidelman that follows a narcissistic young woman tearing through New York and Los Angeles in search of their disappearing punk scenes; it's streaming on the Criterion Channel and Max. From there, investigate the rest of Seidelman's filmography, then check out Abel Ferrara's early, grimy works (such as The Driller Killer) and Jarmusch's beginnings (starting with Permanent Vacation). Shōwa-era Godzilla (1954–75) Searching for a sprawling genre franchise that doesn't involve caped American superheroes or a British secret agent? Look no further than Godzilla, starting with the original stretch of 15 films released during the Shōwa era. The experience of plowing through these early films in the character's history is strange and delightful; it's also, thanks to the Criterion Collection's recent efforts, a beautiful one. The Godzilla movies changed over time from raw and frightening reckonings with post-nuclear Japan (in the form of a giant monster) to more fun and cartoonish outings, an evolution this specific period exhibits. Yet even at the franchise's silliest, it maintains a consistent focus on visual flourish and dizzying new monster designs. Where to start: Begin with 1954's Godzilla. The other biggest highlights of the classic period are Mothra vs. Godzilla; Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster; and the final installment, Terror of Mechagodzilla. All of them are streaming on the Criterion Channel and Max. Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–2021) Digging into the world of anime is just about the most daunting viewing project imaginable: Alongside hundreds of films, there are seemingly countless series. These shows are also usually made up of hundreds or even thousands of episodes, and it can be very difficult to know which ones to check out. Neon Genesis Evangelion is regarded as among the medium's most defining franchises, but it isn't exactly breezy viewing: The story is dark, cataclysmic, and intent on deconstructing the clichés of the 'mecha' subgenre, in which teenage heroes pilot giant robotic suits to do battle with some epic threat. But there is nothing quite like this surreal, heady piece of science fiction, which is why it's endured so powerfully since premiering in 1995. Evangelion is also relatively digestible, with just 26 episodes in its original run—though there are also several movies that reimagine the show's controversial finale. Where to start: With the TV show, which is streaming on Netflix. The first full feature in the series, The End of Evangelion, is essential viewing (and also on Netflix). Approach the four later movies with more caution: Known as the Rebuild of Evangelion, they're a mix of recaps and bizarre narrative twists. (They're streaming on Prime Video.) The films of Clint Eastwood Working your way through the 40 films directed by Eastwood is a time-consuming but rewarding enterprise. Not only is he one of America's most iconic actors; he's also a two-time Academy Award winner for directing. Nonetheless, he remains somewhat unheralded for his cinematic eye. His movies span genres and tap many of the great performers of their era, while also offering a healthy mix of vehicles for himself—both those in which he'll often play flawed but charismatic antiheroes, and truly complex departures. Where to start: Make sure to watch Bird, Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, and Letters From Iwo Jima if you want to view only a handful. (Iwo Jima is streaming on Prime Video; the other three are available to rent or purchase.) But even his most minor works have something special to offer; progressing through the entire oeuvre from his debut (1971's Play Misty for Me) onward is a real delight. Every Best Picture winner The 98 winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture are not the 98 best films ever made. A few are downright bad; others are watchable, if forgotten, bits of above-average entertainment. The list includes some undersung gems and, of course, some obvious classics. But watching every Best Picture winner is an incredible way to survey Hollywood's history: its booming golden age, which produced classics such as It Happened One Night and Casablanca; revolutionary moments in film storytelling ranging from kitchen-sink drama (Marty) to something far more lurid (Midnight Cowboy); a run of masterpieces in the '70s, followed by the gaudy '80s and the disjointed '90s. Though the Academy is often late to cinematic trends, the voting body's choices offer a way to understand how those styles will eventually reverberate through mainstream culture. Plus, you'll catch a bunch of interesting movies in the process. Where to start: They're all listed here. Starting at the beginning, with 1927's Wings, might be a tall order; that film and some of the other early winners are truly forgettable. It might be wiser to move backwards in time, filling in gaps in your personal-viewing history and catching up on classics you may not have seen.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Criterion turned its film archives into a streaming powerhouse
The average consumer subscribes to 4.5 streaming services, many of which offer content that feels largely indistinguishable from one another. How one company is revolutionizing the way we use everyday water Pentagon Pizza Index: The theory that surging pizza orders signal global crises 5 signals that make you instantly more trustworthy at work When Netflix disrupted film and television in the late 2010s, it introduced a new model of viewership: an endless blend of originals and archives, delivered through a finely tuned personalization algorithm. Today, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, and many others follow the same playbook. Not the Criterion Channel. The streamer rejects the infinite-content model, instead curating rotating collections of select films that appear for just a few months. Their offerings range from mass-market to niche indie: A recent example, 'Surveillance Cinema,' matched the $350 million-earning Minority Report with the tiny French neo-noir Demonlover. It also turns away from algorithmic recommendations—every title is handpicked by a programmer. Aliza Ma, the Criterion Channel's head of programming, says that she's 'offended' by the big streamers' model of curation. 'It's absurd in the face of art and curiosity that you would think somebody's past behavior could indicate future taste,' she tells Fast Company. This approach has earned the Criterion Channel a loyal following among artistically curious cinephiles, creating a stable, low-churn subscriber base. For just $10.99 a month, viewers from the U.S. and Canada can escape the clutches of streamer sludge. The mega-viral Criterion Closet doesn't hurt either. 'I would have expected that broader is better,' Ma says. 'It's a brilliant surprise to us that the more specific we get, the more we pull focus on a subject or theme, the better it seems to reach people.' For over 30 years, Criterion was known as a seller and refurbisher of physical media. Their DVD and Blu-ray archives sustained the business, while the company licensed their films to several video-on-demand (VOD) services. First they were available on Mubi, then Hulu, and finally FilmStruck, the streamer from Turner Classic Movies. But when FilmStruck shut down in 2018, Criterion president Peter Becker and his team decided to create their own point of access. The Criterion Channel was running by 2019 and has since eclipsed the company's physical media business. In 2024, Criterion and its sister company, Janus Films, were sold to billionaire Steven Rales, founder of the film studio Indian Paintbrush and a minority owner of the Indiana Pacers. The channel's focus on curation naturally narrows its appeal. In the ongoing 'streaming wars,' Criterion isn't trying to compete on scale. Instead, it leans into its niche. 'You have to think you care about movies enough to want a streaming service really devoted to movies,' Becker says. But specificity also creates a highly loyal customer base, he adds. Asked whether one specific collection surged traffic at the site, Becker notes that there are 'different points of entry for everybody.' Some are more popular within the streamer's walls than others—both Ma and Becker reference the 2023 'High School Horror' set featuring movies like Donnie Darko and I Know What You Did Last Summer. But subscribers come more for the curation than for any individual film, meaning they're likely to stay longer. Michael Cunningham, acclaimed author of Day and The Hours (the latter of which was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman), is a subscriber to the Criterion Channel. 'I'm a fan because Criterion is keeping alive films that would otherwise fade away and be forgotten,' he writes in an email to Fast Company. 'It reminds us that greatness resides in a wide range of movies, from Potemkin to Some Like It Hot.' Estimating the Criterion Channel's size is a difficult task. The company declined to provide Fast Company with revenue or user figures, only saying that it 'has grown steadily since we launched.' When its predecessor FilmStruck shut down in 2018, the subscriber base was estimated at just 100,000. The Criterion Channel has likely surpassed this—it has over 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store alone. But that's still small compared with other specialty streamers like Mubi, which has more than 5 million Google Play downloads. It's audience is also shifting. 'If you had gone back 10 or 15 years and looked at who was collecting DVDs and Blu-rays, you would have seen a heavy disproportion of people who were male and over 30,' Becker says. 'That has been completely shattered.' Criterion, the company behind the channel, still operates its specialty DVD business and commissions a stable of writers to pen essays on its archive. But the Criterion Channel is the company's 'most far-reaching project,' Becker says. And then there's the company's infamous closet. It began in 2010, when Guillermo del Toro stepped into Criterion's DVD archive in New York and picked out his favorites. Choosing among a collection organized only by spine number, del Toro professed his love for François Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Criterion has continued to pump out these 'Closet Picks'—the videos are now significantly less grainy—and posts them to YouTube. 'We record a couple a week, and we're always amazed by the conversations we have in there,' Becker says. 'I think it's a relief for the people in the Closet, because they don't have to talk about their own movies.' Creatives see the Criterion Closet as more than a stop on their press tour, though. Griffin Dunne, star of films like Martin Scorcese's After Hours, relished the opportunity to rifle through Criterion's archives. 'There are a few benchmarks in an actor's or director's career,' Dunne wrote in an email to Fast Company. 'Getting your first job, any job, in the movie business. Seeing your name in a New York Times review for your first film. Getting nominated or winning for any of the EGOTs. Being invited to the Criterion Closet to talk about your favorites films.' The closet has since gone mobile. Criterion now takes a portable version on the road, drawing fans who line up for hours. Becker even recalls a couple who got engaged inside. 'We're always amazed and gratified at how young the people who come out are,' he says, noting that most attendees are in their 20s and early 30s. The traveling closet of films also reveals the diversity of Criterion's audience. Few titles are picked more than a handful of times. While some favorites recur—Richard Linklater's films, for example, or Anora—most picks are highly personal and eclectic. Has the Criterion Closet helped funnel audiences back to their streamer or paid offerings? Becker isn't interested in talking shop. The closet wasn't set up as a marketing tool, so they don't track it as one. But it has been a helpful brand extension, he concedes. 'When 13 million people see the Ben Affleck video, that's a lot of people,' Becker says. 'We're definitely reaching more people than would have sought us out without it.' Affleck's first pick from the Criterion Closet was Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, the 1939 French satire celebrated for its humanist worldview. It's hard to imagine the film finding traction on Netflix. How would they package it? What thumbnail image or search-friendly pitch could make it click? Its age alone might be a barrier—back in March, the oldest title on Netflix was 1973's The Sting. But viewers can find The Rules of the Game on the Criterion Channel. It appears in a 'French Poetic Realism' collection, alongside commentary from Cunningham, the novelist. They can watch the film, explore its historical context, and dip into criticism, too. That's what the Criterion Channel offers: not just content, but curation. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
The Verge
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Chungking Express
Andrew Webster In the mood for streaming. Wong Kar-wai, the director behind and In the Mood For Love, made his first TV series with the 30-episode-long Blossoms Shanghai, which aired in China in 2023. And soon you'll be able to watch it yourself: it's coming to the Criterion Channel 'later this year.'
