r/criterion

ANDRE BAZIN (Cahiers du Cinema)
Les Vampires (1915-16, Louis Feuillade)
The Pilgrim (1923, Charles Chaplin)
Broken Blossoms (1919, D.W. Griffith)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Le Jour se leve (1939, Marcel Carne)
The Little Foxes (1941, William Wyler)
Les Dames du Bois de Boulongne (1945, Robert Bresson)
The Bicycle Thief (1949, Vittorio De Sica)

JOE BOB BRIGGS (Drive-In)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper)
Hellraiser (1987, Clive Barker)
Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
Basket Case (1982, Frank Henelotter)
Demons (1986, Lamberto Bava)
The Evil Dead (1983, Sam Raimi)
The Hills Have Eyes (1977, Wes Craven)
Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento)
Enter the Dragon (1973, Robert Clouse)
Shaft (1971, Gordon Parks)

VINCENT CANBY (The New York Times)
Intolerance (1916, D.W. Griffith)
The Circus (1928, Charles Chaplin)
The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)
Nights of Cabiria (1957, Federico Fellini)
Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick)

MICHEL CIMENT (Positif)
Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick)
L'Atalante (1934, Jean Vigo)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, Max Ophuls)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
The Travelling Players (1975, Theo Angelopoulos)
Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh)
Salvatore Giuliano (1962, Francesco Rosi)

DAVID DENBY (The New Yorker)
L'Avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Decalogue (1988, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Godfather/The Godfather Part II (1972-74, Francis Ford Coppola)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

ROGER EBERT (Chicago Sun-Times)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, Werner Herzog)
Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Decalogue (1988, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
La Dolce Vita (1959, Federico Fellini)
The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

OWEN GLEIBERMAN (Entertainment Weekly)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor)
Scorpio Rising (1964, Kenneth Anger)
The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming)
Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
Natural Born Killers (1994, Oliver Stone)

J. HOBBERMAN (Village Voice)
Flaming Creatures (1963, Jack Smith)
The Girl from Chicago (1927, Oscar Micheaux)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)
Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
Rose Hobart (1936, Joseph Cornell)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Shoah (1985, Claude Lanzmann)
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Les Vampires (1915-16, Louis Feuillade)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

KENT JONES (Film Comment)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (1939, Kenji Mizoguchi)
Wagon Master (1950, John Ford)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
Voyage to Italy (1953, Roberto Rossellini)
Ordet (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John Cassavetes)
Fanny and Alexander (1983, Ingmar Bergman)
L'Argent (1983, Robert Bresson)

ARMOND WHITE (National Review 🤮)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, Steven Spielberg)
L'Avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Intolerance (1916, D.W. Griffith)
Jules and Jim (1961, Francois Truffaut)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
Lola (1961, Jacques Demy)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
Masculin-feminin (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)

AMY TAUBIN (Village Voice, ArtForum)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)
The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966, Roberto Rossellini)
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
Shoah (1985, Claude Lanzmann)
Diaries, Notes & Sketches: Walden (19, Mekas)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman)
Spider (2002, David Cronenberg)

SUSAN SONTAG (BadAssBitch)
Man with the Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
L'Avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)
My Night at Maud's (1969, Eric Rohmer)
Hitler: A Film from Germany (1977, Hans-Jurgen Syberberg)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
Contempt (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Satantango (1994, Bela Tarr)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

GAVIN SMITH (Film Comment)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
L'eclisse (1961, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)
Two or Three Things I Know about Her (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)

GENE SISKEL (Chicago Tribune)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly)
Pinocchio (1940, Ben Sharpsteen)
Shoah (1985, Claude Lanzmann)

RICHARD SCHICKEL (Time Magazine)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan)
Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
Sullivan's Travels (1941, Preston Sturges)
They Were Expendable (1945, John Ford)
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh)

ANDREW SARRIS (New York Observer)
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, Max Ophuls)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928, Buster Keaton)
Ordet (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer)

JONATHAN ROSENBAUM (Chicago Reader)
Les Vampires (1915-16, Louis Feuillade)
M (1931, Fritz Lang)
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (1939, Kenji Mizoguchi)
Ivan the Terrible (1945, Sergei Eisenstein)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, Howard Hawks)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961, Alain Resnais)
The House Is Black (1962, Forugh Farrokhzad)
Gertrud (1964, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Playtime (1967, Jacques Tati)
When It Rains (1995, Charles Burnett)

MARIO PUZO (The Godfather)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969, Sydney Pollack)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Informer (1935, John Ford)
Gone with the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971, Norman Jewison)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
Out of Africa (1985, Sydney Pollack)

CAMILE PAGLIA (pro-pedo, anti-feminist Pick Me Girl, serving all levels of cunt)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
La Dolce Vita (1960, Federico Fellini)
Gone with the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
Orpheus (1949, Jean Cocteau)
Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
The Ten Commandments (1923-56, Cecil B. DeMille)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

TODD MCCARTHY (Variety)
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Scarlet Empress (1934, Josef von Sternberg)
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1935, Jean Renoir)
To Have and Have Not (1944, Howard Hawks)
Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
Shoot the Piano Player (1960, Francois Truffaut)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
Contempt (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Chimes at Midnight (1966, Orson Welles)
The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)

LEONARD MALTIN (Video Guide)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly)
Dumbo (1941, Ben Sharpsteen)
A Night at the Opera (1935, Sam Wood)
King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack)
His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)
Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)

DEREK MALCOLM (The Guardian)
The Decalogue (1988, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Music Room (1958, Satyajit Ray)
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
The Seventh Seal (1956, Ingmar Bergman)
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Victor Erice)
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (1939, Kenji Mizoguchi)
The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
Tristana (1970, Luis Bunuel)

RAY BRADBURY (Fahrenheit 451)
King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack)
Fantasia (1940, Ben Sharpsteen)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925, Rupert Julian)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
Amarcord (1974, Federico Fellini)
Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
Farewell My Lovely (1975, Dick Richards)
The Producers (1968, Mel Brooks)
A Passage to India (1984, David Lean)

ROBIN WOOD (British Dude)
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy)
Heaven's Gate (1980, Michael Cimino)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Late Spring (1949, Yasujiro Ozu)
Marnie (1964, Alfred Hitchcock)
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958, Leo McCarey)
The Reckless Moment (1949, Max Ophuls)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)

KENNETH TURAN (L.A. Times)
Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei Eisenstein)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Children of Paradise (1945, Marcel Carne)
The Godfather Parts I-II (1972-74, Francis Ford Coppola)
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, Max Ophuls)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)
Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

CHARLES TAYLOR (Salon.com)
Apu Trilogy (1955-59, Satyajit Ray)
The Birth of a Nation (1915, D.W. Griffith)
The Godfahter Parts I & II (1972-74, Francis Ford Coppola)
L'Atalante (1934, Jean Vigo)
Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Robert Altman)
The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio De Sica)
Vergito (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

JEFFREY M. ANDERSON (the brilliant film critic who put together this entire list; writes for Combustible Celluloid and the San Francisco Examiner)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)
Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)
Chimes at Midnight (1966, Orson Welles)
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
The Old Dark House (1932, James Whale)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Buñuel)
Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
Yi Yi (2000, Edward Yang)
L'Avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)

In 1991, the French film magazine Positif (one of two major French-language film magazines, created several months after Cahiers du Cinema) conducted a poll of the greatest films and published this modest top 20 list…

The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
L'Atalante (1934, Jean Vigo)
8 1/2 (1963, Federico Fellini)
Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick)
The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
Sansho Dayu (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi)
Nosferatu (1922, F.W. Murnau)
Le Plaisir (1951, Max Ophuls)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
M (1931, Fritz Lang)
Children of Paradise (1945 , Marcel Carne)
Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
Senso (1954, Luchino Visconti)
To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch)
Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)

Koyaanisqatsi (1983)

https://letterboxd.com/film/koyaanisqatsi/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/

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Powaqqatsi (1988)

https://letterboxd.com/film/powaqqatsi/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095895/

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Naqoyqatsi (2002)

https://letterboxd.com/film/naqoyqatsi/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145937/

This movie was so important to me, giving me the love for cinema and the dream to work on movie production. It was pretty expensive but damn it was worth it.

Plus, I found the interior artwork sick, so I decided to switch sides of the paper. Am I criminal ?

The 95-minute American version or the 101-minute British version?

Link to Criterion’s listing

Freshman film major, hopefully I can find people interested in movies that aren't super duper mainstream that'll watch some of these with me.

Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet is up there
Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter

I just watched the 50th anniversary cut on the 4k criterion disc of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid and can't stop thinking about it! So i'm looking for recommendations to try scratch the same itch.

- I loved the unique, elegiac quality and heavy use of music

- I love how it feels like some sort of somber reflection both for the characters in the film and the filmmaker himself.

- Doesn't have to be a Western!

recs you can skip: alfredo garcia, wild bunch, the searchers, dollars trilogy, once upon a time in the west, johnny guitar, great silence, the great escape, unforgiven, butch cassidy, no country.

I have to admit, it took me a few minutes to get into it at first. Knowing it was a David Lynch film—along with Inland Empire, one of the only ones of his I hadn’t seen—my mind was conditioned to expect something much darker and more surreal.

Instead, what we get is this deeply human and contemplative road movie. The slow-paced shots actually reminded me a bit of Wim Wenders. Before long, I was completely hooked.

For a film where "nothing happens" on the surface, it feels incredibly realistic. As the story unfolds, we see the road through Alvin’s eyes (a brilliant Richard Farnsworth) and slowly piece together his past—his war trauma, past struggles with alcohol, and the mental health and family challenges facing his daughter (Sissy Spacek). It makes you feel so connected to him.

The brief encounters and situations he faces along his long journey on that lawnmower to visit his sick brother (the great Harry Dean Stanton) are the heart of the movie. Plus, the score by Angelo Badalamenti and the screenplay by Mary Sweeney (based on a true story) are top-tier.

Have you seen it? How do you feel it fits into Lynch’s filmography?

This movie is absolutely incredible. Super funny, earnest, and it has some of the most bonkers fantasy sequences I’ve ever seen. Its depiction of life and the meaning thereof is nothing short of beautiful. It’s also an absurdist comedy that never fails to make me laugh. It’s one of the best Brazilian movies ever, and one of the best films period. It’s a genuine masterpiece.

First impressions aren't always the best, and sometimes it takes a good few extra times for that one film to be in your eyes a masterpiece.

I'll explain the three.

'In the Mood for Love' I enjoyed artistically but was not fully invested in the story until the second watch, so much more stood out, and I was able to appreciate both visuals and plot.

'The Good the Bad and the Ugly' initially thought it was good, but preferred 'For a Few Dollars More'. Only on the second time did the film blow me away and I saw it for the masterpiece it is

'Three Colours: Red' Again didn't understand it the first watch and felt incredibly underwhelmed. I had to watch it a day later with pen and paper to fully understand how everything is connected. This is my favourite film