Criterion Collection (Firm)
Series
Criterion collection volume 1164
Language
English
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Description
Emerging from the primordial soup of glamour, gutter sleaze, and feverish creativity that was New York's 1960s underground culture, the Velvet Underground redefined music with its at once raw and exalted blend of experimentation and art-damaged rock and roll. In his kaleidoscopic documentary The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes vividly evokes the band's incandescent world: the creative origins of the twin visionaries Lou Reed and John Cale, Andy Warhol's...
2) Now, voyager
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Nervous spinster Charlotte Vale is stunted from growing up under the heel of her puritanical Boston Brahmin mother and remains convinced of her own unworthiness until a kindly psychiatrist gives her the confidence to venture out into the world on a South American cruise. Onboard, she finds her footing with the help of an unhappily married man. Their thwarted love affair may help Charlotte break free of her mother's grip, but will she find fulfillment...
3) Uncut gems
Series
Criterion collection volume 1101
Language
English
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Description
This jolt of pure cinematic adrenaline affirmed directors Josh and Benny Safdie as heirs to the gritty, heightened realism of Martin Scorsese and John Cassavetes. Adam Sandler delivers an almost maniacally embodied performance as Howard Ratner, a fast-talking New York jeweler in relentless pursuit of the next big score. When he comes into possession of a rare opal, it seems Howard's ship has finally come in as long as he can stay one step ahead of...
4) Frances Ha
Series
Criterion collection volume 681
Language
English
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Description
Greta Gerwig is radiant as a woman in her late twenties in contemporary New York, trying to sort out her ambitions, her finances, and, above all, her tight but changing bond with her best friend, Sophie (Mickey Sumner). Meticulously directed by Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming) with a free-and-easy vibe reminiscent of the French New Wave's most spirited films, and written by Baumbach and Gerwig with an effortless combination of sweetness and wit,...
Series
Criterion collection volume 283
Language
Polish
Description
The story of a cocky Polish youth who decides to fight the Nazis after he falls for a pretty resistance leader. As he and his friends help escapees during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the innocence of a generation is lost under the grueling conditions of war. The first in what has come to be known as the director's 'war trilogy'.
6) The Irishman
Series
Criterion collection volume 1058
Language
English
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Description
An epic saga of organized crime in post-war America told through the eyes of World War II veteran Frank Sheeran, a hustler and hitman who worked alongside some of the most notorious figures of the twentieth century. Left behind by the world, former hit man and union truck driver Frank Sheeran looks back from a nursing home on his life's journey through the ranks of organized crime: from his involvement with Philadelphia mob boss Russell Bufalino to...
7) Weekend
Series
Criterion collection volume 622
Language
English
Description
A one-night stand develops into a weekend-long idyll for two very different young men in the English Midlands, in an emotionally naked film that's both a snapshot of the complexities of contemporary gay living, and a portrait of a love affair.
Series
Criterion collection volume 942
Language
English
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Formats
Description
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950's that follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. Bonus features included.
Series
Criterion collection volume 306
Language
Français
Description
Jef Costello is a fedora and trench-coat wearing contract killer with samurai instincts. When Jef assassinates a nighclub owner, he finds himself confronted by a series of witnesses, who drop his perfect world into the hands of a persistent police investigator and Jef's shadowy employer, both of whom are determined to put an end to the career criminal.
10) Shallow grave
Series
Criterion collection volume 616
Language
English
Description
When three friends find their new roommate dead and a suitcase full of money under his bed, they have no trouble deciding how to dispose of the cash- but the body is a different story. Their troubles are compounded when they meet the men who come to retrieve the money.
11) The big chill
Series
Criterion collection volume 720
Language
English
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Description
Seven college housemates from the 1960s who have drifted apart reunite at the funeral of a friend. Having entered adulthood as non-conformists, most now belong to the establishment. Stunned by the death of their peer, sensing their own mortality and the loss of their innocence, each takes the opportunity to reevaluate his or her life and re-establish their bonds.
Series
Criterion collection volume 96
Language
English
Description
"The stylishly debauched tale of a Texas oil magnate brought down by the excesses of his spoiled offspring"--Container.
13) Eraserhead
Series
Criterion collection volume 725
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
A nightmarish collage of images which blends the grotesque and the absurd, the deeply disturbing and the darkly humorous. Henry is the nerdish central character who lives in a squalid apartment with a strange girl and their monstrous baby. The extraordinary special effects create an eerie, dream-like world with a logic all its own.
Series
Criterion collection volume 1201
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"A classic tale is reborn through the inspired imagination of cinematic dream-weaver Guillermo del Toro, directing alongside Mark Gustafson. Realized through boundary-pushing, breathtakingly intricate stop-motion animation, this dark rendering of the fable of the puppet boy and his maker, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, daringly transfers the story to Fascist Italy, where the irrepressible Pinocchio gradually learns what it...
15) Rashōmon
Series
Language
日本語
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Description
A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema, and a commanding new star.
Series
Language
English
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Description
Members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money.
17) Harold and Maude
Series
Language
English
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Description
Deadpan rich boy Harold (Bud Cort) stages elaborate suicide tableaux to get the attention of his mother, but she keeps planning his brilliant future for him instead. Obsessed with the trappings of death, Harold freaks out his blind dates, modifies his new sports car to look like a mini-hearse, and attends funerals, where he meets the spirited Maude (Ruth Gordon). An eccentric to the core, Maude lives exactly as she pleases, with avid collecting and...
18) Carlos
Series
Criterion collection volume 582
Language
English
Description
An epic, intensely detailed account of the life of the infamous international terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez - also known as Carlos the Jackal. One of the twentieth century's most wanted fugitives, Carlos was committed to violent left-wing activism throughout the seventies and eighties, orchestrating bombings, kidnappings, and hijackings in Europe and the Middle East.
19) Scanners
Series
Criterion collection volume 712
Language
English
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Formats
Description
After a man with extraordinary, and frighteningly destructive, telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other "scanners" have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them.
20) The blob
Series
Criterion collection volume 91
Language
English
Formats
Description
A cult classic of gooey greatness. Follows the havoc on a Pennsylvania town by an outer-space monster with neither soul nor vertebrae, with Steve McQueen playing the rebel teen who tries to warn the residents about the jellylike invader.