Starting April 1, Criterion Channel will be adding new content including EROTIC THRILLERS, a David Lynch series featuring new restorations of INLAND EMPIRE and LOST HIGHWAY, plus the exclusive streaming premiere of Debbie Tucker Green’s EAR FOR EYE, and more…
Premiering April 1
Sleekly stylish, deliriously plotted, and unabashedly steamy, the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and ’90s are both the ultimate guilty pleasure and an illuminating reflection of an era’s changing attitudes toward sex on-screen. As the ’70s came to a close, with studio filmmaking in decline, home video and cable on the rise, and new X-rated movies ushering in an era of “porno chic,” Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers began pushing boundaries to cash in and create popular films that could never have been made before. Often dismissed as disreputable byproducts of the video-store era, these carnal classics can now be seen as rich cultural texts, laden with tantalizing ideas about gender, the relationship between sex and violence, and the cinematic gaze. Encompassing masterful genre deconstructions by directors such as Brian De Palma (Body Double), Paul Schrader (The Comfort of Strangers), and the Wachowskis (Bound) as well as lesser-known titles now ripe for reappraisal (Color of Night, Dream Lover, Fleshtone), these late-night cable staples are journeys into our collective fears and fantasies.
Dressed to Kill, Brian De Palma, 1980
Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan, 1981
Crimes of Passion, Ken Russell, 1984
Body Double, Brian De Palma, 1984
The Bedroom Window, Curtis Hanson, 1987
Sister, Sister, Bill Condon, 1987
Call Me, Sollace Mitchell, 1988
The Comfort of Strangers, Paul Schrader, 1990
Poison Ivy, Katt Shea, 1992
Dream Lover, Nicholas Kazan, 1993
Color of Night, Richard Rush, 1994
Criminal Passion, Donna Deitch, 1994
Fleshtone, Harry Hurwitz, 1994
The Last Seduction, John Dahl, 1994
Jade, William Friedkin, 1995
Bound, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, 1996
Coming May 1
Single White Female, Barbet Schroeder, 1992
Coming June 1
Basic Instinct, Paul Verhoeven, 1992
Directed by David Lynch
A director of such distinctive, overpowering vision that he has inspired his own adjective, David Lynch makes films that seem telegraphed straight from his unconscious to the screen. Now streaming for the first time, Lynch’s newly restored masterpieces Lost Highway and Inland Empire, as well as a one-month-only limited engagement of his sui generis sci-fi epic Dune, join this retrospective of his mind-altering work. From the unsettling surrealist imagery of his midnight-movie classic Eraserhead to the harrowing suburban nightmare Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me to the Hollywood Dream Factory odyssey Mulholland Dr., Lynch’s labyrinthine puzzle boxes turn the American psyche inside out to reveal its deepest, darkest dimensions.
Eraserhead, 1977
Dune, 1984
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, 1992
Lost Highway, 1997
Mulholland Dr., 2001
Inland Empire, 2006
Coming May 1
The Elephant Man, 1980*
Starring Harold Lloyd
Featuring the documentary Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius
One hundred years ago, Harold Lloyd gave the movies one of their most meme-able moments—the anxious, thrilling, clock-hanging climax of Safety Last!, a film that still stands as a high-water mark of slapstick invention. Though often overlooked in favor of his more famous silent-clown contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the bespectacled everyman was easily the equal of those legends in both hilarity and hair-raising derring-do. From the football-field antics of The Freshman to the freewheeling New York odyssey of Speedy, Lloyd’s innovative and endearing classics are packed wall-to-wall with some of the funniest and most unforgettable sight gags ever realized on film.
FEATURES
A Sailor-Made Man, Fred Newmeyer, 1921
Dr. Jack, Fred Newmeyer, 1922
Grandma’s Boy, Fred Newmeyer, 1922
Safety Last!, Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923
Why Worry?, Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923
Girl Shy, Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1924
The Freshman, Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer, 1925
For Heaven’s Sake, Sam Taylor, 1926
The Kid Brother, Ted Wilde, 1927
Speedy, Ted Wilde, 1928
Welcome Danger, Clyde Bruckman, 1929
Feet First, Clyde Bruckman, 1930
Movie Crazy, Clyde Bruckman, 1932
The Cat’s Paw, Sam Taylor, 1934
The Milky Way, Leo McCarey, 1936
Harold Lloyd’s Funny Side of Life, Harry Kerwin, 1963
SHORTS
Bashful, Alfred J. Goulding, 1917
The Big Idea, Gilbert Pratt and Hal Mohr, 1917
By the Sad Sea Waves, Alfred J. Goulding, 1917
Lonesome Luke, Messenger, Hal Roach, 1917
Over the Fence, J. Farrell MacDonald and Harold Lloyd, 1917
A Gasoline Wedding, Alfred J. Goulding, 1918
Look Pleasant, Please, Alfred J. Goulding, 1918
Take a Chance, Alfred J. Goulding, 1918
That’s Him, Gilbert Pratt, 1918
Ask Father, Hal Roach, 1919
Billy Blazes, Esq., Hal Roach, 1919
Bumping into Broadway, Hal Roach, 1919
Captain Kidd’s Kids, Hal Roach, 1919
Just Neighbors, Harold Lloyd and Frank Terry, 1919
The Marathon, Alfred J. Goulding, 1919
Next Aisle Over, Hal Roach, 1919
A Sammy in Siberia, Hal Roach, 1919
Spring Fever, Hal Roach, 1919
Young Mr. Jazz, Hal Roach, 1919
An Eastern Westerner, Hal Roach, 1920
Get Out and Get Under, Hal Roach, 1920
Haunted Spooks, Hal Roach and Alfred J. Goulding, 1920
High and Dizzy, Hal Roach, 1920
His Royal Slyness, Hal Roach, 1920
Number, Please?, Hal Roach and Fred Newmeyer, 1920
Never Weaken, Fred Newmeyer, 1921
Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons
The seasons may change, but the folly of the human heart is constant in this ineffably lovely quartet by one of cinema’s most perceptive chroniclers of the pangs and perils of romance, Eric Rohmer. By turns comic and melancholic, breezy and richly philosophical, these bittersweet tales of love, longing, and the inevitable misunderstandings that shape human relationships probe the most complex of emotions with the utmost grace. Never before available on streaming or home video, this cycle of newly restored wonders marks a major rediscovery.
A Tale of Springtime, 1990
A Tale of Winter, 1992
A Tale of Summer, 1996
A Tale of Autumn, 1998
Short films by Fanta Régina Nacro
The first woman from Burkina Faso to direct a narrative film, Fanta Régina Nacro addresses complex social issues with a gently subversive, lightly comic touch. Tackling everything from AIDS and sexual health to gender roles and relations to the evolving place of tradition within the modern world, her engaging, playfully eye-opening films both reflect and critique the realities of a patriarchal society in which bold women gradually push change forward.
A Certain Morning, 1992
Puk nini, 1995
Konate’s Gift, 1997
Bintou, 2001
Exclusive Streaming Premieres
ear for eye
With this riveting adaptation of her acclaimed play, debbie tucker green pushes the boundaries of stage and screen alike. Dynamic, absorbing, and visually inventive, ear for eye traces racial injustice across time and continents, detailing stories of struggle and triumph, oppression and uprising. This powerful, astonishingly realized film explores questions of demonstration vs. direct action, violence vs. nonviolence, the personal vs. the structural, boasting a brilliant soundtrack from artists including Run the Jewels, FKA twigs, and Kano.
Criterion Collection Editions
Lost Highway: Criterion Collection Edition #1152
A mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity, David Lynch’s postmodern noir is one of the filmmaker’s most potent cinematic dreamscapes.
SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: The feature-length documentary Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch (1997); interviews with Lynch and actors Patricia Arquette, Bill Pullman, and Robert Loggia; new director-supervised picture and sound restoration; and more.
Inland Empire: Criterion Collection Edition #1175
The role of a lifetime, a Hollywood mystery, a woman in trouble . . . David Lynch weaves a vast meditation on the enigmas of time, identity, and cinema itself.
SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: A conversation between actors Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan; seventy-five minutes of extra scenes; LYNCH (one) and LYNCH2, two documentaries by blackANDwhite, the makers of David Lynch: The Art Life; new director-supervised picture and sound restoration; and more.
Faya dayi: Criterion Collection Edition #1141
Jessica Beshir’s trancelike documentary is a ravishing sensory experience that hovers between consciousness and dreaming.
SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: Three short films by Beshir and a selected-scene commentary featuring Beshir and poet Ladan Osman.
Dressed to Kill: Criterion Collection Edition #770
Brian De Palma ascended to the highest ranks of American suspense filmmaking with this virtuoso, explicit erotic thriller.
SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: A conversation between De Palma and Noah Baumbach, a documentary on the making of the film, interviews with cast and crew members, and more.
The Comfort of Strangers: Criterion Collection Edition #1041
An unsettling, sadomasochistic seduction plays out under the carefully controlled direction of Paul Schrader in this elegant thriller.
SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: Interviews with Schrader, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, actors Christopher Walken and Natasha Richardson, novelist Ian McEwan, and editor Bill Pankow.
Criterion Originals
Spotlight on Kwaidan
In the latest installment of our Spotlight series, critic and author Grady Hendrix explores Masaki Kobayashi’s rapturous anthology of ghost stories, a meticulously crafted, existentially frightening tribute to Japanese folklore.
Short Films
Prismatic Ground Presents
One of the most creative and galvanizing venues for film exhibition to emerge during the pandemic, Prismatic Ground is a festival centered on the intersection between experimental and documentary film. This selection of shorts from its first two editions, in April 2021 and May 2022, offer an eclectic cross section of aesthetically and politically radical work. Highlighting filmmakers whose approach to image-making eschews traditional narrative in favor of abstraction and sensation—and whose techniques span animation, archival collage, 16 mm photography, and digital technology—Prismatic Ground shows how avant-garde techniques can be deployed to confront violent histories of colonialism, genocide, and capitalism, introducing audiences to a cinema of radical potential. The additions from year two confront topics as varied as addiction, ritual, family, and loss with rigorous attention to form and breathtaking emotional power.
2022 Shorts
Home When You Return, Carl Elsasser, 2021
Madness Remixed, Rhea Storr, 2021
Squish!, Tulapop Saenjaroen, 2021
Strangers, Rajee Samarasinghe, 2022
Declarations of Love, Tiff Rekem, 2022
Heron 1954–2002, Alexis McCrimmon, 2022
Maman Brigitte, Ayanna Dozier, 2022
Oliver Sees Indigo, Ryan Clancy, 2022
Three Songs Without Z., Karthik Pandian and Andros Zins-Browne, 2022
We Knew How Beautiful They Were, These Islands, Younes Ben Slimane, 2022
2021 Shorts
Loose Corner, Anita Thacher, 1986
Reckless Eyeballing, Christopher Harris, 2004
Maat, Fox Maxy, 2020
A New England Document, Che Applewhaite, 2020
Letter From Your Far-Off Country, Suneil Sanzgiri, 2020
A Demonstration, Sahsa Litvintseva and Beny Wager, 2020
my favorite software is being here, Alison Nguyen, 2021
Two Sons and a River of Blood, Amber Bemak and Angelo Madsen Minax, 2021
Melting Snow, Janah Elise Cox, 2021
Bodies in Dissent, Ufuoma Essi, 2021
Short Films by David Lynch
Delve deeper into the labyrinthine psyche of surrealist nightmare-weaver David Lynch with these unsettling, hallucinatory shorts that reflect the origins and evolution of his singular style. Spanning the early experimental and painterly works that laid the foundation for his cult sensation Eraserhead through his darkly absurdist web animation series DumbLand, these films are replete with the sinister, uncanny imagery that could have emerged only from an artist so deeply in tune with his subconscious.
Six Men Getting Sick, 1967
The Alphabet, 1968
The Grandmother, 1970
The Amputee (Version 1), 1974
The Amputee (Version 2), 1974
Premonitions Following an Evil Deed, 1995
DumbLand (Episodes 1–8), 2002
Filipiñana
The self-contained cosmos of a country-club golf course serves as a microcosm of Filipino society in this sharply observed miniature. New “tee-girl” Isabel still has to learn the rules—but she is already looking for loopholes to subvert the system.
So We Live
In this claustrophobic study of life during wartime, a family in a conflict-ravaged country spends what seems to be a normal evening together. Their conversations shift between casual matters of daily life and survival, a contrast that highlights the fragility of existence and our time together.
Saturday Matinees
Good Morning, Miss Dove
Jennifer Jones plays the titular New England schoolmarm in this slice of unabashedly nostalgic Americana at its most endearing.
New Additions to Previous Programs
Now Playing in Ari Aster’s Adventures in Moviegoing: Songs from the Second Floor
Acclaimed director Ari Aster—whose latest film, Beau Is Afraid, comes out April 21—introduces this modern classic, a singular, mordantly funny series of vignettes from Swedish existentialist Roy Andersson.
Encores
Back by Popular Demand
Don’t miss these viewer favorites, returning to the Channel in April!
In a Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray, 1950
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Werner Herzog, 1972
The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell, 1973
The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy, 1973
Manhunter, Michael Mann, 1986
Complete list of films premiering on the Criterion Channel this month:
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Werner Herzog, 1972
Ballerina, David Lynch, 2007
Bashful, Alfred J. Goulding, 1917
The Big Idea, Gilbert Pratt and Hal Mohr, 1917
Bintou, Fanta Régina Nacro, 2001
Body Double, Brian De Palma, 1984
Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan, 1981
Bound, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, 1996*
By the Sad Sea Waves, Alfred J. Goulding, 1917
Call Me, Sollace Mitchell, 1988
A Certain Morning, Fanta Régina Nacro, 1992
Color of Night, Richard Rush, 1994
Crimes of Passion, Ken Russell, 1984
Criminal Passion, Donna Deitch, 1994
Declarations of Love, Tiff Rekem, 2022
Dream Lover, Nicholas Kazan, 1993
Dressed to Kill, Brian De Palma, 1980
Dune, David Lynch, 1984*
ear for eye, debbie tucker green, 2021
Faya dayi, Jessica Beshir, 2021
Filipiñana, Rafael Manuel, 2020
Fleshtone, Harry Hurwitz, 1994
A Gasoline Wedding, Alfred J. Goulding, 1918
Get Out and Get Under, Hal Roach, 1920
Good Morning, Miss Dove, Henry Koster, 1955
Grandma’s Boy, Fred Newmeyer, 1922
Harold Lloyd’s Funny Side of Life, Harry Kerwin, 1963
The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell, 1973
Haunted Spooks, Hal Roach and Alfred J. Goulding, 1920
Heron 1954–2002, Alexis McCrimmon, 2022
Home When You Return, Carl Elsasser, 2021
In a Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray, 1950
Inland Empire, 2006
Jade, William Friedkin, 1995*
Konate’s Gift, Fanta Régina Nacro, 1997
The Last Seduction, John Dahl, 1994
Lonesome Luke, Messenger, Hal Roach, 1917
Look Pleasant, Please, Alfred J. Goulding, 1918
Lost Highway, David Lynch, 1997
LYNCH (one), blackANDwhite, 2007
LYNCH2, blackANDwhite, 2007
Madness Remixed, Rhea Storr, 2021
Maman Brigitte, Ayanna Dozier, 2022
Manhunter, Michael Mann, 1986*
Mulholland Dr., David Lynch, 2001
Next Aisle Over, Hal Roach, 1919
Oliver Sees Indigo, Ryan Clancy, 2022
Over the Fence, J. Farrell MacDonald and Harold Lloyd, 1917
Poison Ivy, Katt Shea, 1992
Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch, Toby Keeler, 1997
Puk nini, Fanta Régina Nacro, 1995
A Sailor-Made Man, Fred Newmeyer, 1921
A Sammy in Siberia, Hal Roach, 1919
Sister, Sister, Bill Condon, 1987
Songs from the Second Floor, Roy Andersson, 2000
So We Live, Rand Abou Fakher, 2021
Spring Fever, Hal Roach, 1919
Squish!, Tulapop Saenjaroen, 2021
Strangers, Rajee Samarasinghe, 2022
A Tale of Autumn, Eric Rohmer, 1998
A Tale of Springtime, Eric Rohmer, 1990
A Tale of Summer, Eric Rohmer, 1996
A Tale of Winter, Eric Rohmer, 1998
That’s Him, Gilbert Pratt, 1918
Three Songs Without Z., Karthik Pandian and Andros Zins-Browne, 2022
We Knew How Beautiful They Were, These Islands, Younes Ben Slimane, 2022
Wicker Man, Robin Hardy, 1973
*Available in the U.S. only
