Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1976 • United States
Following her time living in New York in the early 1970s, Chantal Akerman returned to the city to create one of her most elegantly minimalist and profoundly affecting meditations on dislocation and estrangement. Over a series of exactingly composed shots of Manhattan circa 1976, the filmmaker reads letters sent by her mother years earlier. The juxtaposition between the intimacy of these domestic reports and the lonely, bleakly beautiful cityscapes results in a poignant reflection on personal and familial disconnection that doubles as a transfixing time capsule.
Up Next in Sight and Sound Directors’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time
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Blue Velvet
Directed by David Lynch • 1986 • United States
Starring Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis HopperHome from college, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) makes an unsettling discovery: a severed human ear, lying in a field. In the mystery that follows, by turns terrifying and darkly funn...
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The Spirit of the Beehive
Directed by Víctor Erice • 1973 • Spain
Starring Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería, Fernando Fernán GómezCriterion is proud to present Víctor Erice’s spellbinding THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (EL ESPÍRITU DE LA COLMENA), widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In a small Castilian vi...
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Wild Strawberries
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1957 • Sweden
Starring Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid ThulinTraveling to accept an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg—masterfully played by the veteran filmmaker and actor Victor Sjöström—is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make...
