Features

Howard Hughes’s 1930s war epic Hell’s Angels has been added to the Criterion Collection. A high-flying feat of adventure filmmaking and a testament to the audacious, spare-no-expense vision of Howard Hughes, this landmark aviation epic remains exhilarating both for its daredevil aerial sequences and its nervy pre-Code punch. With the onset of World War I, two British brothers recruited into the Royal Flying Corps (Ben Lyon and James Hall) find their bond tested by their…

Ken Russell’s Altered States has entered the Criterion Collection. The ultimate cinematic head trip of the 1980s, British renegade Ken Russell’s first Hollywood production—adapted by the legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky from his own novel—is part hallucinogenic freak-out, part gonzo creature feature, part transcendent love story, all played at a fever pitch. When researcher Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) begins using himself as a test subject for his mind-expanding psychological experiments, it sends him on an increasingly…

Director Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames has been added to the Criterion Collection. A blistering rallying cry issued loud, clear, and unapologetically queer, Lizzie Borden’s explosive postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a revolution that supposedly transformed the country into a social-democratic utopia. In reality, racism, sexism, and economic inequality are as virulent as ever, and a band of radicals—led by Black, lesbian, and working-class women—join forces to fight back….

  A House of Dynamite marks the first film from director Kathryn Bigelow since 2017’s Detroit. Bigelow’s return has her looking at the current political landscape as a mysterious missile heads towards the United States. The result is a tense and interesting film, though not one of Bigelow’s best. Working from a script by Noah Oppenheim, A House of Dynamite picks up on a seemingly normal day in Washington, D.C. White House staffers come into…

Vittorio De Sica’s 1946 film Shoeshine has been added to the Criterion Collection. An international breakthrough for neorealism, Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning film is an indelible fable of innocence lost amid the hardscrabble reality of 1940s Italy. On the streets of Rome, two boys—best friends Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi)—set out to raise the money to buy a horse by shining shoes. When they are inadvertently caught up in a robbery and…

Mike Nichols’ 1971 drama Carnal Knowledge has been added to the Criterion Collection. Amid the sexual revolution and social upheaval of the early 1970s, acclaimed director Mike Nichols delivered a zeitgeist-defining examination of American mores. Sharply written by Jules Feiffer, this acerbic drama flashes through more than twenty years in the lives of two college buddies (Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel) whose casual chauvinism is all fun and games—until it’s not. As the women who suffer and…

Charlotte Zwerin’s 1988 documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser has been added to the Criterion Collection. The closest a film camera ever got to enigmatic jazz visionary Thelonious Monk, this intimate portrait sheds light on the corners of a brilliant and complex life. Superbly crafted by Direct Cinema pioneer Charlotte Zwerin from a trove of precious 1960s archival footage, Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser captures the pianist, composer, and bebop innovator in rare, unguarded moments on- and offstage, revealing an…

Sidney Lumet’s 1978 musical The Wiz has been added to the Criterion Collection. L. Frank Baum’s timeless story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, gets a funky reimagining in this lavish adaptation of a landmark Broadway show based on the book. Diana Ross brings her showstopping star power to the role of Dorothy, here a Harlem schoolteacher who is magically transported to a surreal fantasyland that resembles New York City, complete with man-eating trash cans and a disco…

Charles Burnett’s long-lost directorial debut, Killer of Sheep, has been added to the Criterion Collection. A quiet revelation of American independent filmmaking, Charles Burnett’s lyrical debut feature unfolds as a mosaic of Black life in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a father worn down by his job in a slaughterhouse, and his wife (Kaycee Moore) seek moments of tenderness in the face of myriad disappointments. Equally attuned to the…