In 1990, Martin Scorsese founded an organization whose stated mission told the world, in no uncertain terms, that movies matter, that the art of cinema and its history is a legacy worth preserving. Three decades later, The Film Foundation is an indispensable pillar of moving-image culture, helping to make possible over 850 restorations so far and raising much-needed awareness of the necessity of film preservation as central to the safeguarding of our cultural heritage. In recognition of thirty years of vital work, the Criterion Channel looks back at a selection of the many brilliant films that, thanks to the efforts of The Film Foundation, have been rescued from the ravages of time for future generations to discover. Beginning with these thirty films, the series will expand over the next year, with new additions to be announced monthly.
In the following conversation, recorded remotely in 2020, filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Ari Aster discuss the mission, evolution, and ongoing work of The Film Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving motion-picture history that Scorsese established in 1990.
Directed by Maurice Tourneur • 1919 • United States
Starring Lew Cody, Mary Alden, Pauline Starke
Unseen for one hundred years until its recent restoration, this lost-and-found romantic melodrama from silent-cinema master Maurice Tourneur follows the fortunes of Marcene Elliot (Pauline Starke), ...
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch • 1932 • United States
Starring Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall
When thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets his true love in pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), they embark on a scam to rob lovely perfume company executive Mariette Colet (Kay Francis...
Directed by Clyde Bruckman • 1933 • United States
Starring W. C. Fields, Rosemary Theby, George Chandler
“And it ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast!” declares W. C. Fields in one of his most hilariously offbeat outings, a surreal satire of rugged pioneer melodramas set in a snowbound Yukon ...
Directed by Frank Capra • 1934 • United States
Starring Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly
Opposites attract with magnetic force in this romantic road-trip delight from Frank Capra, about a spoiled runaway socialite (Claudette Colbert) and a roguish man-of-the-people reporter (Clark...
Directed by Jean Vigo • 1934 • France
In Jean Vigo's hands, an unassuming tale of conjugal love becomes an achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope. Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain, marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), an innocent country girl, and the two climb aboard Jean's boat, the L'Atalan...
Directed by John Ford • 1940 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Ward Bond, Ian Hunter
Shot in stunning chiaroscuro by master cinematographer Gregg Toland, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME is John Ford’s and screenwriter Dudley Nichols’s lyrical adaptation of four one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill, distilled...
Directed by Arthur Ripley • 1946 • United States
Starring Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran
The noir genre is known for its labyrinthine plots, but Arthur Ripley’s THE CHASE takes the “wrong man” premise to delirious extremes. Robert Cummings stars as Chuck Scott, a down-on-his-luck...
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • 1948 • United Kingdom
Starring Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
THE RED SHOES, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Tech...
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1951 • France, United Kingdom, India, United States
Starring Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields
Director Jean Renoir’s entrancing first color feature, shot entirely on location in India, is a visual tour de force. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the fi...
Directed by John Huston • 1952 • United States
Starring José Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Suzanne Flon
The bohemian decadence of fin de siècle Paris blazes to life in glorious Technicolor in John Huston’s evocative (albeit largely fictionalized) look at the life and world of celebrated painter Henri d...
Directed by Ida Lupino • 1953 • United States
Starring Edmond O’Brien, Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino
Director Ida Lupino stars alongside Edmond O’Brien and Joan Fontaine in this amazingly complex portrait of a weak-willed but sympathetic salesman who spins an elaborate double life with two wives:...
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi • 1953 • Japan
Starring Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Kinuyo Tanaka
By the time he made UGETSU, Kenji Mizoguchi was already an elder statesman of Japanese cinema, fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other directors of a younger generation. And with this exquisite ...
Directed by Luchino Visconti • 1954 • Italy
Starring Alida Valli, Farley Granger
This lush, Technicolor tragic romance from Luchino Visconti stars Alida Valli as a nineteenth-century Italian countess who, during the Austrian occupation of her country, puts her marriage and political principle...
Directed by William Wyler • 1958 • United States
Starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker
This bold, epic western from director William Wyler stars Gregory Peck as a ship’s captain who ventures west to marry his fiancée (Carroll Baker), only to discover that his new town is a hotbed of...
Directed by John Cassavetes • 1959 • United States
Starring Lelia Goldoni, Anthony Ray, Hugh Hurd
John Cassavetes’s directorial debut revolves around a romance in New York City between Lelia (Lelia Goldoni), a light- skinned black woman, and Tony (Anthony Ray), a white man. The relationship is p...
Directed by Robert Drew • 1960 • United States
Robert Drew’s groundbreaking 1960 film PRIMARY is one of the most important and influential documentaries in the history of the medium. A pioneering work in the documentary movement that came to be known as cinéma vérité, PRIMARY follows the young c...
Directed by Ritwik Ghatak • 1960 • India
Starring Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Bijon Bhattacharya
Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR tells the story of a family who have been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on their eldes...
Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1961 • United States
Starring Warren Finnerty, Jerome Raphel, Garry Goodrow
Shirley Clarke made a splash—and ignited a landmark censorship case—with her controversial feature debut, an innovative adaptation of Jack Gelber’s off-Broadway play in which the line between...
Directed by Francesco Rosi • 1962 • Italy
July 5, 1950--Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano's bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind ...
Directed by Roger Corman • 1964 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher
The seventh of Roger Corman’s eight celebrated Edgar Allan Poe adaptations is perhaps the most eerily effective and visually remarkable of the bunch, thanks in part to the striking cin...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1968 • France
In her effervescent first California film, Agnès Varda delves into her own family history. The short documentary UNCLE YANCO features Varda tracking down a Greek emigrant relative she’s never met, discovering an artist and kindred soul leading a bohemian l...
Directed by Sergio Leone • 1968 • Italy, United States
Starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale
Sergio Leone breathed new life into the western with this masterful epic, which stands as one of the genre’s most timeless artistic achievements. Henry Fonda, cast against his good-guy...
Directed by Shadi Abdel Salam • 1969 • Egypt
Starring Ahmed Marei, Ahmad Hegazi, Nadia Lutfi
One of the most important Egyptian films ever made—and the only narrative feature directed by Shadi Abdel Salam—is a stately, hypnotic experience that has the otherworldly aura of a trance. Based on the ...
