General Discussion The Criterion Channel Streaming Service (Official Thread) (2 Viewers)

[Garysb]

November 2019 Calendar is Out. MGM Musical lovers rejoice. 19 MGM Musicals of which 7 star Judy Garland and Gene Kelly including all 3 films they made together. Would be interested people's reactions to the films as streamed here as opposed to TCM. Especially 7 Brides and Lili which I have never seen look great. Would be nice if some of the films not on blu have had work done.

Lineup
INSIDE CRITERION / ON THE CHANNEL — OCT 30, 2019

We’ve got a lot to be thankful for this November on the Criterion Channel, including a feast of classic MGM musicals, the visionary animated films of Suzan Pitt, an in-depth conversation with acclaimed director Karyn Kusama, three of Jack Nicholson’s most iconic performances, and thematic series that explore surveillance, food, and queer desire in cinema.

If you haven’t signed up yet, head to CriterionChannel.com and get a 14-day free trial!

* indicates programming available only in the U.S.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1
The Mustache Club
Whether you’re swearing off shaving for Movember, rock a bushy upper lip year round, or are just an appreciator of fine facial hair, you’re invited to bask in the glory of some of the biggest, glossiest, and most impressive mustaches ever to grace the screen.

Featuring: The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, and Tim Whelan, 1940), The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940), 49th Parallel (Michael Powell, 1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943), Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962), High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963), Capricious Summer (Jiří Menzel, 1968), The American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977)

They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949)
Criterion Collection Edition #880

Double Feature: Love Me Do
A Hard Day’s Night and The Hours and Times
John Lennon as a prankster pop-culture icon, then reimagined in his more intimate moments.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2
Saturday Matinee: Kes
Featuring an introduction by Bill Hader
Ken Loach’s masterpiece, about a miner’s son whose close bond with a wild kestrel provides him with a spiritual escape from his dead-end life, is cinema’s quintessential portrait of working-class Northern England.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3
MGM Musicals from the Golden Age
In the heyday of the classic Hollywood musical, one studio reigned supreme: MGM. These beloved tune-filled classics, exploding in blazing Technicolor, are marvels of craftsmanship and razzle-dazzle entertainment that are filled to the brim with some of the most indelible moments of movie magic ever committed to celluloid.

Featuring: Broadway Melody of 1940 (Norman Taurog, 1940), For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942), Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli, 1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944), The Harvey Girls (George Sidney, 1946), Easter Parade (Charles Walters, 1948), The Pirate (Vincente Minnelli, 1948), On the Town (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1949), In the Good Old Summertime (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949), The Barkleys of Broadway (Charles Walters, 1949), Summer Stock (Charles Walters, 1950), An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951), The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953), Give a Girl a Break (Stanley Donen, 1953), I Love Melvin (Don Weis, 1953), Lili (Charles Walters, 1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954), Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)*, It’s Always Fair Weather (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1955), That’s Entertainment! (Jack Haley Jr., 1974)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Starring Judy Garland
Both a powerhouse, once-in-a-generation vocalist and an actor of tremulous emotional sensitivity, Judy Garland set the standard for what it means to be a true all-around entertainer. These flights of fantasy are enduring testaments to the brilliance of a performer who never gave less than her dazzling all.

Featuring: For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942), Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944), The Harvey Girls (George Sidney, 1946), The Pirate (Vincente Minnelli, 1948), Easter Parade (Charles Walters, 1948), In the Good Old Summertime (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949), Summer Stock (Charles Walters, 1950)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Criterion Collection Edition #591

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Short + Feature: Last Call
El doctor and Under the Volcano
Images of wonder and terror swirl beneath the Mexican sun in these delirious, alcohol-fueled fever dreams from Suzan Pitt and John Huston.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6
The Arbor*
Documentary meets the avant-garde in Clio Barnard’s electrifying debut feature, a dazzling account of a brilliant artist beset by tragedy.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
Three Jacks
No actor defined the restless, countercultural spirit of the New Hollywood of the 1970s more completely than Jack Nicholson, whose roguish attitude and explosive yet nuanced performances in these cultural touchstones made him a star.

Featuring: Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970), The King of Marvin Gardens (Bob Rafelson, 1972), The Last Detail (Hal Ashby, 1973)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Double Feature: Between Us Girls
The Young Girls of Rochefort and Persepolis
Generations change but Catherine Deneuve is eternal in two spirited celebrations of maternal bonds.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Saturday Matinee: Elephant Boy
Walk with Sabu and the elephants in this charming translation of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book story “Toomai of the Elephants.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10
Caught on Tape
Trust no one in these anxiety-inducing tales of surveillance, wiretapping, and paranoia run amok.

Featuring: A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957), Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971), The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981), Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981), Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994), Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005), The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)*

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11
The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
Criterion Collection Edition #5
With a new documentary by Daniel Raim featuring François Truffaut’s daughter Laura Truffaut, made to celebrate the film’s sixtieth anniversary

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12
Short + Feature: Listen Up
Death of the Sound Man and Blow Out
Let’s hear it for the Foley artists—these underappreciated technicians take center stage in two slyly self-reflexive studies in sound.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13
7 Films by Suzan Pitt
Featuring Suzan Pitt: Persistence of Vision, a 2006 documentary by Blue and Laura Kraning
Enter the wild and wondrous world of the late Suzan Pitt, an independent animation visionary whose oneiric psychosexual odysseys are direct channels to her dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and inner desires.

Featuring: Crocus (1971), Jefferson Circus Songs (1973), Asparagus (1979), Joy Street (1995), El doctor (2006), Visitation (2011), Pinball (2013)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Directed by Peter Greenaway
Featuring a 2016 documentary portrait of Greenaway
Endlessly fascinated by the baroque, the bizarre, and the esoteric, the uncompromisingly personal films of British iconoclast Peter Greenaway are richly realized worlds unto themselves—witty, outrageous, sumptuous, shocking, and unapologetically intellectual.

Featuring: Intervals (1973), Windows (1974), Dear Phone (1976), H Is for House (1976), A Walk Through H (1978), Water Wrackets (1978), Vertical Features Remake (1978), The Falls (1980), The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), A Zed & Two Noughts (1985), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Prospero’s Books (1991), The Pillow Book (1996)*

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15
Double Feature: Jamdown Style
The Harder They Come and No Place Like Home
The reggae rhythms rock steady in a Jamaican-cinema landmark and its long-lost follow-up.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16
Saturday Matinee: My Life as a Dog
Featuring an incredibly mature and unaffected performance by the young Anton Glanzelius, this beloved and bittersweet film from Lasse Hallström evokes the struggles and joys of childhood.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17
Queersighted: The Ache of Desire
Featuring a conversation between critics Michael Koresky and Melissa Anderson
Queer cinema has existed nearly as long as the movies themselves, and Queersighted aims to bring attention to film history through a distinctly queer lens. Rather than provide a history of films featuring lesbian, gay, transgender, or bisexual characters and themes, this new series draws out the presence of a non-heteronormative, non-gender-binary cinema that has always existed alongside, parallel, or underneath the status quo. This first installment, The Ache of Desire, presents a range of movies about that longing feeling that is so specific to the queer experience and to queer cinema itself.

Featuring: Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966), Les rendez-vous d’Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978), Yentl (Barbra Streisand, 1983), Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, 1985), Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997), Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001), I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang, 2006), Raging Sun, Raging Sky (Julián Hernández, 2009), Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, 2013)*

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
An Elephant Sitting Still
Exclusive streaming premiere, featuring a new introduction by critic and programmer Aliza Ma and Hu Bo’s 2017 short film Man in the Well
One of the most acclaimed feature debuts of the last decade, the first and, tragically, last film from Hu Bo, who took his own life at the age of twenty-nine, is a tour de force of existential fury and transcendent catharsis.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19
Short + Feature: Table Manners
Next Floor and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Best not to eat before digging into these gut-busting banquets of grotesque gastronomy that double as subversive explorations of excess, corruption, gluttony, and greed.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20
Directed by Alice Rohrwacher
Blending elements of neorealism and folklore with a contemporary feminist worldview, these tender evocations of adolescent awakening from one of contemporary cinema’s most sensitive and perceptive auteurs are marvels of quiet, unassuming grace.

Featuring: Corpo celeste (2011), The Wonders (2014)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21
The Koker Trilogy (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987/1992/1994)
Criterion Collection Edition #990/991/992

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22
Double Feature: As Triers Go By
Reprise and Oslo, August 31st*
Punk poet Joachim Trier directs these explosive and empathetic portraits of young men on the edge.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23
Saturday Matinee: Meet Me in St. Louis
Judy Garland rides the trolley into cinematic immortality in this nostalgic holiday heart-warmer.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24
Karyn Kusama’s Adventures in Moviegoing
The director of edgy genre-exploders like Girlfight, Jennifer’s Body, and Destroyer sits down with presenter and critic Alicia Malone to discuss the feminist potential of horror movies, her love for paranoid seventies thrillers, and favorite films that have shaped her approach to moviemaking.

Featuring: Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955), High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975), Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982), Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985), Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25
The Inland Sea (Lucille Carra, 1991)
Criterion Collection Edition #988

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26
Short + Feature: Someone’s Listening
Hacked Circuit and The Conversation
Deborah Stratman conjures a sense of all-pervasive surveillance while giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the work of Foley artists as they create the sound effects for the final scene of The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola’s seventies paranoia classic.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
Featuring a new introduction by director Leslie Harris
An ambitious, outspoken, and hilarious young black woman encounters bumps on the road to adulthood in this still-fresh nineties indie classic.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28
Glorious Food!
Just in time for Thanksgiving, feast your eyes on a buffet of some of cinema’s most sumptuous banquets, a smorgasbord of lip-smacking delicacies that delight in the sensual pleasures and social rituals of eating.

Featuring: The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962), Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963), Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966), Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (Les Blank, 1980), My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle, 1981), Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985), Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989), Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking (Les Blank, 1990), Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, 1991), Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994), Big Night (Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci, 1996), The Secret of the Grain (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2007), Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29
Double Feature: Fraud Alert
The Baron of Arizona and F for Fake
The con is on in these tricky tales of forgers and fakes from Samuel Fuller and Orson Welles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Saturday Matinee: A Kid for Two Farthings
Carol Reed directs this East End fairy tale about a young boy who comes into possession of a curiously-horned goat he believes to be a unicorn with the power to grant wishes.

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INSIDE CRITERION

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[Ted Todorov]

In case it wasn't posted before - the complete list of films on the Criterion Channel: https://films.criterionchannel.com

I signed up recently and it is an amazing treasure trove: the fact is, in spite of my huge spinning disk collection, I much prefer the streaming version...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

They finally have KLUTE available to watch.

Going to catch that today.

 

[Ted Todorov]

They finally have KLUTE available to watch.

Going to catch that today.

Great movie! In fact I just watched a couple of the documentary extras last night, and look forward to seeing the movie again for the 17th time... (OK, probably an exaggeration, but basically every time it played at the Walter Reade I saw it, and I must have watched the 2002 DVD I have at least a couple of times...)

The short doc that was shot back in 1970/71 has an amazing portrait of NYC of the time, a full decade before I moved to the city.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I watched Klute today. Amazing movie and stunningly good transfer - I certainly never remember seeing a 35mm print that looked anywhere nearly as good as the Criterion Channel version. The color transfer is out of this world.
(Any complaints about the Criterion Channel vs. Criterion Blu-rays?)
I also am glad to report that one of the other highlights of 1970's paranoia The Conversation is also on the Criterion Channel.

Unfortunately, the user interface for the Criterion Channel AppleTV app is awful. Never did figure out how to find the various feature docs that came with Klute on the AppleTV - had to add them to "My List" on the iPad for them to appear on the AppleTV.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I watched Klute today. Amazing movie and stunningly good transfer - I certainly never remember seeing a 35mm print that looked anywhere nearly as good as the Criterion Channel version. The color transfer is out of this world.
(Any complaints about the Criterion Channel vs. Criterion Blu-rays?)
I also am glad to report that one of the other highlights of 1970's paranoia The Conversation is also on the Criterion Channel.

Unfortunately, the user interface for the Criterion Channel AppleTV app is awful. Never did figure out how to find the various feature docs that came with Klute on the AppleTV - had to add them to "My List" on the iPad for them to appear on the AppleTV.

I had no issues finding those feature docs on my ATV4K unit.

 

[Cranston37+]

Unfortunately, the user interface for the Criterion Channel AppleTV app is awful. Never did figure out how to find the various feature docs that came with Klute on the AppleTV - had to add them to "My List" on the iPad for them to appear on the AppleTV.

I had no issues finding those feature docs on my ATV4K unit.

I think there is actually quite a bit of validity to what Ted is saying. It's something I've posted about before.

Try this, Robert, to see what we're saying:

Search for Klute. You will see results that look like this:



If you select the very first result, as most would do, there are no extras. If you select the result in the 2nd row (under collections) you get extras.

One more example - under collections there is one for British Hitchcock. Clicking on it brings you to this page with a list of movies:



If you click on The 39 Steps in that list, no extras.

If you do a manual search for The 39 Steps...



...selecting that first result again gives no extras, but selecting that very last result in the 2nd row does.

Not ideal.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I think there is actually quite a bit of validity to what Ted is saying. It's something I've posted about before.

Try this, Robert, to see what we're saying:

Search for Klute. You will see results that look like this:

View attachment 65342

If you select the very first result, as most would do, there are no extras. If you select the result in the 2nd row (under collections) you get extras.

One more example - under collections there is one for British Hitchcock. Clicking on it gives you this with a list of movies:

View attachment 65343

If you click on The 39 Steps in that list, no extras.

If you do a manual search for The 39 Steps...

View attachment 65344

...selecting that first result again gives no extras, but selecting that very last result in the 2nd row does.

Not ideal.

Exactly - but it is even worst: when searching on my aTV 4K I never type: I went in the Criterion Chanel app search screen, then pressed the talk on the remote and said "Klute" - it then acted like it wasn't even available from Criterion and asked me to rent or buy it.

And yes, it never occurred for me to search for again for the extras when I had finished watching the movie (or before I started watching). Say in HBO Now, the extras are there, sometimes it will even automatically play them after a series episode is over - why would you search?

 

[Cranston37+]

I went in the Criterion Chanel app search screen, then pressed the talk on the remote and said "Klute" - it then acted like it wasn't even available from Criterion and asked me to rent or buy it

In this case I can tell what happened - if you're in an app's search screen but the search area is not selected, pressing the talk button will do a general search of the entire Apple TV and not the specific service you are in.

I can tell that you had performed a general search because Criterion does not offer the option to buy or rent anything. Also, Criterion is not a service connected to those general searches, so the result wouldn't have been able to tell you if it's available to watch in Criterion or not.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I think there is actually quite a bit of validity to what Ted is saying. It's something I've posted about before.

Try this, Robert, to see what we're saying:

Search for Klute. You will see results that look like this:

View attachment 65342

If you select the very first result, as most would do, there are no extras. If you select the result in the 2nd row (under collections) you get extras.

One more example - under collections there is one for British Hitchcock. Clicking on it brings you to this page with a list of movies:

View attachment 65343

If you click on The 39 Steps in that list, no extras.

If you do a manual search for The 39 Steps...

View attachment 65344

...selecting that first result again gives no extras, but selecting that very last result in the 2nd row does.

Not ideal.

I never said there wasn't any validity, I just stated I had no issues finding the bonus stuff because I chose the Klute Collection.

 

[Ted Todorov]

In this case I can tell what happened - if you're in an app's search screen but the search area is not selected, pressing the talk button will do a general search of the entire Apple TV and not the specific service you are in.

I can tell that you had performed a general search because Criterion does not offer the option to buy or rent anything. Also, Criterion is not a service connected to those general searches, so the result wouldn't have been able to tell you if it's available to watch in Criterion or not.

Yes, exactly correct.

Never happened to me in the Netflix app though - and it is not connected to general searches either(?) I still think there is a structural (UI) issue or a bug with the Criterion app.

Also, I understand why Netflix is staying out of the aTV app/general search - they wish to preserve their existing dominance. But what is Criterions excuse - they would greatly benefit from it.

 

[Cranston37+]

Also, I understand why Netflix is staying out of the aTV app/general search - they wish to preserve their existing dominance. But what is Criterions excuse - they would greatly benefit from it

I don't know if that's an Apple thing or a thing on the service's side... Many aren't included in search, like Vudu, or live TV.

It causes a lot of confusion in my parents house because I've taught them to find the content they want by asking Siri, but a lot of network shows they watch are on demand through YouTube TV, and that isn't a part of search either...

 

[Ted Todorov]

Everything other than Netflix and Criterion that I use is included: HBO, Showtime, Disney + and our cable TV, Spectrum.

 

[Garysb]

The Criterion Channel’s December 2019 Lineup
INSIDE CRITERION / ON THE CHANNEL — NOV 27, 2019

The holidays are fast approaching, and our gift to you this season is a new round of programming on the Criterion Channel! This December, we’ve got a stellar lineup that celebrates legends of cinema both classic and contemporary—from Bette Davis to Juliette Binoche, from William Wyler to Andrea Arnold. Plus: a series on the art of the heist, a selection of our favorite melancholy Christmas films, three of Michael Caine’s most iconic turns, and a new episode of Observations on Film Art!

If you haven’t signed up yet, head to CriterionChannel.com and get a 14-day free trial!

* indicates programming available only in the U.S.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1
Starring Bette Davis
Featuring a new introduction by critic Farran Smith Nehme
The undisputed queen of the Warner Bros. lot from the midthirties to the early forties, Davis was a force of nature who dominated the screen with her fearless portrayals of complex, often defiantly unsympathetic characters.

Featuring: Three on a Match (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932), Hell’s House (Howard Higgin, 1932), The Cabin in the Cotton (Michael Curtiz, 1932), Of Human Bondage (John Cromwell, 1934), Front Page Woman (Michael Curtiz, 1935), The Petrified Forest (Archie Mayo, 1937), Marked Woman (Lloyd Bacon, 1937), Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937), Jezebel (William Wyler, 1938), Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding, 1939), The Old Maid (Edmund Goulding, 1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Michael Curtiz, 1939), The Letter (William Wyler, 1940), The Little Foxes (William Wyler, 1941), Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942), The Man Who Came to Dinner (William Keighley, 1942), In This Our Life (John Huston, 1942), Mr. Skeffington (Vincent Sherman, 1944)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2
Diamantino
Exclusive streaming premiere
A word-of-mouth sensation on the festival circuit, Diamantino is one of the most unclassifiable films of the year: a high-camp masterpiece of genre-blending and gender-bending satire.

Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
Criterion Collection Edition #563

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3
Short + Feature: For the Birds
The Cage and Kes
Featuring an introduction by Criterion Channel programmer Penelope Bartlett
A bird is a boy’s best friend in these bittersweet coming-of-age fables, both of which blend social-realist grit with child’s-eye poetry.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4
Directed by Andrea Arnold
Bristling with a wild, untamed naturalism, the films of British auteur Andrea Arnold are bracing immersions into the worlds of the young, the restless, and the dispossessed. Including the short films Milk (1998), Dog (2001), and Wasp (2003), and the features Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), and Wuthering Heights (2011).

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5
Bogart’s Beginnings
Before he was Bogie, Humphrey Bogart was just another workaday character actor struggling to break out of the Warner Bros. stock company. After getting a late start in the film industry, he was typecast as a tough-guy villain in gritty crime dramas like Marked Woman and Dead End. These films show Bogart on the come-up, gradually honing his legendary persona on his way to stardom.

Featuring: Three on a Match (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932), Black Legion (Archie Mayo, 1937), Dead End (William Wyler, 1937), Marked Woman (Lloyd Bacon, 1937), The Petrified Forest (Archie Mayo, 1937), Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937), Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding, 1939)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6
Double Feature: Paint It Black
Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window
Edward G. Robinson and art are a deadly combination in these twin noir masterworks by Fritz Lang.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7
Saturday Matinee: The Black Stallion
A wild horse saves a young boy’s life after a terrifying shipwreck and the two become unlikely friends in Carroll Ballard’s cinematic tour de force, adapted from Walter Farley’s classic children’s novel.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8
The Art of the Heist
A crack team, an ingenious scheme, a foolproof getaway plan . . . what could possibly go wrong? Perhaps the only thing more fun than watching a perfectly executed cinematic heist unfold is watching it unravel, as evidenced by these safe-cracking classics, each a masterwork of palm-sweating, high-stakes tension.

Featuring: They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948), He Ran All the Way (John Berry, 1951), Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955), Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956), The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956), Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958), The League of Gentlemen (Basil Dearden, 1960), Cruel Gun Story (Takumi Furukawa, 1964), The Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969), Le cercle rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973), Incident by a Bank (Ruben Östlund, 2009)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
Criterion Collection Edition #475

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10
Short + Feature: Jingle Hells
Bad Night for the Blues and Mon oncle Antoine
Family got you down this holiday season? Commiserate with the poor, put-upon nephews in these incisive portraits of yuletide dysfunction.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11
Directed by Maren Ade
Featuring an interview with Ade
One of contemporary cinema’s most astute chroniclers of the intricacies of social interaction—often at its messiest and most awkwardly uncomfortable—German auteur Maren Ade navigates complex emotional terrain with deadpan delicacy.

Featuring: The Forest for the Trees (2003)*, Everyone Else (2009)*

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12
The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz, 1950)
Criterion Collection Edition #889

Terms of Endearment*
From grand slapstick to deepest sentiment, director James L. Brooks masterfully paints scenes from the evolving thirty-year relationship between a mother a daughter in this multiple Oscar-winning classic, featuring dazzling performances from Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, and Jack Nicholson.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13
Double Feature: Blondell Bombshells
Three on a Match and Gold Diggers of 1933
The ever-saucy Joan Blondell is at her wisecracking best in a pair of pre-Code aces.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14
Saturday Matinee: On the Town
For this exuberant adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s Broadway hit, directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen busted out of the soundstage and hit the streets of the Big Apple, making unprecedented use of location shooting from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park to the top of Rockefeller Center.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15
Starring Juliette Binoche
Incandescent muse of the French cinema, Hollywood movie star, and international art-house icon: Juliette Binoche has been all of the above in her extraordinary career. Bringing nuance, intelligence, and a radiant screen presence to each of her performances, she has delved fearlessly into a wide range of complex roles for some of the greatest and most daring directors of the last four decades.

Featuring: Rendez-vous (André Téchiné, 1985), Mauvais sang (Leos Carax, 1986), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988), The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax, 1991), Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993), Code Unknown (Michael Haneke, 2000), Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005), Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008), Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010), Elles (Małgorzata Szumowska, 2011), Camille Claudel 1915 (Bruno Dumont, 2013), Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014), Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont, 2016)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16
The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Criterion Collection Edition #575

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17
Short + Feature: Let’s Talk About Love
Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak and Metropolitan
With their emphasis on literate conversation and the romantic complications of the young and urbane, the films of French New Wave titan Eric Rohmer and New York indie darling Whit Stillman share a sophisticated spiritual connection.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18
Directed by Céline Sciamma
To mark the release of her acclaimed new film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, we’re revisiting the revelatory first three features by French director Céline Sciamma. Forming a loose trilogy centered around the experiences of young people grappling with issues of sexual, gender, and social identity, these films ache and soar with the pain, confusion, and exhilaration of adolescence.

Featuring: Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (William Greaves, 1968)
Criterion Collection Edition #360

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20
Double Feature: Madcap Marriages
I Married a Witch and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Veronica Lake casts a spell and Preston Sturges runs riot in a pair of lively screwball romances.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21
Saturday Matinee: Murder on the Orient Express
It’s all stars aboard the mystery train in Sidney Lumet’s deluxe adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22
Blue Christmas
It may be the season of cheerful carols and twinkling lights, but the holidays also bring about a melancholy mood that has inspired some of the world’s greatest filmmakers. This selection explores the clashing emotions at the heart of the yuletide spirit.

Featuring: Morning for the Osone Family (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1946), Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947), Plácido (Luis García Berlanga, 1961), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964), My Night at Maud’s (Eric Rohmer, 1969), Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982), Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993), A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23
Observations on Film Art No. 33: Mise-en-scène in My Brilliant Career
In this episode, Professor Jeff Smith explores how director Gillian Armstrong uses lighting, costuming, and decor to upend the conventionally masculine mythologies of the frontier tale in her Australian New Wave classic, creating a uniquely feminine “western” in which self-realization is tied to creative expression and the rejection of patriarchal norms.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24
Short + Feature: Homoerotic for the Holidays
Wren Boys and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Queer love and desire smolder behind bars in these unconventional holiday tales.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25
The Juniper Tree
Streaming premiere, featuring three short films by Nietzchka Keene
Björk makes her incandescent film debut in this spellbinding, medieval-set feminist fantasia.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26
Three Starring Michael Caine
With his much-impersonated cockney accent, sly grin, and signature blend of humor and grit, Michael Caine has been a British screen legend for six decades and counting. This trio of favorites from Caine’s heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s showcases the actor in three of his most iconic roles. Featuring: Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966), The Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969), Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27
Double Feature: Love Notes
In the Good Old Summertime and The Shop Around the Corner
Ernst Lubitsch’s classic romance swoons alongside a tune-filled remake starring Judy Garland.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28
Saturday Matinee: Oliver!
Charles Dickens gets the ol’ musical razzle-dazzle in Carol Reed’s irresistible Oscar winner.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29
Directed by William Wyler
One of Hollywood’s preeminent craftsmen, William Wyler brought a rigorous technical perfectionism and penetrating emotional insight to some of the richest, most complex human dramas of the studio era.

Featuring: Dodsworth (1936), These Three (1936), Dead End (1937), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), The Westerner (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 30
Tunes of Glory (Ronald Neame, 1960)
Criterion Collection Edition #225

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31
Short + Feature: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Coda and The Phantom Carriage
Drunken nights lead to encounters with the Grim Reaper—and, paradoxically, a chance at rebirth—in these tales of death and transfiguration.

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[Ted Todorov]

So does the Criterion Channel drop movies dad have been there for say a year, the way HBO does? If it does drop anything, how do you find out in advance?

 

[Cranston37+]

So does the Criterion Channel drop movies dad have been there for say a year, the way HBO does? If it does drop anything, how do you find out in advance?

Depends on rights. Some titles have been there from the beginning, some might stay 60-90 days. They have a section you can go to that shows all the movies leaving a few weeks in advance so you have plenty of warning.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Depends on rights. Some titles have been there from the beginning, some might stay 60-90 days. They have a section you can go to that shows all the movies leaving a few weeks in advance so you have plenty of warning.

Thanks for the info - and link please!
Example: Betty Blue & Diva: to my knowledge neither is a (new) Criterion/Janus film. I’d love to see both in better quality than the DVDs I own. But as I have seen both (in the case of Diva, maybe over a dozen times) they are not a priority- but I’d really kick myself if they disappear

 

[Cranston37+]

Thanks for the info - and link please!

The last list we had was "leaving November 30" which is obviously over now, so I'll have to check if it's still up. On the site and apps it's on the main page right below "newly added."

 

[Ted Todorov]

Thank you again!

I was just googling and there doesn’t seem to an easily findable way - in that respect, HBO for instance gives you an easy to find list about the coming departures.

 

[Cranston37+]

I was just googling and there doesn’t seem to an easily findable way - in that respect, HBO for instance gives you an easy to find list about the coming departures.

Again, it's right on the main page below "newly added." Can't miss it.

Here it is in the app:



And on the Apple TV: