Ever since her daring debut feature, the fearlessly transgressive S&M exploration SEDUCTION: THE CRUEL WOMAN, Monika Treut has been at the forefront of queer cinema, illuminating LGBTQ+ lives with subversive wit, uncompromising honesty, and compassionate insight. Fiercely controversial in her nat...

A singular, iconoclastic artist, Robert Bresson left behind an astonishing body of work, defined by the search for what he called “not beautiful images, but necessary images.” In a long, visionary career that began in the 1940s and ended in the 1980s, he continually refined the strict precision o...

The aesthetically dynamic, shape-shifting films of artist and filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary combine everything from heavily processed 16 mm archival materials to TikTok videos and woman-on-the-street-style interviews to put Black women and their lived experiences, past and present, in dialogue with one...

William Klein’s explosive New York street photography made him one of the most heralded artists of the sixties. As an American expatriate in Paris, Klein also made bold, challenging cinema in a filmmaking career that spanned more than forty years. In his three colorful, surreal fiction features—W...

In the early 1930s, when Warner Bros. was the home for gritty, socially conscious dramas ripped from the fabric of working-class life, perhaps no director exemplified the studio’s trademark style—punchy, edgy, slangy, and relentlessly paced—more than the prolific Mervyn LeRoy, who directed a rema...

When Dag Johan Haugerud’s exquisite coming-of-age portrait DREAMS won the Golden Bear at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, it marked the culmination of a remarkable trilogy of stand-alone but thematically connected films—alongside LOVE and SEX—exploring the complexities of intimacy, desire, gender, ...

Outlaws and outcasts populate the films of Argentine Brazilian director Héctor Babenco, an artist of rare empathy born eighty years ago this month. First finding success (and notoriety) in Brazil with his incendiary thriller LÚCIO FLÁVIO—the true story of an infamous bandit that doubles as a pote...

Raw, nightmarish transmissions from the unholy depths of the New York City underground, the films of revered cult auteur William Lustig are thrillingly intense, shockingly visceral plunges into the darkest chasms of urban existence. Pulsing with kinetic energy, his grindhouse opuses MANIAC, VIGIL...

As his acclaimed latest THE SECRET AGENT comes to theaters, catch up with the bold, gripping, and fearlessly political cinema of Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Fusing slow-burn suspense with incisive social commentary, his features NEIGHBORING SOUNDS and BACURAU (the latter codirected ...

The formally adventurous and psychologically intricate films of ever-fascinating Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan unfold according to complex, time-scrambling structures that heighten their searing emotional impact. Exploring issues of identity (including his own Armenian heritage), loss, alienation, ...

The expansive, wintry landscapes of rural Iceland and Denmark provide the majestic physical and psychological backdrops to the breathtaking films of director Hlynur Pálmason, whose acclaimed latest, THE LOVE THAT REMAINS, comes to theaters in January. Whether capturing the rift that forms between...

The barrier between waking and dreaming dissolves in the ecstatic, trancelike films of Maya Deren, a legend of the avant-garde who rewrote the rules of cinema in the name of uncompromising personal expression. Combining symbol-laden imagery, intricately choreographed camera movements, time- and s...

Raw, gritty, intensely angry visions of individuals pushed to the brink by a corrupt society, the films of Hong Kong action renegade Ringo Lam scorch the screen with an anarchic fury. His action classic CITY ON FIRE offered Chow Yun-fat one of his meatiest roles and inspired Quentin Tarantino’s R...

Emerging from the creative rebellion of the New Queer Cinema movement, Todd Haynes has remained one of American independent cinema’s most daring and subversive voices, a master stylist who uses his command of the language of classic melodrama to reveal the hidden fears, anxieties, and hypocrisies...

With six features—including his acclaimed latest, SENTIMENTAL VALUE—to his name, Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier has established himself as one of the most virtuosic directors working today, a humanist who brings novelistic depth and insight to his intimate portraits of people grappling with every...

With her landmark debut feature WILL, pioneering cameraperson turned filmmaker (and all-around Renaissance woman) Jessie Maple became one of the first Black American women to direct an independent feature film, bringing unflinching honesty and stirring emotion to an endearingly tough and tender p...

On the occasion of the theatrical release of his highly anticipated third feature RESURRECTION, journey into the mesmerizing world of Bi Gan, the Chinese auteur whose labyrinthine, dreamlike narratives and immersive, mind-bogglingly epic long takes have rapidly established him as one of contempor...

As his unmissable television epic BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI comes to the Criterion Channel, immerse yourself in the woozy world of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai, whose lush visuals, swooning soundtracks, and wistful romanticism have made him one of contemporary cinema’s defining artists. Working with key...

Among the politically committed African filmmakers who emerged in the postcolonial era, Mauritanian-French firebrand Med Hondo stood as one of the boldest and most provocative voices, forging a fiercely experimental style all his own to examine the historical toll of colonial oppression on genera...

As his Palme d’Or–winning latest IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT comes to theaters this fall, revisit the vital, self-reflexive, slyly perceptive films of the brilliant Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, whose every work is an act of resistance. In his first two films, the neorealist revelations THE WHITE BALL...

An artistic renegade every bit as uncompromising, fearless, and eccentric as the outsiders, oddballs, and obsessives he makes films about, Werner Herzog is a larger-than-life legend who has risked death, hypnotized an entire cast, moved a steamship over a mountain, and eaten his own shoe, all in ...

A living legend of Indian cinema, Adoor Gopalakrishnan is a major auteur whose psychologically penetrating films often take the form of parables or enigmas exploring the relationship between the individual and society—in particular the conditions of life in his home state of Kerala. Taking inspir...

Fiercely independent voices in American cinema, Rob Nilsson and John Hanson make films that capture the grit and resistance of ordinary Americans on the front lines of class struggle. Through their groundbreaking dramatic feature NORTHERN LIGHTS and the revelatory documentary shorts known as the ...

A true trailblazer of independent cinema, Charles Burnett has brought images of Black American life to the screen with authenticity, empathy, and stirring poetry. Bringing together landmarks like KILLER OF SHEEP and TO SLEEP WITH ANGER, lesser-known gems such as THE GLASS SHIELD and THE ANNIHILAT...