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. This 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 Victor Sjöström • 1924 • United States
Starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert
Lon Chaney wears one of the most renowned of his thousand faces in this landmark silent—the first film produced entirely by MGM (and the first to feature their iconic mascot Leo the Lion). He star...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1929 • United Kindgom
Starring Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John Longden
Alfred Hitchcock’s—and Britain’s—first talkie finds the director using sound technology as inventively as he used the camera. Anny Ondra (prototype for the many Hitchcock blondes to come) play...
Directed by William Wyler • 1929 • United States
Starring Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, Fred Kohler
When three bank-robbing desperadoes find a dying mother in the desert, they swear to return the woman’s baby to his father—a promise that sets the trio on a quest that only one will survive. A...
Directed by King Vidor • 1929 • United States
Starring Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine
HALLELUJAH is a cinematic milestone: the first feature from a major studio to star an entirely Black cast, and the first talkie made by titan director King Vidor. Infused with spirituals...
Directed by Frank Borzage • 1932 • United States
Starring Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou
Classic Hollywood’s arch-poet of romantic mysticism, Frank Borzage, transforms Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel into a feverish paean to the transcendent power of love. Gary Cooper is the troubl...
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 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 Lewis Milestone • 1939 • United States
Starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., Betty Field
George and Lennie are California migrant workers on the run from the law because of something the simple-minded giant Lennie did. They find work at a local ranch, where they dream of making ...
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 Akira Kurosawa • 1950 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori
A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, RASHOMON is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people give different accou...
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 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 Vittorio De Seta • 1954 • Italy
This prize-winning short is a poetic portrait of life on the coast of Sicily before, during, and following a volcanic eruption.
Directed by Vittorio De Seta • 1954 • Italy
Vittorio De Seta’s rhythmic editing adds drama to this chronicle of a Sicilian spearfishing expedition.
Directed by Laurence Olivier • 1955 • United Kingdom
Starring Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Claire Bloom
In RICHARD III, director, producer, and star Laurence Olivier brings Shakespeare’s masterpiece of Machiavellian villainy to ravishing cinematic life. Olivier is diabolically captivat...
Directed by Vittorio De Seta • 1955 • Italy
Vittorio De Seta captures the music and pageantry of an Easter celebration in Sicily.
Directed by Vittorio De Seta • 1955 • Italy
Filming amid the flaxen wheat fields of Sicily, Vittorio De Seta documents the everyday rituals of farmers during harvest time.
Directed by Vittorio De Seta • 1955 • Italy
The rhythms of the sea set the tempo for this vivid account of a day in the lives of Sicilian fishermen.
