The Criterion Collection Complete

NAIR, Mira (United States) Mississippi Masala [1991] Spine #1127 Blu-ray The vibrant cultures of India, Uganda, and the American South come together in Mira Nair’s  Mississippi Masala,  a luminous look at the complexities of love in the modern melting pot. Years after her Indian family was forced to flee their home in Uganda by the dictatorship of Idi Amin, twentysomething Mina (Sarita Choudhury) spends her days cleaning rooms in an Indian-run motel in Mississippi. When she falls for the charming Black carpet cleaner Demetrius (Denzel Washington), their passionate romance challenges the prejudices of both of their families and exposes the rifts between the region’s Indian and African American communities. Tackling thorny issues of racism, colorism, culture clash, and displacement with bighearted humor and keen insight, Nair serves up a sweet, sexy, and deeply satisfying celebration of love’s power. 117 minutes Color 2.0 Surround in English and Swahili 1:85:1 aspect ratio ...

WILDER, Billy (United States) Double Indemnity [1944] Spine #1126 Blu-ray Has dialogue ever been more perfectly hard-boiled? Has a femme fatale ever been as deliciously evil as Barbara Stanwyck? And has 1940s Los Angeles ever looked so seductively sordid? Working with cowriter Raymond Chandler, director Billy Wilder launched himself onto the Hollywood A-list with this paragon of film-noir fatalism from James M. Cain’s pulp novel. When slick salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) walks into the swank home of dissatisfied housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), he intends to sell her insurance, but he winds up becoming entangled with her in a far more sinister way. Featuring scene-stealing supporting work from Edward G. Robinson and the chiaroscuro of cinematographer John F. Seitz,  Double Indemnity  is one of the most wickedly perverse stories ever told and the cynical standard by which all noir must be measured. 108 minutes Black and White Monaural 1:37:1 aspect ratio C...

ITAMI, Juzo (Japan) The Funeral [1984] Spine #1125 Blu-ray It’s death, Japanese style, in the rollicking and wistful first feature from maverick writer-director Juzo Itami. In the wake of her father’s sudden passing, a successful actor (Itami’s wife and frequent collaborator, Nobuko Miyamoto) and her lascivious husband (Tsutomu Yamazaki) leave Tokyo and return to her family home to oversee a traditional funeral. Over the course of three days of mourning that bring illicit escapades in the woods, a surprisingly materialistic priest (Chishu Ryu), and cinema’s most epic sandwich handoff, the tensions between public propriety and private hypocrisy are laid bare. Deftly weaving dark comedy with poignant family drama,  The Funeral  is a fearless satire of the clash between old and new in Japanese society in which nothing, not even the finality of death, is off-limits. 124 minutes Color Monaural in Japanese 1:33:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2022 Director/Writers Juzo Ita...

WANG, Wayne (United States) Chan Is Missing [1982] Spine #1124 Blu-ray A mystery man, a murder, and a wad of missing cash—in his wryly offbeat breakthrough, Wayne Wang updates the ingredients of classic film noir for the streets of contemporary San Francisco’s Chinatown. When their business partner disappears with the money they had planned to use for a cab license, driver Jo (Wood Moy) and his nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi) scour the city’s back alleys, waterfronts, and Chinese restaurants to track him down. But what begins as a search for a missing man gradually turns into a far deeper and more elusive investigation into the complexities and contradictions of Chinese American identity. The first feature by an Asian American filmmaker to play widely and get mainstream critical appreciation,  Chan Is Missing  is a continuously fresh and surprising landmark of indie invention that playfully flips decades of cinematic stereotypes on their heads. 75 minutes Black and White Monau...

LOSEY, Joseph (France) Mr. Klein [1976] Spine #1123 Blu-ray One of the crowning achievements of blacklisted Hollywood director Joseph Losey’s European exile, the spellbinding modernist mystery  Mr. Klein  puts a chilling twist on the wrong-man thriller. Alain Delon delivers a standout performance as Robert Klein, a decadent art dealer in Paris during World War II who makes a tidy profit buying up paintings from his desperate Jewish clients. As Klein searches for a Jewish man with the same name for whom he has been mistaken, he finds himself plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which his identity seems to dissolve and the forces of history to close in on him. Met with considerable controversy on its release for its portrayal of the real-life wrongdoings of the Vichy government, this haunting, disturbingly beautiful film shivers with existential dread as it traces a society’s descent into fascistic fear and inhumanity. 123 minutes Color Monaural in French 1:66:1 aspect rat...

TATI, Jacques (France) Tati Shorts [1934-1978] No spine # Blu-ray Jacques Tati’s career, which stretched from the midthirties to the late seventies, encompasses more than just the six features for which he’s best known. The charming short films he wrote or directed are essential parts of his filmography as well. Collected here, they include three wacky 1930s comedies he wrote and starred in — On demande une brute (1934), Gai dimanche (1935), and Soigne ton gauche (1936) — and two later films he directed and starred in: L’école des facteurs (1946), which introduces the postman character reprised in Jour de fête , and Cours du soir (1967), made during the filming of PlayTime . We’re also pleased to present D égustation maison (1977), a C ésar-winning short by Tati’s daughter Sophie Tatischeff, short in the town from  Jour de fête , and Forza Bastia (1978), a soccer documentary begun by Tati and completed by Tatischeff after his death. CHARLES BARROIS: On demande une brute (1934) JA...