The Playlist

September Criterion Titles Include 3 Films By Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman & 'La Cage Aux Folles'

  • By Cain Rodriguez
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  • June 18, 2013 10:23 AM
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It’s that time of year again, where weekend after weekend brings more cities being destroyed in louder and louder fashion on the big screen. But fret not, Criterion has just the sustenance you need to survive. The famed distribution label has released their schedule for September and it includes some new additions and a few reissues.

Lubitsch's 'To Be Or Not To Be,' Frankenheimer's 'Seconds,' Early Fassbinder Lead Awesome August Criterion Line Up

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 15, 2013 4:47 PM
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  • 2 Comments
It's that time of the month again: the time when I have to be locked in the padded room of the Playlist offices for fear of what the moon might turn me into. But also, it's time for Criterion to unveil their latest month of releases -- in this case for August. And boy, have they got some treats in store.

Guillermo Del Toro's 'The Devil's Backbone' Leads Criterion's July Slate

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • April 15, 2013 2:36 PM
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It seems this summer is a good time to be a Guillermo Del Toro fan. Not only is the filmmaker dropping his new monster movie "Pacific Rim," but fans will now get to dip into one of his breakout films courtesy of Criterion...

'Badlands' Arrives On Criterion: 10 Things We Learned About The Terrence Malick Classic

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • March 20, 2013 4:22 PM
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  • 8 Comments
When you think of lovers and killers on the lam, you think of roadtrip movies like “True Romance,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Bonnie & Clyde” or "The Getaway." But when philosopher, journalist and renaissance man turned filmmaker Terrence Malick tackled the genre for his debut picture, he created a film more interested in innocence (and its loss) and love than the crimes and acts of violence occurring within the story based on Charles Starkweather’s late ‘50s killing spree. A lyrical and impressionistic take on a troubled young killer and the girl that falls for him -- perhaps all the more chilling for its beautiful imagery and sublime/naive view of life that some of us still argue is his finest work to date -- “Badlands” would launch the career of one of cinema’s most enigmatic and inscrutable filmmakers who would soon stop talking to the press or allowing his photo to be taken.

Criterion Brings 'Shoah,' Classic Silent 'Safety Last!,' Sci-Fi 'Things To Come' & More In June

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • March 18, 2013 5:30 PM
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While the summer season for movie buffs generally means sitting down with a giant bucket of popcorn and preparing your eyeballs and eardrums to pushed to their human limits and then beyond, The Criterion Collection is banking that folks might want a little more substance. Okay, a lot more substance.

The Essentials: Krzysztof Kieslowski

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • March 13, 2013 5:34 PM
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  • 9 Comments
It’s perhaps comical to describe a filmmaker revered in some circles as underrated when they’ve been nominated for some of the biggest prizes in cinema -- the Palme d'Or, Venice’s Golden Lion, the Academy Awards, Berlin’s Golden Bear. But perhaps because Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski never really took many of these major prizes home, and never gained global status until later in his career, we find that the filmmaker is not as revered as we’d like (though he tied for a Golden Lion in 1993). Perhaps this observation is very relative. Perhaps it’s because he didn’t enter the Criterion canon until 2006, perhaps because his career ended too abruptly just as it was truly ascending, or perhaps simply because he’s one of our most adored filmmakers: we routinely never give up an opportunity to celebrate Kieslowski’s work when we can.

The Essentials: 5 Elia Kazan Films You May Not Know

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • February 22, 2013 2:02 PM
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  • 3 Comments
Elia Kazan famously once said, “The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.” And one could easily argue Kazan’s raison d’être was to go to emotional and psychological places few men dared to tread. While Kazan’s films were often marked by social issues to the outsider, the filmmaker was much more drawn to the pathos of the human condition, the painfully vulnerable, complicated and emotional naked places of the human psyche. And he loved and nurtured the vanity-free actors who were willing and able to facilitate such ends and emotional complex truths. Marlon Brando, the ne plus ultra of tough but overly sensitive and vulnerable American male, was Kazan’s muse, and the filmmaker loved how he could arouse, cajole and release extraordinary feelings in the actor.

'On The Waterfront' On Criterion: Frank Sinatra Was Originally Cast In The Lead, Martin Scorsese's Thoughts & Aspect Ratio Talk

  • By Edward Davis
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  • February 21, 2013 6:42 PM
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  • 1 Comment
Elia Kazan's unimpeachable 1954 classic picture "On The Waterfront" is out on Blu-Ray/DVD via the Criterion Collection this week in a beautifully packaged two disc edition. While he was well on his way to becoming known as one of the world's greatest actors -- he was nominated for Best Actor three years in a row between 1952 and 1954 -- Marlon Brando's first Oscar win came for "On The Waterfront" in 1955.

Today's Your Last Day To Watch 250+ Criterion Movies Not In The Criterion Collection Yet... For Free

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • February 18, 2013 2:55 PM
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  • 3 Comments
Apologies in advance to Criterion Collection-obsessives, hardcore cinephiles, Hulu users and anyone else pre-disposed to getting angry with anything on the internet that's not 100% fresh and new (and or those who assume this is going to be a paid endorsement of Hulu). As you may have heard, Hulu is streaming their entire Criterion Collection for free this long President's Day weekend (today's your last day to take advantage). That's all well and good, but the real draw for us -- and this is what's old news to what we assume are eagle-eyed cinephiles/Criterion-ites -- is the fact that there are some 100+ titles with the Criterion Collection logo on them in Hulu's database that aren't actually in the Criterion Collection on DVD or Blu-Ray yet.

Criterion's May Slate Includes '3:10 To Yuma,' Haskell Wexler's 'Medium Cool,' Mike Leigh's 'Life Is Sweet' & More

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • February 15, 2013 3:12 PM
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  • 6 Comments
Saddle up, because Criterion has dropped the veil on the May releases and they've got a couple of gunslinging classics to share, along with some works from a couple auteurs and much more. So let's dive in.

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