Check in and stay a while in some of cinema’s most iconic hotels, where souls in transit meet, identities shift, and the by turns liberating and lonely experience of being far from home heightens every interaction. From the gilded art deco glamour of GRAND HOTEL to the haunted corridors of THE SH...

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...

Boasting one of the most compelling and adventurous filmographies of any actor working in Hollywood today, Julianne Moore has made consistently bold choices in a career that has moved easily between blockbuster hits and art-house passion projects. Working with auteurs like Todd Haynes, David Cron...

Though their voices have historically been marginalized, innovative Black women filmmakers have long broken barriers to tell urgent, powerful, and perceptive stories on-screen. This celebration of pioneering Black women who made an impact with their very first—and in some cases only—feature film ...

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...

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...

“Sexual perversion, and any inference to it, is strictly forbidden.” Thus spoke the Hollywood Production Code, the system of censorship that defined the limits of the permissible during the studio system’s golden age from the 1930s to the ’60s. According to such dictates, queer people simply didn...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Among the most agonizingly intense films in the history of film noir are those that adopt the point of view of characters tormented by amnesia, memory holes, and drunken blackouts, leaving them to grasp in the dark in search of an often terrifying truth. Waking up unexpectedly in a stranger’s bed...

When relatives get together, anything can happen. This collection brings together all-too-relatable family portraits that capture the dysfunction, tenderness, and hilarity of holidays, weddings, feasts, and homecomings both joyous and maddening. From the somber poignancy of John Huston’s masterfu...

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 ...

Few musicians have reshaped the sonic texture of contemporary cinema as profoundly as Trent Reznor, whose atmospheric, synth-driven soundtracks—often composed in collaboration with Atticus Ross—bristle with unease and eerie beauty. With his early contributions to Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLE...

Both a consummate popular entertainer and an auteur so distinctive he inspired his own adjective, Howard Hawks built his movies around an exuberant, loose-limbed spirit of collaboration and improvisation, driven by the sparky banter and freewheeling interplay of charismatic stars at their best. I...

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...

Since the birth of cinema, Indigenous people have been staple subjects of documentary—until a new generation of Native American filmmakers emerged in the 1980s who insisted on becoming its authors too. Forged in the social upheavals of the midtwentieth century and abetted by the emergence of acce...

In a career studded with acclaimed collaborations with auteurs like the Coen brothers, Denis Villeneuve, and Gus Van Sant, Josh Brolin has brought a rugged grit and grounded authenticity to his committed portrayals of complex, conflicted antiheroes. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Br...

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 ...

Graced with warmth, sensitivity, and indelible, richly realized characters, the films of Nancy Savoca eloquently evoke the inner worlds of women who challenge patriarchal norms in their quests to define themselves. Both built around luminous performances from Lili Taylor as young women on complex...

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...

In the last decade, Vicky Krieps has quietly emerged as one of contemporary cinema’s most compelling actors, a luminous presence capable of navigating the most delicate emotional terrain with precision and depth. With her breakthrough role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD, Krieps more tha...