Swedish provocateur Ruben Östlund—who has made waves in recent years with his art-house sensations FORCE MAJEURE and the Palme d’Or–winning THE SQUARE—began his career with these three fearlessly unflinching studies of uneasy social dynamics, codes of masculinity, and the tension between the grou...

Montreal-based filmmaker and multimedia artist Caroline Monnet combines striking, often abstract visuals and evocative soundscapes to explore Indigenous identity, the reverberations of colonialism, and hidden cultural histories. Encompassing an inspiring portrait of a Chippewa mixed martial artis...

With his latest film, the Cannes prizewinner DRIVE MY CAR, currently garnering acclaim, Ryusuke Hamaguchi is fast emerging as one of contemporary Japanese cinema’s most vital and original voices. His international breakthrough, HAPPY HOUR, is a sprawling, absorbingly novelistic portrait of the in...

With her Academy Award–nominated documentary TIME, Garrett Bradley confirmed her place among the most original and poetic voices working in the realm of nonfiction today. Her richly sensorial visual style and incisive blending of the personal and the political are on display in these remarkable s...

Like any facet of human identity, queerness is inextricably linked to matters of class, race, and socioeconomic status. It’s impossible to truly reckon with our sexuality without acknowledging this intersectional reality. In this latest edition of Queersighted—an ongoing series that takes a look ...

With his 1982 indie breakthrough CHAN IS MISSING—a noir-inflected comic mystery set in San Francisco’s Chinatown—Wayne Wang became the first Asian American director to achieve widespread critical recognition, paving the way for a pioneering and eclectic career that helped introduce Chinese Americ...

A prolific singer-songwriter who fused an innovative soul sound with a social consciousness that spoke to Black American struggle and empowerment, Curtis Mayfield also left his unmistakable stamp on a small but memorable handful of films as a composer. In addition to the Blaxploitation classic SU...

Over the course of a career that spans five decades, Oscar-nominated activist documentarian Arthur Dong has established himself as one of American independent cinema’s most daring pioneers, bringing powerful untold stories that center queer and Asian American experiences to the screen. Whether ex...

Legendary actor Cicely Tyson, who passed away in January at age ninety-six, brought a powerful presence, dignity, and strength to each of her pioneering performances, which were instrumental in advancing the depiction of Black women on-screen. This tribute gathers three of her finest hours: her s...

Renowned as a silent-film pioneer and the man who refined Hollywood comedy with such masterpieces as TROUBLE IN PARADISE, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, and TO BE OR NOT TO BE, Ernst Lubitsch also had another claim to fame: he helped invent the modern movie musical. With the advent of sound and audi...

The chilly landscapes of Helsinki are warmed by the stubborn humanism and wry humor of Aki Kaurismäki in this trio of poignant, deadpan seriocomedies. Each centering on misfit characters navigating the challenges of life on the social and economic margins, the films that comprise Kaurismäki’s acc...

The groundbreaking Barbados-born British filmmaker Menelik Shabazz, who passed away this June, was one of the leading lights of Black British cinema. Part of a generation of filmmakers who built their own institutions in order to bring their visions to the screen, Shabazz cofounded the Ceddo Film...

Intrepid documentarian Laura Poitras chronicles the rise of the American security state in the aftermath of 9/11 in these trenchant looks at the far-reaching effects that the war on terror has had on both geopolitics and individual freedoms. Documenting Iraqi life under American occupation in MY ...

One of the most unforgettable performers in all of French cinema, Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933–2021) lent his natural insouciance and tough-guy visage to art-film touchstones and genre movies alike. Turning to acting after a stint as an amateur boxer, Belmondo proved the ideal face for the Nouvelle V...

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE chronicles the many years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) through matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partners. Shot in intense, intimate close-ups by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist and featuring flawless per...

Dancer, singer, actor, activist, and incandescent emblem of Jazz Age Paris, the elegant, vivacious, and startlingly modern Josephine Baker was born in St. Louis, but it was in her adopted home of France that she first rose to fame performing in the legendary Folies Bergère. Her uninhibited dancin...

Criterion is thrilled to partner with Le Cinéma Club for this selection of cutting-edge contemporary short films. A free and curated online cinema, Le Cinéma Club streams one film a week, celebrating a new generation of filmmakers and uncovering inspiring discoveries from the past. This program g...

These strikingly prescient musings on technology, identity, and surveillance from innovative artist-filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson—whose work is also the subject of a major career survey this year at the New Museum in New York—toy cannily with the boundaries between the real and the virtual. All ...

To celebrate the streaming premiere of THE INHERITANCE, director Ephraim Asili has curated a program of formally, intellectually, and politically radical films that inspired his brilliant debut feature. Encompassing landmarks of Black American cinema by Oscar Micheaux (WITHIN OUR GATES) and Kathl...

Emerging from the freakiest fringes of the 1960s counterculture, Robert Downey Sr. took the American underground cinema by storm with his wild, weird, and way-out-there send-ups of everything from sex to race relations to religion. In this tribute to one of his filmmaking heroes, acclaimed cinema...

When the 1968 edition of the Cannes Film Festival opened amid widespread civil unrest, filmmakers began pulling their movies from the schedule in solidarity with the workers and students protesting across France. This series gathers select titles from the year’s official lineup, alongside a scene...

Countless filmmakers have turned to their everyday lives for inspiration, but a few directors take it even further: shooting on location in their very own living spaces. Recent global circumstances may have conspired to make a fad of this eccentric approach to moviemaking, but it’s nothing new. F...

An infectious sense of joy lights up the documentaries of George T. Nierenberg, whose films are essential records of African American cultural achievement. With his touchstone documentary NO MAPS ON MY TAPS and its follow-up ABOUT TAP, Nierenberg helped to revitalize interest in the art of tap da...