The Criterion Collection Complete

PANAHI, Jafar (Iran) It Was Just an Accident [2025] Spine #1317 4K In this Palme d’Or winner from the Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, a chance encounter sets in motion an urgent moral thriller. When a stranded driver (Ebrahim Azizi) walks into his shop, mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) believes he has come face-to-face with Eghbal, a notoriously brutal guard who tortured him during his political imprisonment. Gathering a band of fellow former inmates and other allies, Vahid sets out to take justice into his own hands—but does he have the right man? Shot in secret after Panahi’s longtime ban from filmmaking in his home country,  It Was Just an Accident  is a tour de force of sustained tension and mordant humor, provocatively shifting perspectives to examine vital questions of trauma and revenge. 103 minutes 5.1 Surround Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2026 Director/Writer Jafar Panahi  was 65 when he directed It Was Just an Accident . The Film Film Rating (0-60): 60 The Extra...

WATERS, John (United States) Desperate Living [1977] Spine #1316 4K Following the unrepentant outrageousness of  Pink Flamingos  and  Female Trouble ,  director John Waters brought his notorious trash trilogy to a fittingly twisted close with this antifascist fairy tale. After hysterical housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) murders her husband with the help of her fed-up housekeeper (Jean Hill), the newfound “sisters in crime” escape to the bizarro shantytown of Mortville, a depraved penal colony presided over by a despotic queen (Edith Massey) whose tyranny pushes her subjects to shocking revolt. Deviant cops, death by dog food, DIY surgery—Waters unleashes all this and more in an at once relentlessly warped and oddly moral vision of queer rebellion. 90 minutes Monaural Color 1:66:1 Criterion Release 2026 Director/Writer John Waters  was 31 when he directed Desperate Living . Other Waters films in the Collection: #863: Multiple Maniacs (1970) #1131: Pink Flamin...

WATERS, John (United States) Hairspray [1988] Spine #1315 4K After decades of pushing the boundaries of bad taste with his underground provocations, John Waters found surprising mainstream success with this infectiously irreverent rock-and-soul comedy. It’s 1962, and the only things bigger than the bouffant hairdos are the popular dance crazes sweeping the nation. When Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) shoots to stardom on a local TV dance party, her radical self-confidence and support for racial integration launch a movement that takes the city by storm. Costarring the inimitable Divine in a fiercely funny double role,  Hairspray  finds Waters marrying his wildly subversive sensibility with a newfound bubblegum sweetness for what may be his most irresistible film. 92 minutes 5.1 Surround Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2026 Director/Writer John Waters  was 42 when he directed Hairspray . Other Waters films in the Collection: #863: Multiple Maniacs (1970) #1131: ...

CHOLODENKO, Lisa (United States) High Art [1998] Spine #1314 4K In a revelatory performance, Ally Sheedy stars in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s debut feature, a wry and incisive look at the politics of the New York art scene wrapped in the guise of an emotionally spiky queer romance. When Lucy Berliner (Sheedy), a once prominent photographer who has retreated into a life of heroin abuse with her faded-actress lover (Patricia Clarkson), is rediscovered by Syd (Radha Mitchell), an up-and-coming editor at a photography magazine, professional ambition and personal attraction become dangerously entwined. Stripping away art-world glamour to tell a seductive yet troubling story of complicated human connection,  High Art  stands as an essential work of both queer and 1990s independent cinema. 102 minutes 5.1 Surround Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2026 Director/Writer Lisa Cholodenko  was 34 when she directed High Art . The Film Film Rating (0-60): 60 The Extras The Booklet ...

HONDO, Med (France) West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty [1979] Spine #1313 4K Mauritanian French firebrand Med Hondo puts colonialism itself on trial in this one-of-a-kind musical spectacular—a collective effort of unprecedented scale and ambition that proved a watershed event in African cinema. Aboard an enormous mock slave ship, Hondo stages a series of imaginative reenactments and intricately choreographed dance numbers that trace the devastating effects of French imperialism across centuries of enslavement and injustice. Beyond mere extravaganza,  West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty  is a stirring call to Pan-African independence and a dazzling yet critical reconception of an entire people’s history of oppression and rebellion. 116 minutes Monaural Color in French 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2026 Director/Writer Med Hondo  was 43 when he directed West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty . Other Hondo films in the Collection: #1049: Soleil Ô (1970...