10 All-Time Classics To Discover On The Criterion Channel
The term "classic" is obviously subjective, but the Criterion Collection seal of approval is just about the most respected among film aficionados.
Though the company's first dip into streaming with Turner Classic Movies' Filmstruck platform was a bust, Criterion came back with a vengeance last year with the sleek and stuffed Criterion Channel: A boon for those looking to educate themselves in the culture and history of film. Below, we list ten essential movies now streaming on The Criterion Channel.
10 City Lights (1931)
Following Charlie Chaplin's ever-lovable "Tramp" character through a series of ups and downs as he romances a blind woman (Virginia Cherrill) and befriends a millionaire alcoholic (Harry Myers), City Lights contains some of Chaplin's finest comedic work, as well an achingly earnest heart.
City Lights was Chaplin's first film to be produced after the industry started to widely embrace sound, but the star could only conceive of the film as a silent feature. Thank heavens he stuck to his guns, because not only has City Lights been widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, but one critic even went so far as to call its final scene "the greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid." Big words, but it summarizes the vital importance of Chaplin as not just a film artist, but a silent film artist: one who could convey the joys and despairs of human existence with a wink or a single, perfectly formed tear.
9 Rashomon (1950)
Many students and film scholars' introduction to Japanese cinema, Rashomon was also one of the first tastes American audiences at large had of the country's output when it premiered. It is based on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story "In A Grove," which presents a handful of wildly differing accounts of the murder of a samurai. The film was innovative in its use of this plot device which uses the perspectives of various characters to depict subjective, misleading, and contradictory re-tellings of the same central incident.
Though inarguably influential for coining what's now known as the "Rashomon effect" and introducing Japanese film to world, the film remains a compelling and essential mystery from one of the titans of international cinema.
8 Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Of the many caustic screen marvels written/directed by Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard is the most culturally indelible. From it's oft-imitated structure to Gloria Swanson's frequently parodied, almost tossed-off "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up..." there's a sense of the familiar that clings to the film despite most viewers only passing familiarity. One of the triumphs of classic Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard is a bone-chilling noir about the psychic toll of the dream factory's expiring golden age.
7 On the Waterfront (1954)
Winner of eight Academy Awards, On The Waterfront stars Marlon Brando stars as Terry Malloy, a once-promising boxer who took a fall to appease the ominously-named Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cob), a tough-as-nails union boss with mob connections. When Terry is instructed to pressure Joey, a popular dock worker, into silence to prevent him from testifying against Friendly, the young man ends up dead, sending Terry on a journey to right wrongs and wash his hands of the dirty dealings infecting his livelihood.
On the Waterfront's politics are often called into question, released as it was by Kazan following his naming of names to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare.
6 Jules and Jim (1962)
The celebrated French New Wave had already been churning along for a few years before Jules and Jim hit cinemas, but for many, it remains the signature film of the movement. Written and Directed by François Truffaut, the movie is loosely set around World War I and stars Henri Serre, Oskar Verner, and Jeanne Moreau as the three points of a doomed love triangle. One of the most iconic artists of the movement, Truffaut uses every trick in the New Wave director's bag (including freeze frames, news footage, and narration) to assemble a cinematic survey of all the things that made it so uniquely compelling.
5 8 ½ (1963)
The ultimate movie about making movies, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 is a perennial favorite amongst film people. This dark comedy stars Italian icon Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous director suffering from "director's block" while attempting in vain to get a sci-fi film off the ground. In a series of inspired surreal vignettes, we learn about Anselmi's life through the women in it: his muse, Claudia (Claudia Cardinale), his mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo), and his wife, Luisa (Anouk Aimée).
Fellini's film is about artistry under pressure, and its autobiographical nature makes it one of the boldest example of self-reflexivity ever committed to celluloid. 8 1/2 draws the curtain back on one of cinema's most brilliant minds and allows us to find ourselves smiling back.
4 A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
A "classic film" need not be serious or thought-provoking. Sometimes it simply needs to capture a cultural moment in all of its exuberance, and A Hard Day's Night is one such film. Portraying 36 hours in the lives of The Beatles, this musical comedy is a deliriously entertaining romp through swinging London with the biggest band of the 1960s.
A clever bit of marketing decades before the internet would make such things a novelty, A Hard Day's Night was even better than attending a Beatles concert—viewers got to hang with the fab four in a way hitherto unseen. It didn't matter that it was all fantasy, A Hard Day's Night was a major box office triumph and is often credited with inspiring the London spy thrillers and comedies to follow. It's also something akin to catching lightning in a bottle, because never since has a scripted comedy starring a musical group worked so well.
3 Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Pick any film out of Stanley Kubrick's resume and it's arguably a masterpiece, but Dr. Strangelove is top tier even for this nearly untouchable director. When a cracked U.S. Air Force General goes rogue and orders a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, The President and his collection of sycophants and bumblers assemble to counteract the potentially world-ending calamity.
A sparkling, acerbic, endlessly quotable satire featuring three performances by Peter Sellers and a supporting cast that includes George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens, Kubrick's film is rightly regarded as one of the greatest comedies ever made. One of the first films ever selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, Dr. Strangelove film is a still-potent piece of clear-eyed Cold War anxiety that grows funnier and more distressing by the day.
2 The Graduate (1967)
The Graduate is one of those American classics that it feels like everyone's seen, even if they haven't. Based on Charles Webb's 1963 novel of the same name, the film stars Dustin Hoffman as a young man tormented by the listlessness of post-college life who is seduced by an older woman (Anne Bancroft) before falling in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross).
Mike Nichols took home an Academy Award for directing, but the film's bold countercultural spirit is what keeps it alive today. The Graduate was a major hit, marking it as a landmark film not just of the transition between Old and New Hollywood, but as a paean to the soul of the youth who came of age during the Vietnam era and yearned for a world far different from that of their parents.
1 Raging Bull (1980)
In recent years, Martin Scorsese's films have been painted as derivative of themselves, but looking back at something like Raging Bull, it's important to remember how daring and formally inventive the man once was. Adapted by Paul Schrader from the memoir of Italian-American boxer Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull stars Robert De Niro in a transformative performance that nabbed him a second Oscar.
With blistering black and white cinematography by Michael Chapman and editing by Thelma Schoonmaker, Raging Bull remains a thrilling and often repulsive gut-punch of a film with a career-best turn from De Niro as an all-too-human monster