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 The Criterion Collection is the best DVD series available and possibly the best thing to happen in DVD entertainment production. Criterion has set the highest standards for DVD production and transfers with superb extra features and digital enhancements of the picture quality. We think that Criterion takes the best care of all DVDs they release, more so than other studios. We believe no one can match The Criterion Collection when it comes to the most treasured films from around the world.
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The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and
contemporary films, is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the
world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality
and award-winning, original supplements. Criterion began with a mission to pull
the treasures of world cinema out of the film vaults and put them in the hands
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cinema at its finest. In our seventeen years, we've seen a lot of things change,
but one thing has remained constant: our commitment to publishing the defining
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The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as
Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock,
Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Bunuel,
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| The List of Criterion Collection DVDs |
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3 Films by Louis Malle - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 327 - France
Few directors have portrayed the agonies and epiphanies of growing up as poetically—and scandalously—as Louis Malle. Laced with autobiographical details, Murmur of the Heart; Lacombe, Lucien; and Au revoir les enfants tell stories of youth, set against the tumult of World War II and postwar France. Controversial, tragic, amusing, and poignant, these three films are not just coming-of-age stories but the director’s ongoing response to a world gone wrong, revealing his true nature as rebel.
3 Women - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 230 - USA
In a dusty, under-populated California resort town, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), a naпve and impressionable Southern waif begins her life as a nursing home attendant. There, Pinky finds her role model in fellow nurse \"Thoroughly Modern\" Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall), a misguided would-be sophisticate and hopeless devotee of Cosmopolitan and Woman\'s Day magazines. When Millie accepts Pinky into her home at the Purple Sage singles complex, Pinky\'s hero-worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, Robert Altman\'s dreamlike masterpiece, 3 Women, careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.
39 Steps - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 56 - United Kingdom
The best known of Hitchcock's British films, this civilized spy yarn follows the escapades of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), who stumbles into a conspiracy that involves him in a hectic chase across the Scottish moors≈a chase in which he is both the pursuer and the pursued. Adapted from John Buchan's novel, this classic Hitchcock "wrong man" thriller encapsulates themes that anticipate the director's biggest American films (especially North by Northwest), and is a standout among his early works.
400 Blows - OOP Edition - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 5 - France
Released in 1959, Francois Truffaut's first feature, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups), is also his most personal. Based on his own stormy childhood, The 400 Blows unsentimentally portrays aloof parents, oppressive teachers, petty crime, and a friendship that would last a lifetime. The film marks Truffaut's passage from leading critic of the French New Wave to his emergence as one of Europe's most brilliant auteurs.
400 Blows & Antoine and Colette - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 5 - France
François Truffaut’s first feature, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups), is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s life-long cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows sensitively recreates the trials of Truffaut’s own difficult childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, petty crime, and a friendship that would last a lifetime. The film marks Truffaut’s passage from leading critic of the French New Wave to his emergence as one of Europe’s most brilliant auteurs.
Three years after The 400 Blows took the world by storm, François Truffaut returned with the second chapter in the ongoing saga of romantic ne’er-do-well Antoine Doinel, Antoine and Colette. Originally appearing in the international omnibus film Love at Twenty, this nimble short subject is classic Truffaut, depicting a teenage Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) living on his own and pursuing his first love affair, initiating a lifelong career of quixotic dreams and amorous restlessness.
8 1/2 - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 140 - Italy
One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a director whose film—and life—is collapsing around him. An early working title for the film was La Bella Confusione (The Beautiful Confusion), and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the 1963 Academy Award™ winner for Best Foreign-Language Film—one of the most written about, talked about, and imitated movies of all time—in a beautifully restored new digital transfer. Disc two features Fellini\'s rarely seen first film for television, Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969). Produced by Peter Goldfarb, this imagined documentary of Fellini is a kaleidoscope of unfinished projects, all of which provide a fascinating and candid window into the director\'s unique and creative process.
A Generation - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 283 - Poland
Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular communist organizer, Stach is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in a dangerous effort to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for other’s lives. A coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, A Generation delivers a brutal portrait of the human cost of war.
A Nous la Liberte - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 160 - France
One of the all-time comedy classics, Rene Clair’s А Nous la Liberte tells the story of Louis, an escaped convict who becomes a wealthy industrialist. Unfortunately, his past returns (in the form of old jail pal Йmile) to upset his carefully laid plans. Featuring lighthearted wit, tremendous visual innovation, and masterful manipulation of sound, А Nous la Libertй is both a potent indictment of mechanized modern society and an uproarious comic delight.
Adventures of Antoine Doinel - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 185 - France
The release of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups) in 1959 shook world cinema to its foundations. The now-classic portrait of troubled adolescence introduced a major new director in the cinematic landscape and was an inaugural gesture of the revolutionary French New Wave. But The 400 Blows did not only introduce the world to its precocious director—it also unveiled his indelible creation: Antoine Doinel. Initially patterned closely after Truffaut himself, the Doinel character (played by the irrepressible and iconic Jean-Pierre Léaud) reappeared in four subsequent films that knowingly portrayed his myriad frustrations and romantic entanglements from his stormy teens through marriage, children, divorce, and adulthood. With The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, Criterion is proud to present Truffaut’s celebrated saga in its entirety: the feature films The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run, and the 1962 short subject, Antoine and Colette, in a special edition five-disc box set.
Akira Kurosawa: Four Samurai Classics - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 850 - Japan
With the production of Seven Samurai (1954), the most popular and important Japanese film of its time, Kurosawa began a long and fruitful obsession with medieval Japan. From The Hidden Fortress (1958), which pioneered widescreen cinematography in Japan, to the samurai-for-hire pair of Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962), which launched the “Spaghetti Western” genre in Italy, Kurosawa reinvigorated the samurai film genre and revitalized the American Western in the process.
Alexander Nevsky - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 87 - ex-USSR
Eisenstein drew on history, Russian folk narratives, and the techniques of Walt Disney to create this broadly painted epic of Russian resilience. This story of Teutonic knights vanquished by Prince Alexander Nevsky’s tactical brilliance resonated deeply with a Soviet Union concerned with the rise of Nazi Germany. Widely imitated—most notably by Laurence Olivier’s Battle of Agincourt re-creation for Henry V —the Battle on the Ice scene remains one of the most famous audio-visual experiments in film history, perfectly blending action with the rousing score of Sergei Prokofiev.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 198 - Germany
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, already the director of almost twenty films by the age of twenty-nine, paid homage to his cinematic hero, Douglas Sirk, with this updated version of Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Lonely widow Emmi Kurowsky (Brigitte Mira) meets Arab worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love––to their own surprise––and to the shock of family, colleagues, and drinking buddies. In Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen seele auf), Fassbinder expertly uses the emotional power of the melodrama to underscore the racial tensions threatening German culture.
All That Heaven Allows - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 95 - USA
Jane Wyman is a repressed wealthy widow and Rock Hudson is the hunky Thoreau-following gardener who loves her in Douglas Sirk’s heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s small-town America. Sirk utilizes expressionist colors, reflective surfaces, and frames-within-frames to convey the loneliness and isolation of a matriarch trapped by the snobbery of her children and the gossip of her social-climbing country club chums. Criterion is proud to present this subversive Hollywood tearjerker in a new Special Edition.
Alphaville - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 25 - France
A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard’s irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60. Criterion’s edition of this seminal film features a new digital transfer.
Amarcord - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 4 - Italy
In this carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the Fascist period, Fellini satirizes his youth and turns daily life into a circus of rituals, sensations and emotions. Adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political repartee are set to Nina Rota’s music in this beautiful transfer of Amarcord.
And God Created Woman - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 77 - France
The astounding success of Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman revolutionized the foreign film market and turned Brigitte Bardot into an international star. Bardot stars as Juliette, an 18-year-old orphan whose unbridled appetite for pleasure shakes up all of St. Tropez; her sweet but naОve husband Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant) endures beatings, insults, and mambo in his attempts to tame her wild ways. Criterion presents this milestone of cinematic naughtiness in a stunning new 16x9 Eastmancolor transfer, supervised by the late director.
And the Ship Sails On - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 50 - Italy
In Fellini’s quirky, imaginative fable, a motley crew of European aristocrats (and a lovesick rhinoceros!) board a luxurious ocean liner on the eve of World War I to scatter the ashes of a beloved diva. Fabricated entirely in Rome’s famed Cinecittа studios, And the Ship Sails On (E la nave va) reaches spectacular new visual heights with its stylized re-creation of a decadent bygone era. Criterion is proud to present this rarely-seen gem in an exclusive widescreen transfer with new English subtitles.
Andrei Rublev - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 34 - ex-USSR
Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic masterpiece is a sweeping medieval tale of Russia’s greatest icon painter. Too experimental, too frightening, too violent, and too politically complicated to be released officially, Andrei Rublev has existed only in shortened, censored versions until the Criterion Collection created this complete 205-minute director’s cut special edition, now available for the first time on DVD.
Andrzej Wajda: Three War Films - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 282 - Poland
In 1999, Polish director Andrzej Wajda received an Honorary Academy Award® for his body of work—more than thirty-five feature films, beginning with A Generation in 1955. Wajda’s second film, Kanal—the first ever made about the Warsaw uprising—secured him the Special Jury Prize at Cannes and started him on the path to international acclaim, secured with the release of his masterpiece, Ashes and Diamonds, in 1958. These three groundbreaking films ushered in the “Polish School” movement and later became known as the “War Trilogy.” But each boldly stands on its own—testaments to the resilience of the human spirit, the struggle for personal and national freedom, and Wajda’s unique contribution to his homeland and to world cinema. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this director-approved edition, with new transfers of all three films and extensive interviews with the director and his colleagues.
Angel at My Table - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 301 - Australia
With An Angel at My Table, Academy Award®–winning filmmaker Jane Campion brings to the screen the harrowing true story of Janet Frame, New Zealand’s most distinguished author. The film follows Frame along her inspiring journey, from a poverty-stricken childhood to a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia and electroshock therapy to, finally, international literary fame. Beautifully capturing the color and power of the New Zealand landscape, the film earned Campion a sweep of her country’s film awards and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Armageddon - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 40 - USA
Bruce Willis and and anall-star cast of roughneck oil drillers blast off on a mission to save the planet in Michael Bay’s doomsday space epic.
Ashes and Diamonds - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 285 - Poland
On the last day of World War II in a small town somewhere in Poland, the exiles of war and the occupying Soviet elite confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland. From this incendiary environment emerges Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki. Chelmicki has now been hired to assassinate an incoming commissar, but a mistake stalls his progress and introduces him to Krystyna, a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. Gorgeously photographed and brilliantly performed, Ashes and Diamonds masterfully interweaves the fate of a nation with that of one man, resulting in one of the most important Polish films of all time.
Au hasard Balthazar - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 297 - France/The Netherlands
A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, director Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar follows a much abused donkey, Balthazar, whose life strangely parallels that of his first owner, Marie. A beast of burden, suffering the sins of man, Balthazar nevertheless nobly accepts his fate. Through Bresson’s unconventional approach to composition, sound, and narrative, this seemingly simple story becomes a moving religious parable of purity and transcendence.
Au revoir les enfants - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 330 - France
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss between two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
Autumn Sonata - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 60 - Sweden
A stunning union of two of Sweden’s national treasures, Autumn Sonata pairs Ingmar Bergman with Ingrid Bergman for their only joint effort. Ingrid plays a mother who, after forsaking her family for a music career, attempts a reconciliation with her oldest daughter (Liv Ullmann) through a night of painful revelation. Sven Nykvist contributes glorious Eastmancolor cinematography to this quietly beautiful story of forgiveness. Criterion is proud to present Autumn Sonata in a gorgeous digital transfer.
Bad Sleep Well - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 319 - Japan
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.
Bad Timing - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 303 - United Kingdom
Amid the decaying elegance of cold-war Vienna, psychoanalyst Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) becomes mired in an erotically charged affair with the elusive Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell). When their all consuming passion takes a life-threatening turn, Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel) is assigned to piece together the sordid details. Acclaimed for its innovative editing, raw performances, and stirring musical score, featuring Tom Waits, the Who, and Billie Holiday, Nicolas Roeg’s Bad Timing is a masterful, deeply disturbing foray into the dark world of sexual obsession.
Ballad of a Soldier - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 148 - ex-USSR
Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is granted a visit with his mother after he singlehandedly fends off two enemy tanks. As he journeys home, Alyosha encounters the devastation of his war-torn country, witnesses glimmers of hope among the people, and falls in love. With its poetic visual imagery, Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier is an unconventional meditation on the effects of war, and a milestone in Russian cinema.
Band of Outsiders - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 174 - France
Two restless young men (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) enlist the object of their desire (Anna Karina) to help them commit a robbery––in her own home. French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard takes to the streets of Paris to re-imagine the gangster genre, spinning an audacious yarn that’s at once sentimental and insouciant, romantic and melancholy. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the convention-flauting postmodern classic Band of Outsiders (Bande а part).
Bank Dick - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 78 - USA
W.C. Fields stars as an unemployed, henpecked drunk who spends most of his time at the Black Pussy Cat cafИ. Things take a turn for the absurd when he unwittingly captures a bank robber and lands a job as a security guard. Written by Fields under the pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves and featuring one of his most hilarious performances, The Bank Dick is an undisputed classic of American comedy. Criterion is proud to present Fields last major film in a new digital transfer, with English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Battle of Algiers - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 249 - France
One of the most influential films in the history of political cinema, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers focuses on the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria’s struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film vividly recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range; women plant bombs in cafйs. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed. The Criterion Collection is proud present Gillo Pontecorvo’s tour de force—a film with astonishing relevance today.
Beastie Boys Video Anthology - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 100 - USA
The Beastie Boys are among the most influential groups of the last two decades. As their music has opened hip-hop to a wider audience and changed the parameters of its sound, their ambitious music videos have carried the medium to new levels of artistic expression. This groundbreaking two-disc anthology showcases the vast potential of DVD technology, with most of the 18 videos containing alternate visual angles and multiple audio tracks. There are hundreds of possible image and sound combinations, including new surround mixes, a cappella versions, instrumentals, and more than 40 remixes (by such artists as Moby, Fatboy Slim and The Prunes), including many new remixes created exclusively for this release. Loaded with never-before-seen footage and unreleased music tracks, this special edition also contains a trove of rare still photos and exclusive audio commentary by the band and the video directors. And the coup de grвce; the world-premiere director's cut of Nathanial Hornblower's "Intergalactic" spin-off "The Robot vs. the Octopus Monster Saga."
Beauty and the Beast - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 6 - France
Once upon a time, in a world of magic and wonder, the true love of a beautiful girl may finally dispel the torment of a feral but gentle-hearted beast. Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bкte) is a landmark feat of cinematic fantasy in which master filmmaker Jean Cocteau conjures spectacular visions of enchantment, desire, and death that have never been equaled. The Criterion Collection proudly presents the original film version of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale masterpiece in a newly restored spectacular new special edition.
Beauty and the Beast - OOP Edition - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 6 - France
This masterpiece by the poet of cinema, Jean Cocteau, has enchanted audiences for more than fifty years with its surreal beauty and magical visual effects. Josette Day and Jean Marais shine in the definitive filmed version of the classic romantic tale.
Bed and Board - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 187 - France
The fourth installment in François Truffaut’s chronicle of the ardent, anachronistic Antoine Doinel, Bed and Board plunges his hapless creation once again into crisis. Expecting his first child and still struggling to find steady employment, Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) involves himself in a relationship with a beautiful Japanese woman that threatens to destroy his marriage. Lightly comic, with a touch of the burlesque, Bed and Board is a bittersweet look at the travails of young married life and the fine line between adolescence and adulthood.
Big Deal on Madonna Street - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 113 - Italy
An all-star cast and jazzy score highlight this charming comedy, a deft satire of classic caper films like Rififi. Big Deal on Madonna Street hilariously details the plight of a sad-sack group of bumbling thieves and their desperate attempts to pull off the perfect heist
Billy Liar - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 121 - United Kingdom
Tom Courtenay gives a flawlessly nuanced performance as Billy Fisher, the underachieving undertaker’s assistant whose constant daydreams and truth-deficient stories earn him the nickname “Billy Liar.” Julie Christie is the handbag-swinging charmer whose free spirit just might inspire Billy to finally move out of his parents’ house. Deftly veering from gritty realism to flamboyant fantasy, Billy Liar is a dazzling and uproarious classic.
Black Narcissus - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 93 - United Kingdom
Plagued by uncertainties and worldly desires, five Protestant missionary nuns, led by Deborah Kerr’s Sister Clodagh, struggle to establish a school in the desolate Himalayas. All the elements of cinematic arts are perfectly fused in Powell and Pressburger’s fascinating study of the age-old conflict between the spirit and the flesh, set against the grandeur of the snowcapped peaks of Kanchenjunga. Criterion is proud to present Black Narcissus in a new Special Edition.
Black Orpheus - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 48 - France
1960 Academy Award Winner and winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice against the madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its magnificent color photography and lively soundtrack, this film brought the infectious bossa nova beat to the United States. Criterion is proud to present the extended international version of Black Orpheus in a gorgeous new transfer.
Blob - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 91 - USA
"Beware of the Blob!" One of the great cult classics, The Blob melds ’50s schlock sci-fi and teen delinquency pics even as it transcends these genres with strong performances and ingenious special effects. Made outside of Hollywood by a maverick film distributor, a crew experienced in religious and educational shorts, and a collection of theatrical talent from Philadelphia and New York, The Blob helped launch the careers of superstud Steve McQueen and composer Burt Bacharach.
Blood for Dracula - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 28 - USA
Paul Morrissey’s moralistic take on modern values is a brash mixture of humor, horror, and sex – and a revelation to fans of the horror film. In Blood for Dracula, the infamous count searches Italy for virgin blood. Criterion presents the long-suppressed director’s cut of this outrageous cult classic in a new widescreen transfer.
Blood of a Poet - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 67 - France
“Poets . . . shed not only the red blood of their hearts but the white blood of their souls,” proclaimed Jean Cocteau of his groundbreaking first film—an exploration of the plight of the artist, the power of metaphor and the relationship between art and dreams. One of cinema’s great experiments, this first installment of the Orphic Trilogy stretches the medium to its limits in an effort to capture the poet’s obsession with the struggle between the forces of life and death. Criterion is proud to present The Blood of a Poet (Le Sang d’un poиte).
Bob le Flambeur - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 150 - France
Suffused with wry humor, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur melds the toughness of American gangster films with Gallic sophistication to lay the roadmap for the French New Wave. As the neon is extinguished for another dawn, an aging gambler navigates the treacherous world of pimps, moneymen, and naпve associates while plotting one last score—the heist of the Deauville casino. This underworld comedy of manners possesses all the formal beauty, finesse and treacherous allure of green baize.
Boudu Saved from Drowning - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 305 - France
After well-to-do bookseller Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval) rescues a tramp from a suicidal plunge into the Seine, his family adopts the bum and dedicates itself to reforming him. The irrepressible Boudu (Michel Simon) shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound principles of his hosts and seducing them with his anarchic charm. With Boudo Saved from Drowning, legendary director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and a brilliant performance by Simon to create an effervescent satire of bourgeois complacency.
Branded to Kill - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 38 - Japan
Branded to Kill, the wildly perverse story of the yakuza’s rice-sniffing “No. 3 Killer,” is Seijun Suzuki at his delirious best. From a cookie-cutter studio script, Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece—and was promptly fired. Criterion presents the DVD premiere of Branded to Kill in a pristine transfer from the original Nikkatsu-scope master.
Brazil - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 51 - United Kingdom & USA
Pitting the imagination of a common man against the oppressive storm troopers of the Ministry of Information, this bitter parable for the Information Age is more relevant than ever. Gathering footage from both the European and American versions, Terry Gilliam has assembled the ultimate 142-minute director's cut of his most celebrated film, then annotated it with a shot-by-shot commentary on an alternate audio channel.
Brief Encounter - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 76 - United Kingdom
From NoКl Coward's play Still Life, legendary filmmaker David Lean deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance in the dour, gray Britain of 1945. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately doomed love affair, set to a swirling Rachmaninoff score. Criterion is proud to present Lean's award-winning masterpiece a beautifully restored digital transfer.
Browning Version - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 294 - United Kingdom
Michael Redgrave gives the performance of his career in Anthony Asquith’s adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s unforgettable play. Redgrave portrays Andrew Crocker-Harris, an embittered, middle-aged schoolmaster who begins to feel his life has been a failure. Diminished by poor health, a crumbling marriage, and the derision of his pupils, the once brilliant scholar is compelled to reexamine his life when a young student offers an unexpected gesture of kindness. A heartbreaking story of remorse and atonement, The Browning Version is a classic of British realism and the winner of Best Actor and Best Screenplay honors at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.
Burden of Dreams - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 287 - USA
For nearly five years, acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog desperately tried to complete the most ambitious and difficult film of his career—Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank captured the unfolding of this production, made all the more perilous by Herzog’s determination to shoot the most daunting scenes without models or special effects, including a sequence requiring hundreds of natives to pull a full-sized, 320-ton steamship over a small mountain. The result is an extraordinary document of the filmmaking process and a unique look into the single-minded passion of one of cinema’s most fearless directors.
By Brakhage: An Anthology - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 184 - USA
Working completely outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage has made nearly 400 films over the past half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” Brakhage has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even actual autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all. Instead, Brakhage has pioneered the art of making images directly on film itself––starting with clear leader or exposed film, then drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. Treating each frame as a miniature canvas, Brakhage can produce only a quarter- to a half-second of film a day, but his visionary style of image-making has changed everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone.
Criterion is proud to present 26 masterworks by Stan Brakhage in high-definition digital transfers made from newly minted film elements. For the first time on DVD, viewers will be able to look at Brakhage’s meticulously crafted frames one by one.
Carl Th. Dreyer - My Metier - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 128 - Denmark
Torben Skjodt Jensen’s elegant documentary is a collage of memories and reflections on one of cinema’s greatest directors. Visually rich and densely layered, Carl Th. Dreyer—My Metier illuminates an artist too little understood and too important to overlook. Through interviews, historical writings, and rare archival footage, a portrait of Dreyer emerges—an austere perfectionist, yes, but also a passionate man possessing a genuine sense of humor. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this in-depth study of Dreyer’s life and work for the first time on home video.
Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 124 - Denmark
Following the release of Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Criterion Collection renews its commitment to this major director with a Special Edition box set of his sound films, Day of Wrath, Ordet, and Gertrud. Each is an intense exploration of the clash between individual desire and social expectations, with Dreyer’s famously perfectionist attention to detail shining throughout. With brand new digital transfers supervised by Gertrud director of photography Henning Bendtsen, the Criterion Collection is proud to present these Dreyer masterpieces on DVD for the first time. The fourth disc in the set presents the masterful 1995 documentary on Dreyer by Danish filmmaker Torben Skodt Jensen, Carl Th. Dreyer—My Metier. Extensive interviews with collaborators and actors provide fresh insight into the life and work of one of cinema’s great masters.
Carnival of Souls - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 63 - USA
Herk Harvey’s macabre masterpiece gained a cult following through late night television and has been bootlegged for years. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, Carnival of Souls was intended to have the “look of a Bergman” and “feel of a Cocteau,” and succeeds with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) survives a drag race in a rural Kansas town, then takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she becomes haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her to an abandoned lakeside pavilion. Criterion is proud to present the ultimate special edition of this eerily effective B-movie classic that continues to inspire filmmakers today.
Casque d’or - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 270 - France
Jacques Becker lovingly evokes the Belle Époque Parisian demimonde in this classic tale of doomed romance. When gangster’s moll Marie (Simone Signoret) falls for reformed criminal Manda (Serge Reggiani), their passion incites an underworld rivalry that leads inexorably to treachery and tragedy. With poignant, nuanced performances and sensuous black-and-white photography, Casque d’or is Becker at the height of his cinematic powers—an achingly romantic masterpiece.
Charade - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 57 - USA
A trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American (Audrey Hepburn) through Paris to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is a suave, mysterious stranger (Cary Grant). A deliciously dark comedic thriller, Stanley Donen's Charade dazzles with style and macabre wit to spare. Unavailable for nearly three years, The Criterion Collection is proud to re-release this '60s spy classic in a gorgeous new anamorphic transfer.
Charade - OOP Edition - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 57 - USA
A young American in Paris (Audrey Hepburn) flees a trio of crooks, who are trying to recover the fortune her late husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is a suave stranger (Cary Grant). A deliciously dark comedic thriller, Stanley Donen's Charade dazzles with style and macabre wit to spare. Criterion is proud to present this '60s suspense classic in a gorgeous widescreen transfer.
Chasing Amy - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 75 - USA
Chasing Amy is the third installment in the “New Jersey Trilogy” from award-winning writer-director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma). Cult comic-book artist Holden (Ben Affleck) falls in love with fellow artist Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), only to be thwarted by her sexuality, the disdain of his best friend Banky (Jason Lee), and his own misgivings about himself. Filled with Smith's unique ear for dialogue and insight into relationships, Chasing Amy offers a thoughtful, funny look at how perceptions alter lives, and how obsession and self-doubt skew reality.
Children Are Watching Us - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 323 - Italy
In his first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini, Vittoria De Sica examines the cataclysmic consequences of adult folly on an innocent child. Heralding the pair’s subsequent work on some of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, The Children Are Watching Us is a deeply humane, vivid portrait of one family’s disintegration.
Children of Paradise - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 141 - France
Poetic realism reaches sublime heights with Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis), the ineffably witty tale of a woman loved by four different men. Deftly entwining theater, literature, music, and design, director Marcel Carnй and screenwriter Jacques Prйvert resurrect the tumultuous world of 19th-century Paris, teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans, pimps and seers. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this milestone of cinema in a new high-definition film transfer made from the restored negative.
Cleo from 5 to 7 - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 73 - France
Visionary of the French New Wave, Agnиs Varda captures the atmosphere of Paris in the ’60s with this portrait of a singer searching for answers as she awaits test results from a biopsy. A chronicle of two crucial hours in one woman’s life, Cleo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid verite and melodrama. The film features a score by Michel Legrand (Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and cameos by Legrand, Jean-Luc Godard, and Anna Karina. Criterion is proud to present Cleo from 5 to 7 in a beautiful digital transfer supervised by the director, with the color opening sequence restored.
Closely Watched Trains - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 131 - Czechoslovakia
At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. Wry and tender, Academy Award™-winning Closely Watched Trains is a masterpiece of human observation and one of the best-loved films of the Czech New Wave.
Complete Monterey Pop Festival - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 167 - USA
On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward––capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast including Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, The Who, The Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar. With his characteristic vйritй style, D.A. Pennebaker captured it all, immortalizing those moments that have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar; Jimi Hendrix burning his. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive document of the Monterey International Pop Festival ever produced, featuring all three films of the Festival––Monterey Pop, Jimi Plays Monterey, and Shake! Otis at Monterey––along with nearly every complete performance filmed by Pennebaker and his crew.
Complete Mr. Arkadin - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 322 - USA, France, Spain
Orson Welles’s Mr. Arkadin (a.k.a. Confidential Report) is one of cinema’s great mysteries. How did a globetrotting narrative of espionage, amnesia, and backstabbing come to be itself marked by these qualities? In the film, small-time American smuggler Guy van Stratten is hired by elusive billionaire Gregory Arkadin to investigate the tycoon’s past. What follows is a dizzying descent into the Cold War landscape of a Europe trying to erase its history. In making the film, Welles was ultimately banned from the editing room by producer Louis Dolivet. As a result, many versions exist, none of them definitive. The Criterion Collection is proud to collect the many faces of Mr. Arkadin into one box for the first time—from the story’s beginnings in radio to the novel published under Welles’s name to an all-new “comprehensive version” of the film.
Constant Forge - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 256 - USA
As intense and passionate as its subject, Charles Kiselyak’s A Constant Forge provides a detailed journey through the life and art of one of cinema’s greatest pioneers and iconoclasts: John Cassavetes. Assembled from candid interviews with Cassavete’s collaborators and friends, rare photographs, archival footage, and the words of Cassavetes himself, the film paints a revealing portrait of a man whose fierce love, courage, and dedication changed the face of cinema forever.
Contempt - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 171 - France
Jean-Luc Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic. Contempt (Le Mépris) stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European director (played by legendary director Fritz Lang), a crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot) as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this brilliant study of marital breakdown, artistic compromise, and the cinematic process in a new special edition.
Coup de Torchon - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 106 - France
An inspired rendering of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) deftly transplants the story of an inept police chief- turned-heartless killer and his scrappy mistress from the American South to French West Africa. Featuring pitch-perfect performances by Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert, this striking neo-noir straddles the line between violence and lyricism with dark humor and visual elegance, perfectly captured by Criterion’s glorious new anamorphic transfer.
Cranes are Flying - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 146 - ex-USSR
Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. Boris is sent to the front lines…and then communication stops. Meanwhile, Veronica tries to ward off spiritual numbness while Boris’ draft-dodging cousin makes increasingly forceful overtures. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, The Cranes are Flying is a superbly crafted drama, bolstered by stunning cinematography and impassioned performances.
Crazed Fruit - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 295 - Japan
Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking in this seminal “sun tribe” (taiyozoku) film from director Ko Nakahira. Adapted from the controversial novel by Shintaro Ishihara—and critically savaged for its lurid portrayal of the postwar sexual revolution among Japan’s young and privileged—Crazed Fruit is an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation.
Cries and Whispers - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 101 - Sweden
Legendary director Ingmar Bergman creates a testament to the strength of the soul—and a film of absolute power. Karin and Maria come to the aid of their dying sister, Agnes, but jealousy, manipulation, and selfishness come before empathy. Agnes, tortured by cancer, transcends the pettiness of her sisters’ concerns to remember moments of being—moments that Bergman, with the help of Academy Award™-winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist, translates into pictures of staggering beauty and unfathomable horror.
Day of Wrath - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 125 - Denmark
Filmed during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (Vredens dag) is a harrowing account of individual helplessness in the face of growing social repression and paranoia. Anna, the young second wife of a well-respected but much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson when he returns to their small 17th-century village. Stepping outside the bounds of the village’s harsh moral code has disastrous results. Exquisitely photographed and passionately acted, Day of Wrath remains an intense, unforgettable experience.
Dead Ringers - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 21 - Canada & USA
In Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg tells the chilling story of identical twin gynecologists—suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality—who share the same practice, the same apartment, the same women. When a new patient, glamorous actress Claire Niveau, challenges their eerie bond, they descend into a whirlpool of sexual confusion, drugs, and madness. Jeremy Irons’ tour-de-force performance—as both twins—raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity.
Devil and Daniel Webster - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 214 - USA
Jabez Stone is a hard-working farmer trying to make an honest living, but a streak of bad luck tempts him to do the unthinkable: bargain with the Devil himself. For seven years of good fortune, Stone promises “Mr. Scratch” his soul when the contract ends. When the troubled farmer begins to realize the error of his choice, he enlists the aid of the one man who might save him: the legendary orator and politician Daniel Webster. Directed with stylish flair by William Dieterle, The Devil and Daniel Webster brings the classic short story by Stephen Vincent Benét to life with inspired visuals, an unforgettable Oscar®-winning score by Bernard Herrmann, and a truly diabolical performance from Walter Huston.
Diabolique - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 35 - France
An acknowledged influence on Psycho, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s horror classic is the story of a sadistic headmaster who brutalizes his fragile wife and his headstrong mistress. The two women murder him and dump his body in a swimming pool; when the pool is drained, no corpse is found. Criterion presents Diabolique in a new digital transfer.
Diary of a Chambermaid - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 117 - France
This wicked adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau novel is classic Luis Buсuel. Jeanne Moreau is Celestine, a beautiful Parisian domestic who, upon arrival at her new job at an estate in provincial 1930s France, entrenches herself in sexual hypocrisy and scandal with her philandering employer (Buсuel regular Michel Piccoli). Filmed in luxurious black-and-white Franscope, Diary of a Chambermaid is a raw-edged tangle of fetishism and murder—and a scathing look at the burgeoning French fascism of the era.
Diary of a Country Priest - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 222 - France
A new priest (Claude Laydu) arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish. The apathetic and hostile rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his diary entries, the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and from God. With his fourth film, Robert Bresson began to implement his stylistic philosophy as a filmmaker, stripping away all inessential elements from his compositions, the dialogue and the music, exacting a purity of image and sound.
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 102 - France
In Luis Buсuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined. Fernando Rey, Stephane Audran, Delphine Seyring, and Jean-Pierre Cassel head the extraordinary cast of this 1972 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Criterion is proud to present The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in an exclusive Special Edition Double-Disc Set.
Divorce Italian Style - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 286 - Italy
Baron Ferdinando Cefalщ (Marcello Mastroianni) longs to marry his nubile, young cousin Angela (Stefania Sandrelli), but one obstacle stands in his way: his fatuous and fawning wife, Rosalia (Daniela Rocca). His solution? Since divorce is illegal, he will devise a scenario wherein he can catch his spouse in the arms of another and murder her to save his honor—a lesser offense. The Criterion Collection is proud to present director Pietro Germi’s hilarious and cutting satire of Italy’s hypocritical judicial system and male-dominated culture, winner of the 1962 Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay.
Do the Right Thing - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 97 - USA
The hottest day of the year explodes onscreen in this vibrant look at a day in the life of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Featuring a stellar ensemble cast that includes Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Robin Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Nunn, Rosie Perez, and John Turturro, Spike Lee’s powerful portrait of urban racial tensions sparked controversy while earning popular and critical praise. Criterion is proud to present Do the Right Thing in a new Director Approved special edition.
Double Suicide - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 104 - Japan
Many films have drawn from classic Japanese theatrical forms, but none with such shocking cinematic effect as director Masahiro Shinoda’s Double Suicide. In this striking adaptation of a bunraku puppet play (featuring the music of famed composer Toru Takemitsu), a paper merchant sacrifices family, fortune, and ultimately life for his erotic obsession with a prostitute. Criterion is proud to present Double Suicide in a stunning digital transfer, with a new and improved English subtitle translation.
Down by Law - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 166 - USA
When fate lands three hapless men—an unemployed disc jockey (Tom Waits), a small-time pimp (John Lurie), and a strong-willed Italian tourist (Roberto Benigni)—in a Louisiana prison, their singular adventure begins. Described by director Jim Jarmusch as a “neo-beat-noir-comedy,” Down by Law is part nightmare and part fairy tale, featuring fine performances and crisp black-and-white photography by esteemed cinematographer Robby Mьller. The Criterion Collection is proud to present Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law.
Early Summer - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 240 - Japan
A nuanced examination of a family falling apart, Early Summer tells the story of the Mamiya family and their efforts to marry off their headstrong daughter, Noriko, played by the extraordinary Setsuko Hara. A seemingly simple story, it is among the director’s most emotionally complex. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of Ozu’s most enduring classics.
Eisenstein: The Sound Years - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 86 - ex-USSR
Sergei Eisenstein, long regarded as a pioneer of film art, changed cinematic strategies halfway through his career. Upon returning from Hollywood and Mexico in the late 1930s, he left behind the densely edited style of celebrated silents like Battleship Potemkin and October, turning instead to historical sources, contradictory audiovisuals, and theatrical sets for his grandiose yet subversive sound-era work. This trio of rousing action epics reveals a deeply unsettling portrait of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and provided battle-scene blueprints for filmmaking giants from Laurence Olivier in Henry V to Akira Kurosawa in Seven Samurai.
Element of Crime - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 80 - Denmark
Lars von Trier's stunning debut film is the story of Fisher, an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer with a taste for young girls. Influenced equally by Hitchcock and science fiction, von Trier (Zentropa, Breaking the Waves, The Idiots) boldly reinvents expressionist style for his own cinematic vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Shot in shades of sepia, with occasional, startling flashes of bright blue, The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens Element) combines dark mystery and operatic sweep to yield a pure celluloid nightmare.
Elena and Her Men - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 244 - France
Set amidst the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy stars Ingrid Bergman in her most sensual role as a beautiful, but impoverished Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love.
Elevator to the Gallows - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 335 - France
In his mesmerizing debut, twenty-four-year-old director Louis Malle brought together the beauty of Jeanne Moreau, the camerawork of Henri Decaë, and the now legendary score by Miles Davis. A touchstone of the careers of both its star and director, Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) is a richly atmospheric thriller of mistaken identity unfolding over one tense night in Paris.
Eyes Without a Face - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 260 - France
Secluded in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore his beloved daughter’s once-beautiful face, but at a horrifying price. Lauded as a true rarity of horror cinema, Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans visage) has influenced countless films in its wake and stunned audiences around the world with its shocking yet poetic imagery. The Criterion Collection is proud to present Georges Franju’s lyrical black and white classic in a long-awaited DVD edition.
F for Fake - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 288 - USA
Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles's free-form documentary F for Fake, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career—the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles goes on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of which is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.
Faces - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 252 - USA
The disintegration of a bourgeois marriage is dissected in John Cassavetes’ searing Faces. Shot in high-contrast 16mm black and white, the film follows Richard (John Marley) and Maria (Lynn Carlin) as they futilely attempt to escape the anguish of their empty marriage in the arms of others. Featuring astonishingly powerful, nervy performances from Marley, Carlin, and Cassavetes regulars Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Faces confronts suburban alienation and the battle of the sexes with a brutal honesty and compassion rarely matched in cinema.
Fanny & Alexander Box Set - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 261 - Sweden
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), we witness the great delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family—a sprawling, convivial bourgeois clan living in turn-of-the-century Sweden. Intended as Ingmar Bergman’s swan song, Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) is the legendary filmmaker’s warmest and most autobiographical film, a triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional rigor with immense joyfulness and sensuality. The Criterion Collection is proud to present not only the theatrical version—winner of the 1984 Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film—but also, for the first time on home video in the U.S., the original five-hour television version, together in a single boxed set. Also included is Bergman’s own feature-length documentary The Making of Fanny and Alexander (Dokument Fanny och Alexander), offering a unique glimpse into his creative process.
Fanny & Alexander: Theatrical Version - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 263 - Sweden
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), we witness the great delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family—a sprawling, convivial bourgeois clan living in turn-of-the-century Sweden. Intended as Ingmar Bergman’s swan song, Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) is the legendary filmmaker’s warmest and most autobiographical film, a triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional rigor with immense joyfulness and sensuality. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the theatrical version of Fanny and Alexander, winner of four 1984 Academy Awards®, including Best Foreign Language Film.
Fanny & Alexander: Theatrical Version - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 263 - Sweden
The three-hour theatrical release of Fanny and Alexander was one of the most celebrated films of its era – and the most successful of Ingram Bergman’s illustrious career, gathering a host of honors around the world, including Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this internationally beloved version of Bergman’s crowing achievement.
Fanny and Alexander: Television Version - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 262 - Sweden
Ingmar Bergman has described Fanny and Alexander as “the sum total of my life as a filmmaker.” In this, the full-length 312-minute version of his valedictory triumph, the breadth and majesty of the great director’s vision is fully expressed. Originally broadcast on Swedish television, the television version of Fanny and Alexander is the Bergman’s preferred rendition, featuring a generous helping of magical and gripping material expurgated from the theatrical release. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the complete, uncut Fanny and Alexander for the first time on home video in the U.S.
Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 203 - Germany
By the age of thirty-four, German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder had already directed nearly twenty-two feature films. In 1978, he embarked upon a project to trace the history of postwar Germany in a series of films told through the eyes of three remarkable women. Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola, and Veronika Voss—the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Trilogy—would garner him the international acclaim he had always yearned for and place his name foremost in the canon of New German Cinema. The Criterion Collection is proud to present these films as a group for the first time ever in home video.
Fat Girl - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 259 - France
Twelve-year old Anaïs is fat. Her older sister, Eléna, is a teenage beauty. While on vacation with her parents, Anaïs tags along behind Eléna, exploring the dreary seaside town. Eléna meets Fernando, an Italian law student, who seduces her with promises of love, as the ever-watchful Anaïs bears witness to the corruption of her sister’s innocence. Precise and uncompromising, Fat Girl (À Ma soeur!) is a bold dissection of sibling rivalry and female adolescent sexuality from one of contemporary cinema’s most controversial directors.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 175 - USA
“We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold.” It is 1971, and journalist Raoul Duke barrels towards Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, accompanied by a trunkful of contraband and his slightly unhinged Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo. But what is ostensibly a cut-and-dried journalistic endeavor quickly descends into a feverish psychedelic odyssey and an excoriating dissection of the American way of life. Director Terry Gilliam and an all-star cast (headlined by Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro) show no mercy in bringing Dr. Hunter S, Thompson’s legendary Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the screen, creating a film both hilarious and savage.
Fiend Without a Face - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 92 - United Kingdom
A scientist’s thoughts materialize as an army of invisible brain-shaped monsters (complete with spinal-cord tails!) who terrorize an American military base in this nightmarish chiller, directed by Arthur Crabtree (Horrors of the Black Museum). This outstanding sci-fi/horror hybrid is a special effects bonanza, and a high-water mark in British genre filmmaking.
Fighting Elegy - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 269 - Japan
High schooler Nanbu Kiroku yearns for the prim, Catholic Michiko, but her only desire is to reform Kiroku’s sinful tendencies. Hormones raging, Kiroku channels his unsatisfied lust into the only outlet available: savage, crazed violence. Fighting Elegy is a unique masterpiece in the diverse career of Seijun Suzuki, combining the director’s signature bravura visual style with a brilliantly focused satire of machismo and fascism.
Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 208 - Sweden
At the beginning of the 1960s, renowned film director Ingmar Bergman began work on what were to become some of his most powerful and representative works—the Trilogy. Already a figure of tremendous international acclaim for such masterworks as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Virgin Spring, Bergman turned his back on the abundant symbolism and exotic imagery of his ‘50s work to focus on a series of impacted, emotionally explosive chamber dramas examining faith and alienation in the modern age. Utilizing a new cameraman—the incomparable Sven Nykvist—Bergman unleashed Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence in rapid succession, exposing moviegoers worldwide to a new level of intellectual and emotional intensity. Each film employs minimal dialogue, eerily isolated settings, and searing performances from such Bergman regulars as Max von Sydow, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom in their evocation of a desperate world confronted with God’s desertion. Drawing on Bergman’s own severely religious upbringing and ensuing spiritual crisis, the films in the Trilogy are deeply personal, challenging, and enriching works that exhibit the filmmaker’s peerless formal mastery and fierce intelligence. The Criterion Collection is proud to present A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence.
Firemen’s Ball - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 145 - Czechoslovakia
A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Milos Forman’s first color film The Firemen’s Ball (Horí, má panenko) is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confounded, the story chronicles a firemen’s ball where nothing goes right—from a beauty pageant whose reluctant participants embarrass the organizers to a lottery from which nearly all the prizes are pilfered. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech leadership, the film was “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia following the Russian invasion and prompted Forman’s move to America.
Fishing With John - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 42 - USA
John Lurie knows absolutely nothing about fishing, but that doesn’t stop him from undertaking the adventure of a lifetime on Fishing With John. Traveling with his special guests to the most exotic and dangerous places on earth, John Lurie battles sharks with Jim Jarmusch off the tip of Long Island, goes ice fishing with Willem Dafoe at Maine’s northernmost point, braves the Costa Rican jungle with Matt Dillon, takes Tom Waits to Jamaica, and searches for the elusive giant squid with Dennis Hopper in Thailand.
Fists in the Pocket - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 333 - Italy
A dark and perverse portrait of family dysfunction, Fists in the Pocket stunned moviegoers and critics alike when it arrived on the scene in 1965—the feature debut of a then twenty-five-year old Marco Bellocchio. This award-winning work certainly heralded the arrival of a powerful filmmaking voice, and it continues to rank as a truly unique classic of Italian cinema.
Flesh for Frankenstein - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 27 - USA
Maverick filmmaker Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein reevaluates the horror film, infusing it with satiric wit and sexuality. Morrissey’s tale of the mad Baron Frankenstein and his perverse creative urges was heavily edited upon initial release; Criterion presents the restored director’s cut—fully intact after 25 years—in a new widescreen transfer.
Flowers of St. Francis - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 293 - Italy
In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings—of humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice—of the People's Saint. Shot in a neorealist manner, with monks from the Nocere Inferiore monastery playing the roles of St. Francis and his disciples, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.
For All Mankind - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 54 - USA
In July 1969, the space race ended when Apollo 11 fulfilled President Kennedy's challenge of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth". No one who witnessed the lunar landing will ever forget it. Breathtaking both in the scope of its vision and the exhilaration of the human emotions it captures, For All Mankind is the story of the 24 men who traveled to the Moon≈told in their words, in their voices, using the images of their experiences. Criterion is proud to present Al Reinert's award-winning documentary in a new special edition.
Forbidden Games - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 318 - France
A timeless evocation of the loss of innocence, René Clément's heartbreaking Forbidden Games tells the story of a young orphan and her friend, who are forced to fend for themselves in World War II France. A breathtaking cinematic achievement, Clément's film features brilliant performances from its child stars and won the 1952 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
French Cancan - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 243 - France
Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star. This celebration of life, art and the City of Light—with a cameo by Edith Piaf—is a Technicolor tour de force by a master of modern cinema.
Gate of Flesh - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 298 - Japan
In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.
General Idi Amin Dada - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 153 - France
In 1971, the small African nation of Uganda was taken over by self-styled dictator General Idi Amin Dada, beginning an eight-year reign of terror that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In this chilling yet darkly comic documentary, director Barbet Schroeder turns his cameras on the infamous tyrant, revealing the dynamic, charming, and appallingly dangerous man whose fanatical neuroses held an entire nation in their grip. Made with the full support and participation of the infamous dictator, General Idi Amin Dada provides a candid and disturbing portrait of one of the 20th century’s most notorious figures.
George Washington - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 152 - USA
Over the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the rural south are forced to confront a tangle of difficult choices in a decaying world. An ambitiously constructed, sensuously photographed meditation on adolescence, the first feature film by director David Gordon Green features breakout performances from an award-winning ensemble cast
Gertrud - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 127 - Denmark
Carl Dreyer’s last film neatly crowns his career: a meditation on tragedy, individual will and the refusal to compromise. A woman leaves her unfulfilling marriage and embarks on a search for ideal love—but neither a passionate affair with a younger man nor the return of an old romance can provide the answer she seeks. Always the stylistic innovator, Dreyer employs long takes and theatrical staging to concentrate on Nina Pens Rode’s sublime portrayal of the proud and courageous Gertrud.
Gimme Shelter - DVD Criterion Collection Spine # 99 - USA
Called “the greatest rock film ever made,” this landmark documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When 300,000 members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hell’s Angels at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway, direct cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin immortalized on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment.
Golden Coach - DVD Criterion Coll | |
