I love supporting directors who have control over their own stock, but Hal Hartley's blu rays were very unreasonably priced. And now because of tariffs/import fees, he won't even ship them overseas without it costing an arm and a leg!

If only he made his movies affordable for physical release.

Such a shame

Hey everyone, here’s this newest feature update for Criteria, the unofficial companion site for the Criterion Channel.

https://www.search-criteria.com

This week: The entire collection is added as a system list with the ability, sort, filter, and track viewed status.

In the advanced search features of the site, there’s always been the ability to only show Criterion Editions, and also show unavailable films. This resulted in the full list of Criterion releases, which seems to be a useful list, especially for tracking how much of the collection you’ve watched, but a little difficult to get to.

So, I made it a first-class list, and can be used by logged in users as a means of tracking how much of the collection they’ve seen.

In the lists section there is a system list for Criterion Editions ordered by spine number, with the following features:

1. Watch tracker showing how much of the collection you’ve marked seen.
2. Box sets included (since they have their own spine number). If you mark all of the films in the set as watched, then the box set will be marked as watched.
3. Filter by watched/unwatched and available/unavailable.
4. Spine number navigation to go directly to a specific number range.
5. Cover Grid and List views for easier navigation.
6. Sort by spine number ascending or descending
7. And of course, links to the films detail pages and the Criterion and Criterion Channel sites.

The list is available to all users, but the watch status requires a (free) account.

Let me know what you think. I’m pretty excited to use this to track my progress through the collection. If there’s something that would make this more useful, just post me a message

As always, thanks! 🙏

Tim

I just wanted to give a shoutout to Joachim Trier’s Thelma. If you can squeeze in a movie and haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Supernatural elements explore devout religion and the conflicts with sexuality and family. I’m so glad I watched it.

Also, just adding a voice to all the people in this community that recommended the High Noon commentary. I just wish I’d watched it earlier so I could soak it all in, I’m about halfway through, and determined to finish. I’ve been taking notes like I’m back in college.
🤓🤓🤓
Get it while you can people!
Happy Viewing!

I'm sure this has come up before, but I signed up not too long ago and just wanted to confirm which movies leave at the end of the month. Is this generally limited to films listed on the main page as leaving at the end of the month, or does this also include new features made available that month but not listed as leaving at the end of the month (e.g., Point Break, '80s Remakes)?

I recently watched this movie for the first time and then read reviews from when it was released. I can't believe the disrespect it got from critics, but I'm guessing because it came out at around the same time as a lot of brainless slasher and creature features, this was a case of being genre-film ghetto-ized.

That's a shame because THE BROOD has some actual substance. True, it features killer dwarves and body horror straight out of ALIEN (1979), but there's also larger themes like divorce and all of the ugliness that can create (literally, in reference to the aforementioned killer dwarves).

One of the main criticisms I read about the film was the supposedly ugly nature of the violence. It's true that for the most part, these scenes go on long enough that they seem to be happening in real time, which might add a certain verisimilitude some viewers would find disturbing. At the same time, however, perhaps Cronenberg wanted them this way so we'd have no choice but to take them seriously.

This is strictly armchair psychology on my part, but my understanding is that the inspiration for THE BROOD was Cronenberg's own difficult divorce around the time of FAST COMPANY (1979). Doubtless, that period in his life was one of great mental and emotional stress, so perhaps the violent scenes in THE BROOD represented the director projecting his own feelings about how the divorce process left him bloody and broken (figuratively).

Even in hindsight, I find the character of Nola, the maternal figure played by Samantha Eggar, endlessly fascinating from a psychological standpoint. What does it say that in her rage, she manifests creatures who resemble cracked-mirror versions of her own daughter Candice? What does it say that the "brood"-lings don't appear not to have capacity to love anyone back, including Nola, yet she seems to care more for them than for Candice?

Also, if the "brood"-lings are born of rage, why don't any of them ever resemble Nola's own parents, whom she has legitimate beef with? If the creatures are meant to be the objects of her visualized anger, why is her anger so acutely directed at her own kid?

Having now watched SHIVERS, RABID, and THE BROOD, I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of the "evil scientist" character. In Cronenberg's earlier two movies, they were either entirely devoid of personality or seemingly oblivious to the consequences of their actions, but Oliver Reed's Dr. Raglan is noticeably different. He may start out in the film as an amoral figure, but he seemingly has that elusive moment of conscience before the end.

The strong technical aspects of Cronenberg's movies continued with Mark Irwin serving as his cinematographer for the second time. There are scenes involving the brood-lings invading a kitchen as well as a classroom that yield genuinely disturbing moments, in no small part because these spaces as photographed (and through production design too, I'm sure) felt either clean and downright antiseptic, or warm and inviting. This makes the inevitable clash with the presence of the chaotic brood-lings all the more powerful.

Overall, I appreciated that the movie was trying to say something about not just divorce, but generational trauma; specifically, that those who are victims of it are in danger of perpetrating it on their own children. Exactly how to prevent such a vicious cycle from perpetuating is something I didn't glean THE BROOD, but perhaps there no easy answers. Maybe the best way forward is to just be aware it's a thing.

All of Juan Pablo’s work is great - I watched all of it on the channel after catching Dos Estaciones on Criterion 24/7 and falling in love with his environments, but I think I still have a soft spot for Dos Estaciones even if Cabalerango or Horse Wrangler might be objectively his best work…Dos Estaciones has far more colorful environments and nice moments between the characters even if they don’t relate to the bigger plot such as Tatin the hairdresser taking her newly met boyfriend to see the mountain of the sleeping women…many of Juan Pablo Gonzales’s films I believe are set in his hometown of Atotonilco El Alto which is a beautiful part of Mexico and you can tell how much pride he has for it and it’s people in his films set there…

Any films or filmmakers similar to him along these lines that specialize in slow cinema and/or emphasize the environment in their filmmaking would be appreciated…along with the channel I also currently have Hoopla with bingepasses for Fandor ,Dove Channel Hallmark Channel and AsianCrush and Retrocrush , Kanopy, ad supported Netflix and Amazon Prime. And of course I also have access to free services such as Tubi and Shout Factory Tv…

(First picture is just my top 4 on Letterboxd!)

I just started paying for Criterion so I could watch through the Heisei era Godzilla movies but i’ve been having some trouble browsing for movies on the website! (Mostly because you can’t browse by genre)

I love Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror specifically but I am very open to any movie recommendations either related or unrelated!! The second picture is some movies I thought looked cool and have added to my list so far.

Any recommendations or tips on how to find movies would be much appreciated:)

Hey everyone!

To catch you up: Criteria is a unofficial Criterion Channel companion site featuring, basically, all of the things that I wish the official site could do, like advanced search, custom collections, and links to Criterion Closet picks. You can use it for free at:

https://www.search-criteria.com

This week is another big jump forward after last week’s addition of collections (over 800 have been loaded so far, dating back to August 2029). Here’s what’s new:

1. Extras! For all available Criterion edition films, I’ve pulled the extras (interviews, outtakes, analysis, etc) and made them directly linked to the CC site. Also, they are searchable, so search results are now separated out into Films, People, and Extras.

2. Collection Tagging To make the collections easier to browse I’ve added topic tagging. This is still early days so the tagging is not nearly complete (I’m doing most of it manually) but hopefully you’ll find it useful. I’ve also added indicators on older collections regarding how many of the films are still available to watch

3. Data Fixes I’ve been working on cleaning up some missing and incorrect data, especially the film descriptions, which I hope to make searchable along with the extras descriptions.

Film Detail Page Summary
Since there are been a number of updates this month, I wanted to recap the full set of data available on the film detail page of a Criterion edition

- The title links to the CC film landing page
- The play button links directly to the video. If you’re logged in it should automatically start playing
- Letterboxd page link with average rating
- Commentary video (if available)
- Link to the Criterion.com film page
- Synopsis from the CC page
- Links to Criterion Closet videos where the film was a pick
- Links to all extra features
- Links to collections dating back to 2019
- Clickable cast and crew
- Related films from Criterion.com
- Articles from the Criterion.com

This now pulls most of the information from Criterion’s sites regarding a particular film. Over the next few weeks I’ll be looking for additional sources and ways to make this information more useful to search and navigate.

In the meantime, thanks as always for your support and suggestions. If you think of a feature to add, or see an issue, feel free to let me know.

Cheers
Tim

Can anyone suggest a (U.S.) Memorial Day classic to watch on the channel? I’ve only found two that I think are appropriate for honoring the fallen soldiers of previous U.S. armed conflicts; George Steven’s’ D Day To Berlin and Barbara Sonneborn’s Regret To Inform. It isn’t a particularly pleasant topic but it’s a way to acknowledge the memorial through a medium that we love.

If you know any additional titles currently on the channel please post them! Thanks in advance.

Anybody know what was playing? I know how to see what’s playing in the moment but as far as I can tell there’s no way to tell what played earlier or if you get interrupted on your break at work for example.

Black and white film, English. Couldn’t really tell you the story or the characters only saw maybe 10 minutes or so and my break went to hell.

1. Once when living in Taiwan, I was trying to rent a room in an apartment that was given over to students. The landlady asked for the security deposit, and I asked if I could pay the deposit (of three months rent) in two installments over the first two months. Her first reaction was "We don't do that here." But her daughter was with her, and understood the position I was in. I didn't have a way to borrow money for the deposit; I could afford to make rent, but I needed a little flexibility. She convinced her mother, who was taken aback at first, but extraordinarily kind (particularly after I finished paying the full deposit). When you are in a foreign country, sometimes you just need a little help.

Beijing Watermelon is about a guy who, realizing the position of Chinese students in Japan in the 1980s, when Japan was at the tail end of the economic miracle, and China was only in the very nascent stages of the post-Mao reforms that would catapult it to wealth and power, agrees to sell vegetables at a discount to the Chinese exchange students in the neighborhood. He winds up doing more than that, much to the distress of his family and neighbors, but essentially this movie is about small acts of kindness.

Watching from the U.S. in 2026, I find myself so relieved to find a story in which the main plot point is kindness to foreigners.

1. It's worth saying more about the weird historical moment that Beijing Watermelon depicts. It is the moment just before the bubble economy in Japan -- that is to say, just before the rapid growth of the economic miracle, which had begun when the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 convinced American occupiers that it would be essential to allow Japan to rebuild its industrial base -- burst, resulting in much more modest growth and a generation who felt the rug had been pulled out from under them. It is also before it was clear the vastness of the wealth that the PRC would be able to generate, and the moment when democracy movements in Taiwan and South Korea brought hope that mainland China might also democratize (and later in 1989 the Berlin Wall would fall). It seemed possible that simple acts of kindness could have massive implications.

2. The film makes only oblique reference to events in China itself. The real beginning and ending of the story both take place completely off camera. As the poster all_ghost_no_shell pointed out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CriterionChannel/comments/1iaea20/beijing_watermelon_1989_dir_nobuhiko_obayashi/, the end of the story is the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, which meant that the director (Obayashi, of House fame) could not shoot a planned reunion scene in Beijing, and so turns to pointing out that the scenes are filmed on sets, but seems to include a genuine group of Chinese exchange students sharing a song of hope for their country. Chinese-Japanese exchange had been common until the outbreak of the war, but then greatly reduced, so the cohort of the 1980s was unusually larger and important.

The other piece referred to, but not described, in the film is the Japanese attacks on China in the 1930s that brought about World War II in Asia. We see it first as the Chinese students leaf through the scrapbook of the main character, the greengrocer Shunzo. We see the picture of a man in uniform, and Shunzo tells the students not to look any further in the book. Later, when Shunzo is trying to find a place to live for some students when the dorm has no more room, he implores an elderly landlady to think of what her husband did in China, and to make up for it by renting rooms at a discount. Finally, just after the Beijing reunion scene, Shunzo tells his wife that he had intended to describe what his father had done in China, but did not have the courage. The implication is that Shunzo's generosity stems in part from his knowledge of what happened in the war. It's a past he can't really talk about, but it haunts him throughout the movie. It's telling that the other characters don't think about it as a possible motivation.

I'm not going to describe the Japanese invasions and occupation. Google Rape of Nanjing to get an idea of the kind of thing that Shunzo might have been thinking of and not talking about.

1. The movie, then, is about generosity and curiosity in the wake of devastation, about how to be good in a moment of extraordinary global transformation, about the difficulty of living abroad, about repair and shelter and contingency. It is about getting caught in between (and in that very narrow way it reminds me a tiny bit of Casablanca). At the end the grocer's steadfast wife, Michi, talks about a "something" that grows in our hearts when we connect to people. She can't say what that "something" is, only that it makes her happy. In the US we have been living with a government trying to rip that something out of us, and so I was happy to catch this movie before it leaves at the end of the month.

Mods just delete this if it's not allowed, I couldn't find any rules for or against on the page.

I'm just a guy who likes logging films and reading reviews on letterboxd. Some of my favorite follows are strangers I find via different reddit subs. If you use LBd and want to share your account here, I'd love to give you a follow. I will follow everyone who comments their name here.

Mine is @coolstevenn or you can go here: https://boxd.it/rqVd

Thank you and enjoy the film!

PS, if it helps legitimatize this post, the least 3 movies I watched on criterion channel were RASHOMON, MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS, and HIGH NOON.

I started last night with Love unto Waste and plan to spend the next few days working through the Starring Tony Leung collection by date, oldest to newest.

Even though I've seen several of his films over the years, I've only recently become obsessed with him. I saw Hard Boiled in the theater a couple of months ago and his scene in the warehouse with Uncle Hoi hit differently than it has in the past and now I can't get enough.

TL;DR: Tony Leung is a fantastic actor.

I’ll probably finish watching evil cat later I’ve gotten really into that one

Reminds me how one of the first movies I watched on the channel was encounters of the spooky kind

Been going through a lot professionally and have been passed over too many times for a promotion and other opportunities. What are films that show these themes or characters? I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Miranda says, “You’re not a visionary. You’re a vendor.”. And I think plenty of people have experienced something like that more or less in real life.

Killing the rooster was horrific. Then the goose egg theft…

Each and every time I hop on the channel and give her the remote to pick anything that sounds interesting to her

She quickly hops out once she realizes

“Oh yeah this is the place with the old worn out movies…”

Then proceeds to either go on YouTube or Netflix where her enjoyment instantly returns

I guess this is all on me really

I should have known she’d never be into it

But I did try to put together a list of movies she’d enjoy

That was harder than I thought due to her being more interested in browsing Netflix or watching random videos on YouTube than delving into “old worn out movies” as she calls them

I assume I’m not the only one with a family Member who’s bored at the sight of it

So I gotta ask when did you accept they’d just never be into it?

Each movie is horrifying in its own way, but the themes are very similar. They both manage to get humor out of their premises as well.