Directed by Alex Ross Perry • 2025 • United States

Cultural hub, consumer mecca, and source of existential dread: the video-rental store forever changed the way we interact with movies. With narration by Maya Hawke and footage culled from hundreds of sources—from TV commercials to blockbuster fi...

Directed by Andrew Davis • 1998 • United States
Starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen

To Manhattan’s elite, Wall Street wheeler-dealer Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) seems like a devoted husband. He isn’t. Beautiful, accomplished Emily Bradford Taylor (Gwyneth Paltrow) seem...

Directed by David Cronenberg • 1983 • Canada
Starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry

When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new shows for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called “Videodrome.” As he struggles to unearth the ...

Directed by Terry Gilliam • 1991 • United States
Starring Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl, Robin Williams

A fairy tale grounded in poignant reality, Terry Gilliam’s magnificent, Manhattan-set THE FISHER KING features Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams in two of their most brilliant roles. Bridges play...

Directed by William Friedkin • 1985 • United States
Starring William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow

William Friedkin’s kinetic neonoir takes the ’80s action thriller to new heights of hyperstylized excess. Federal agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) has a score to settle as he vows to t...

Directed by Charlie Kaufman • 2025 • United States, Greece
Starring Jessie Buckley, Josef Akiki

Part ghost story, part city symphony, this elegiac short directed by Charlie Kaufman traces the meeting of two recently deceased young people—a troubled photographer (Jessie Buckley) and a gay transla...

Directed by Brian De Palma • 1984 • United States
Starring Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, Gregg Henry

Brian DePalma weaves a sleekly stylish tale of seduction, mystery, and murder in the Hitchcock tradition. Jake Scully (Craig Wasson), an unemployed actor, is asked to house-sit a luxurious apar...

Directed by Gore Verbinski • 2002 • United States
Starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman

After unsettling audiences across the world with its relentlessly creepy vision of VHS-generated terror, the Japanese horror hit RING received the Hollywood treatment—resulting in an equally c...

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn • 1999 • Denmark
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Kim Bodnia, Liv Corfixen

On the gritty margins of Copenhagen, two friends drift apart as violence and obsession take hold. Disaffected alcoholic Leo (Kim Bodnia) struggles with a crumbling relationship and growing rage, w...

Directed by Kevin Smith • 1994 • United States
Starring Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti

Famously shot on a shoestring budget of less than $30,000, CLERKS launched the career of indie legend Kevin Smith and won over audiences with its raw energy, irreverent humor, and proudly ...

Directed by William Friedkin • 2003 • United States
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen

Director William Friedkin brings a feverish intensity to this visceral action thriller, which pits Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones against each other in a gritty game of cat and mo...

Directed by James Gray • 2008 • United States
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw

Set in the insular world of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, this timeless romantic drama features a remarkably raw, vulnerable performance from Joaquin Phoenix as Leonard, a charismatic but troubled y...

Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1991 • United States
Starring River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Richert

River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in this haunting tale from Gus Van Sant about two young street hustlers: Mike Waters, a sensitive narcoleptic who dreams of the mother who abandoned him, and ...

Directed by David Lynch • 1997 • United States
Starring Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” A mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity, LOST HIGHWAY, David Lynch’s seventh feature film, is one of the filmmaker’s most potent cinemati...

Directed by Jeff Lieberman • 1988 • United States
Starring Kevin Dillon, Deborah Goodrich, Jennifer Tilly

Cult director Jeff Lieberman (BLUE SUNSHINE, JUST BEFORE DAWN) pays homage to the heyday of 1950s science fiction with a sublimely schlocky, awesomely ’80s alien-invasion satire. When video-...

Directed by William Wyler • 1959 • United States
Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith

Winner of a record eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, this gargantuan sword-and-sandals spectacle stands as one of the greatest Hollywood epics ever f...

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson • 1997 • United States
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds

It’s 1977—back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business, and business was booming—and idealistic porn producer Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) aspires to elevate his craft to an art form. ...

Directed by Peter Howitt • 1998 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch

The split-second moments that can take a life down one path instead of another form the crux of this wonderfully fresh, existential twist on the romantic comedy. Gwyneth Paltrow deli...

Criterion Collection Edition #597

Lena Dunham got her start making YouTube videos, but she emerged as a major talent thanks to the breakthrough success of this exceptionally sharp comedy, which garnered the twenty-four-year-old writer-director-actor comparisons to the likes of Woody Allen. Dunha...

Directed by Roger Kumble • 1999 • United States
Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon

The diabolical psychosexual machinations of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s classic novel “Les liaisons dangereuses” are audaciously transplanted to a rich-kid Manhattan prep school in ...

Directed by Ira Sachs • 2025 • United States
Starring Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall

A loving snapshot of a vanished New York, Ira Sachs’s captivating cultural time capsule is a warm, witty, graceful re-creation of a real-life conversation that took place between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw...

Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani

The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of techn...

COMING TO THE CRITERION CHANNEL ON 2/24 AT 8 P.M. ET

Directed by Elizabeth Lo • 2024 • United States

In China, a new industry has emerged devoted to helping couples stay married in the face of infidelity. Wang Zhenxi is part of this growing profession, a “mistress dispeller” who is hired to mai...

Directed by Alison McAlpine • 2024 • Canada

The awe-inspiring majesty of the natural world—from the expansive desert to the star-streaked night sky—is captured through unexpected eyes in this sublimely cinematic, Oscar-nominated documentary short. In the vast Chilean desert, three wandering donk...