Criterion
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 of collectors. All of the films published under the Criterion banner represent 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 moments of cinema in the world's best digital editions.
Eclipse
Eclipse is a selection of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed classics in simple, affordable editions. Each series is a brief cinematheque retrospective for the adventurous home viewer. Once a month, Eclipse will present a set of these films, usually from three to five titles, focusing on a particular director or theme. Our goal is to make available to the public many important works that until now have been impossible to see outside of the theatrical revival-house circuit. These range from some of the most sought-after titles from the world's greatest filmmakers to eye-opening discoveries from around the world. We are proud to present these classic works, which represent the full breadth and depth of cinema history.
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3 Films by Louis Malle (Criterion) Criterion Collection - From his origins in the 1960s French New Wave to his death in 1995, Gallic director Louis Malle produced a cinematic oeuvre of emotional complexity and diverse subject matter. This collection presents a trio of Malle films loosely connected through themes of childhood innocence and the hypocrisies o...
3 Penny Opera (1931) Criterion Collection - This classic musical tells the story of a debonair gangster and his cohorts. Often voted by European audiences as one of world cinema's shining achievements, THE THREEPENNY OPERA was directed by famous director G.W. Pabst, composed by the legendary Kurt Weill, and stars Weill's wife, the incomparabl...
3 Women Criterion Collection - Robert Altman delivers one of his most startlingly enigmatic pictures with 3 WOMEN. Inspired by a dream Altman had in which he was shooting a film in the desert, the film tells the story of a shy, quiet girl named Pinky (Sissy Spacek), who starts working in a nursing home and strikes up a friendship...
39 Steps (Special Edition/ Criterion) Criterion Collection - A classic British spy mystery, and one of Hitchcock's best, THE 39 STEPS is the story of an innocent man who struggles to prove his innocence. Robert Donat gets more than he bargained for when he brings home a mysterious woman (Lucie Mannheim) who confesses to be a British agent on the hot trail of ...
4 X Agnes Varda (1956) Criterion Collection - From her debut in 1956, filmmaker Agnès Varda made films that foreshadowed the coming of the French New Wave, eventually crafting one of the movement's most indelible films, CLEO FROM 5 TO 7. Characterized by a remarkable synthesis of documentary and fiction, this collection presents the director's ...
400 Blows (1959) Criterion Collection - Director François Truffaut's first feature film, THE 400 BLOWS, is a landmark in French cinema. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a 13-year-old boy who can't seem to do anything right. His parents yell at him and then bribe him for his love and his promises to work harder in school. Meanwhile, h...
49th Parallel (1941) Criterion Collection - A taut, suspenseful World War II drama about Nazi servicemen trying to reach neutral American land after their U-boat is sunk in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. Academy Award Nominations: 3, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay. Academy Awards: Best Original Story....
8 1/2 (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - Federico Fellini's Oscar-nominated 8 1/2 is a masterpiece of storytelling and cinema. The most autobiographical of Fellini's films, the plot of which concerns a 43-year-old film director who is having a midlife crisis, it is a career benchmark for this magnificent Italian New Wave director. Beautifu...
A Nos Amours (1983) Criterion Collection - A lovely young girl engages in a series of casual sexual affairs in an attempt to gain the love and attention she lacked as a child at home. Recipient of the 1983 French "Cesar" for Best Film....
A Nous La Liberte Criterion Collection - Two prisoners attempt an escape, but only one makes it. He becomes a successful business man and when his friend finally gets out of jail he hires his old escape partner. Many madcap adventures happen everywhere they go. Academy Award Nominations: Best Interior Decoration....
A Tout de Suite (2005) - Parisian art student Lili (Isild Le Besco) is charmed by a Moroccan criminal, Bada (Ouassini Embarek), who robs a bank in a messy undertaking that leaves two people dead, all while thinking he will come out a hero. Smitten nonetheless, Lili sacrifices everything for him, following him as he goes on ...
Ace in the Hole (1951) Criterion Collection (2D) - Billy Wilder, even before the deeply cynical ACE IN THE HOLE, was well-known as one of American film's best satirists. He earned his reputation with SUNSET BOULEVARD and THE APARTMENT, but in ACE IN THE HOLE, one of his personal favorites of his many films, he failed at the box office. The film, alt...
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul Criterion Collection - A deceivingly simple film about the uncomfortable romantic relationship between a 60-year-old German cleaning woman named Emmi and a 40-year-old Moroccan immigrant named Ali, ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL is one of director R.W. Fassbinder's most powerful pictures. Brought together by a jeering barmaid, E...
All That Heaven Allows (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - In ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Douglas Sirk's haunting suburban morality play, Jane Wyman plays Cary Scott, a wealthy middle-aged widow in love with a younger man considered by those around her to be far below her social standing. Her torrid affair with Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), a handsome, earthy garden...
Alphaville Criterion Collection - With 1965's ALPHAVILLE--part sci-fi action film, part noir thriller--the acclaimed French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard achieves a stunningly clinical futurism using absolutely no special visual effects. The result is a moving, original film that, with its abstract, political, and intellectual t...
Amarcord (2D/Criterion) - Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and spring arrives, the village holds a festival in which it burns a symbolic bonfire and celebrates new life. T...
And God Created Woman (1956) Criterion Collection - In Roger Vadim's directorial debut, his then-wife, Brigitte Bardot, plays Juliette, a sumptuous orphan beauty who sparks an incendiary and erotically charged love triangle between herself and three men who desire her. Spending her days barefoot and barely working in the town tabac, Juliette loves to...
And The Ship Sails On Criterion Collection - Fellini takes the viewer on a sea voyage in 1914, complete with a collection of passengers of every description - an Austrian duke, peasant refugees, and members of the cast of an Italian opera company, who are transporting the ashes of a departed friend to her homeland. As it is the eve of WWI, the...
Angel at My Table (1991) Criterion Collection - This sprawling, detailed film by Jane Campion (THE PIANO) tells the true story of Janet Frame, a painfully sensitive girl who managed to escape a dreary rural upbringing and eight years in a mental hospital to become New Zealand's premier poet. The film unfolds as a trilogy, with each section based ...
Antonio Gaudi (1984) Criterion Collection - Director Teshigahara creates a kind of visual documentary--there is little narration--about Antonio Gaudi, the brilliant and bizarre Catalan architect. The camera simply explores the Casa Vicens, Park Guell, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Templo de La Sagrada Familia, then suggests some of his influences b...
Army of Shadows (1969) Criterion Collection - Well-known for his influential crime films (LE SAMOURAI, LE CERCLE ROUGE), director Jean-Pierre Melville explores the lives of French Resistance fighters in his moody World War II masterpiece, ARMY OF SHADOWS. Restrained and controlled, the film follows Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) and other memb...
Au Hasard Balthazar Criterion Collection - Often praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but long unavailable in the United States, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is suffused with the same religious imagery and themes that mark much of director Robert Bresson's films. Like his masterpiece DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, Bresson's AU HASARD BALTHAZAR...
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Criterion/1987) Criterion Collection - This autobiographical recounting of Malle's most tragic memory begins in 1944 at an all-boy Catholic school. A young boy befriends a new student whom the others feel is different. When he discovers the new student is a Jew, he tells no one and remains a true friend. Tragedy strikes when a school emp...
Autumn Sonata (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - In this drama written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Eva, the meek, seemingly complacent wife of a parson, invites her mother, Charlotte, a world famous pianist, to come for a visit, hoping for a reconciliation after a long period of estrangement and virtually no interaction. In...
Bad Sleep Well (1960) Criterion Collection - Something is rotten in Japan in this engaging drama by acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa. Toshirô Mifune stars as Koichi Nishi, the secretary to the president of a housing corporation, who seeks revenge for his father's murder. At Koichi's marriage to Kieko (Kyôko Kagawa), the president's daughter, ...
Bad Timing Criterion Collection - Perhaps director Nicholas Roeg's most controversial film (quite a feat considering Roeg's other works), BAD TIMING is a tale of drugs, sex, and violence set amongst the beautiful old-world architecture of Vienna. The producers at the Rank Studio called the film "sick" and for many years it was made ...
Ballad Of A Soldier Criterion Collection - A lyrical interpretation of war, as seen through the eyes of a young soldier granted a temporary furlough to visit his mother. Academy Award Nominations: Best (Original) Story and Screenplay....
Band Of Outsiders Criterion Collection - French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard continues his fascination with dime store novels and American crime films with 1964's BAND OF OUTSIDERS, a free-spirited romp in the same vein as the director's breakthrough smash, BREATHLESS. More traditional than BREATHLESS in its technical execution, BAND OF...
Battle of Algiers (1966) Criterion Collection - Gillo Pontecorvo's presents a harrowing, documentary-style depiction of the Algerian's people's struggle to liberate themselves from France between 1954 and 1962. The film creates a stunning illusion of realism by combining actual newsreel footage with staged sequences featuring amateur and professi...
Beales Of Grey Gardens (1976) Criterion Collection - Influential filmmakers Albert and David Maysles scored a cult phenomenon with their 1975 documentary GREY GARDENS, a quirky character study of the eccentric mother and daughter duo (and Jackie Kennedy relatives) Big and Little Edie Bouvier Beale. This 2005 sequel finds the Maysles revisiting their f...
Beastie Boys: DVD Video Anthology (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - The Beastie Boys sprang to the forefront of American popular music in the mid-1980s with the release of their first rap album, LICENSED TO ILL. With each subsequent release, they have managed to both define the current musical scene and add suggestions for its development. With this Video Anthology,...
Beauty And The Beast (1946/ New Criterion Editon) Criterion Collection - Visionary filmmaker and poet Jean Cocteau responded to the terrors and creative constraints of occupied France with this elaborately realized take on the classic fairy tale BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Suggested by his longtime collaborator and muse, French actor Jean Marais, the cinematic version of the f...
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1983) Criterion Collection - With its running time of over 15 hours, this miniseries from German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder seems daunting, but it's a rewarding viewing experience for fans of both New German Cinema and films in general. Just a year after the release of one of his most acclaimed films, THE MARRIAGE OF MAR...
Bicycle Thief (1948) Criterion Collection - The recipient of international acclaim, Vittorio de Sica's Italian Neorealist masterwork, THE BICYCLE THIEF, is a treasure of world cinema. After nearly two years of unemployment, Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) finally finds work posting bills. But he needs a bicycle to do the job. Unfortunately, he ...
Big Deal On Madonna Street (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - A classic account of the misadventures of a group of amateurish crooks. The hapless and bungling group of burglars try to break into a store from an apartment next door -- only to find they've drilled through a wall to another room in the same apartment. Each thief comes to the job with a distractio...
Billy Liar (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - BILLY LIAR was an immediate sensation as first a novel, then a hit play--both written by Keith Waterhouse, who also served as screenwriter on the film. Director John Schlesinger's screen version was a British landmark in the fertile cinema of the late 1950s and early '60s, and launched the career of...
Black Orpheus Criterion Collection - Camus' winner of the Palme d'Or winner at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival is a modern reinterpretation of the myth of Orpheus which simultaneously celebrates the beauty, music and people of Brazil. In this version of the ages-old tale, Orpheus is a streetcar conductor and star Carnival dancer who is b...
Blast of Silence (1961) Criterion Collection - Allen Baron's chilly 1961 noir BLAST OF SILENCE follows hitman Frank Bruno (played by Baron) as he returns to New York City during Christmastime. Ostensibly in the city to perform a hit, the coldhearted Bruno finds himself unable to focus, instead choosing to lose himself in the winter festivities....
Blob (Special Edition/ 1958) Criterion Collection - THE BLOB is one of the quintessential films for lovers of those science-fiction/horror/monster/camp films of the 1950s. A red, gigantic, gooey, gelatinous glob arrives from outer space and proceeds to terrorize a small town. The more it eats, the more it grows. Local teenagers, who have witnessed it...
Border Radio Criterion Collection - BORDER RADIO was Allison Anders's directorial debut, made in collaboration with Kurt Voss (who would later work with her, and John Doe, on 1999's SUGAR TOWN), and Dean Lent. The film is an early indication of Anders's low key, wittily observant style. The plot involves a desperate musician, Jeff (Ch...
Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) Criterion Collection - In an oeuvre permeated with ambivalence toward bourgeois life, director Jean Renoir speculates on the result of the abandonment of those values in BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Producer Michel Simon stars as Boudu, a vagabond who attempts suicide by throwing himself into the Seine, grieving over the lo...
Brazil (1985) Criterion Collection - BRAZIL is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Cowritten by Gilliam, playwright Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, the cult-favorite film is set in a futuristic society laden with red tape and bureaucracy. When a bug (literally) gets in the system, an innocent man is killed, leading mild-mannered Sam Lowry ...
Brazil (Special Edition/1985) Criterion Collection - BRAZIL is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Cowritten by Gilliam, playwright Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, the cult-favorite film is set in a futuristic society laden with red tape and bureaucracy. When a bug (literally) gets in the system, an innocent man is killed, leading mild-mannered Sam Lowry ...
Breathless (1959) Criterion Collection - Godard's first feature has been widely hailed as one of the most influential motion pictures ever made. On the run after killing a cop, a small-time crook (Belmondo) hides out in Paris with an American girl (Seberg). After she betrays him, he chooses to face his fate with an absurd stoicism modelled...
Brief Encounter (Special Edition/ 1945) Criterion Collection - Though he might be best remembered for sweeping epics such as DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, renowned British director David Lean began his film career with small-scale character studies based on the plays of Noel Coward. Lean's fourth film, BRIEF ENCOUNTER--which was also his fourth and fin...
Browning Version (1951) Criterion Collection - Andrew Crocker-Harris, "The Crock" as his students call him, knows he isn't loved like the fictional Mr. Chips, but in the span of just over a day he is forced as Robert Burns would say, "to see ourselves as others see us." Michael Redgrave, the father of the British theatrical family and himself a ...
Brute Force (1947) Criterion Collection - Joe Collins, an inmate of Westgate prison, schemes with a group of convicts to breakout. He's intent on reaching his love, who does not know he's in prison but will not have a lifesaving operation until he's at her side. The escape plan goes awry when Capt. Munsey, the prison guard and Joe's enemy, ...
Burden of Dreams (1982) Criterion Collection - An extraordinary journey into the mind and passions of director Werner Herzog during the filming of "Fitzcarraldo." Director Les Blank, with Maureen Gosling, has successfully captured on film the events and emotions surrounding the making of an exceptional motion picture....
Burmese Harp (1956) Criterion Collection - Shôji Yasui stars in director Kon Ichikawa's adaptation of Michio Takeyama's antiwar novel. Set in Burma during the waning days of WWII, a unit of Japanese soldiers hangs on, inspired by the virtuoso Burmese harp playing of Private Mizushima. When the war finally ends, the unit is taken to an intern...
By Brakhage: An Anthology Criterion Collection - Stan Brakhage revolutionized cinema while never having his films play in mainstream movie houses or multiplexes. The avant-garde artist rarely used any sort of narrative. His films, rather, contain imagery ranging from nature studies to child birth to simply scratches on film. His pioneering techniq...
Canterbury Tale (1944) Criterion Collection - While World War II rages, an American G.I. and three Britishers find themselves en route to the hallowed cathedral on the same Pilgrims' way taken by travelers some 600 years before and reported in Chaucer's epic poem....
Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection Criterion Collection - DAY OF WRATH: Dreyer's horrifying masterpiece based on Hans Wiers Jenssen's play which, in turn, was based on actual records of witch trials during the 1600s. An old woman curses the local clergyman and his family as she is burned at the stake in this sobering and ghastly study of religious fanatici...
Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy - Spanish director Carlos Saura captures the spirit of his country's native dance, Flamenco, with this vibrant trilogy of films: BLOOD WEDDING, an adaptation of the play by García Lorca's; CARMEN, a modern update of Bizet's classic opera; and EL AMOR BRUJO ("LOVE THE MAGICIAN"), based on a Gypsy balle...
Carnival Of Souls (Special Edition/ 1962) Criterion Collection - Made in 1962 on an extremely low budget, Herk Harvey's classic CARNIVAL OF SOULS has become legendary for its ability to create a tensely creepy atmosphere with virtually no special effects. A young woman (Candace Hilligoss) is involved in a car crash when her car falls off a bridge while drag racin...
Casque d'or (1952) Criterion Collection - Starring international sex symbol Simone Signoret, CASQUE D'OR is often considered director Jacques Becker's masterpiece. Becker was an assistant to the legendary Jean Renoir, and Renoir's influence on Becker is readily apparent in this poetic, impressionist film. Signoret plays Marie, the girlfrien...
Charade (Criterion/Remastered) Criterion Collection - Lovely Reggie (Audrey Hepburn) is determined to divorce her wealthy, cold, and closed-mouthed husband, but someone throws him from a train before she gets the chance. Left penniless in Paris with police suspicion resting heavily upon her, Reggie soon realizes she's in serious trouble--her husband st...
Children Are Watching Us (1943) Criterion Collection - This early Neo-realist drama tells the story of a family torn apart by infidelity from the perspective of the family's only son, Prico (Luciano De Ambrosis). Prico, who is five years old, has always been close with his mother, Nina (Isa Pola). When she begins an affair with a young gigolo (Adriano R...
Children Of Paradise (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - Filmed during the German occupation, this French milestone centers around the theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan and the four men who love her. Voted the "Best French Film in History" by the French Film Academy in 1990. Academy Award Nominations: Best Original Screenplay....
Clean, Shaven (1995) Criterion Collection - A schizophrenic recently released from an institution goes on a desperate search for his daughter, who has been put up for adoption by his mother. At the same time, a detective is convinced the man is a serial killer and doggedly pursues him....
Closely Watched Trains Criterion Collection - A reflective, unprepossessing drama about the coming of age of an unambitious young man working as a train dispatcher during the Second World War. Very typical of the Czech New Wave's interest in innocents tragically caught in the crossfire of history. Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film. ...
Complete Monterey Pop Festival Criterion Collection - This director-approved special edition Criterion Collection contains four performance films by legendary documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker from the unforgettable 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Titles included are MONTEREY POP, JIMI PLAYS MONTEREY, SHAKE! OTIS AT MONTEREY, and MONTEREY POP: THE OUTT...
Contempt (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - Jean-Luc Godard's cynical look at the art of filmmaking follows a screenwriter in his attempts to recount Homer's THE ODYSSEY. Full of insights into the compromises required of filmmakers, as well as autobiographical allusions, especially concerning the failed union of Godard and actress Anna Karina...
Coup De Grace Criterion Collection - Set in Russia in 1919, shortly after the fall of the Czar, this allegorical love story tells the tale of an affair against the backdrop of a civil war. Magarethe von Trotta stars as a young woman who becomes involved with a sexually repressed Prussian soldier. When the soldier refuses her, the woman...
Coup De Torchon Criterion Collection - It is 1938 in the French West Africa village of Bourkassa and the one-man police force is tired of being a doormat. In this dark comic adaptation of Jim Thompson's "POP. 1280," the hapless officer decides to take the law into his own hands and rid the town of its human waste....
Coup De Torchon Criterion Collection - It is 1938 in the French West Africa village of Bourkassa and the one-man police force is tired of being a doormat. In this dark comic adaptation of Jim Thompson's "POP. 1280," the hapless officer decides to take the law into his own hands and rid the town of its human waste....
Cranes Are Flying Criterion Collection - Two young lovers are separated by the outbreak of war, each confronting personal upheaval and grief, trying to maintain the dream that someday they will be together again....
Crazed Fruit (1956) Criterion Collection - Japanese filmmaker Ko Nakahira's debut film CRAZED FRUIT (KURUTTA KAJITSU) sparked outrage and controversy when it was first released in 1956. Based on the sensational novel by Shintaro Ishihara (who much later in life was elected governor of Tokyo), CRAZED FRUIT chronicles the changing values and m...
Cria! (1976) Criterion Collection - After doing several films with screenwriter Rafael Azcona (GARDEN OF DELIGHTS, MY COUSIN AGNELICA) Carlos Saura made CRIA! from his own script. He continued using actors in dual roles, allowing for easily shifting time frames and multiple points of view. In a dreamy opening scene, Ana (Ana Torrent),...
Cries And Whispers Criterion Collection - Ingmar Bergman's acclaimed drama, which deals with the fractured relationships between three sisters, is set in a vast turn-of-the-century manor house where unidentified voices are continually whispering and mingle with a dying woman's cries of pain. Karin and Maria (played by Ingrid Thulin and Liv ...
Days of Heaven (1978) Criterion Collection - Terrence Malick's follow-up to BADLANDS is an exquisitely photographed story of a group of early-20th-century itinerant workers who find themselves entangled in a deadly love triangle. Bill (Richard Gere) and Abby (Brooke Adams) are lovers who are forced to flee Chicago after Bill accidentally murde...
Dazed and Confused (Special Edition) Criterion Collection - Richard Linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED takes a hysterical, nostalgic cross-clique look at high school social development. On the last day of school in May 1976, students at a suburban Texas high school wait, lackadaisically, for classes to end. The restless almost-seniors--an eclectic group of stone...
