9 Recent Titles That Prove the Criterion Collection Has Something for Everyone

Female Trouble
It’s gloriously incongruous that there now exists a 4K restoration of John Waters’ most notorious trash classic. It just shows that even Criterion isn’t afraid to get a little dirty. It’s the story of juvenile delinquent Dawn Davenport (played by the legendary drag star Devine), whose life of drugs, depravity, and murder begins when her mom and dad refuse to grant her heart’s desire, a pair of cha cha heels (parents: take note). Along the way she has a bratty child of her own, gets taken in by a fascist beauty salon, and becomes a model. It’s classic John Waters, and simply Divine.

Dietrich and von Sternberg in Hollywood
Hollywood director von Sternberg was tasked by Paramount executives with finding the next big star. He delivered, to put it mildly. Up-and-coming German actress Dietrich brought European mystery, a never-matched charisma, and a whole lot of sex with her when she teamed up the director for these six opulent masterpieces. Big name actors like Cary Grant and Gary Cooper are along for the ride, but it’s von Sternberg’s dreamlike and extravagant style and Dietrich’s incomparable presence that elevate these stunningly stylistic films.

Night of the Living Dead
And then, sometimes you want a movie with some brains. Night of the Living Dead is another work its makers probably never expected would get a high-definition release and star treatment from a label like Criterion. In the decades since its release, though, George Romero’s zombie classic has proved itself to be not only enduring, but influential. It proved that low-budget independent films, when done right, could succeed at the box office. It also continues to remind us how sharp and incisive a gory horror movie can be. On one level, it’s a claustrophobic zombie shocker. On another, it’s a sadly timeless allegory about humanity ripping itself apart through racial and cultural division. With lots of cool blood and gore.

The Age of Innocence
We have certain ideas of what a Martin Scorsese film should be, generally involving monsters and mean streets, but his output is as varied and accomplished as his career is long. Case in point: this lush adaption of Edith Wharton’s gilded age tragedy, The Age of Innocence. He gathered an impressive cast lead by Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer for a story about a scandalous love affair that’s more precisely about being hopelessly bound by societal norms and codes. It’s not that Scorsese abandons his key themes in exploring old New York society, but instead that he makes the case that class brutality is universal, whether on the mean streets or in the parlor.

A Matter of Life and Death
The phantasmagoric technicolor fantasies of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were positively made for the Criterion treatment. Here, an RAF pilot played by David Niven survives a jump from his burning plane, only to discover that the heavenly bureaucracy messed up: he was never supposed to live, and a messenger has arrived to collect him. This would be a problem under any circumstances, but the pilot has, in the meantime, fallen in love with an American radio operator. He’ll have to stand before all of heaven in order to make the case that love is more powerful than death, and that he should be allowed to stick around. The scenes on Earth are lush and colorful, while the afterlife is a stark and uniquely modern vision.

Bull Durham
Ron Shelton, himself a former minor league baseball player, made his directorial debut with what became one of the most beloved sports films of all time. He also wrote the smart, brisk, and mature screenplay about Druham Bulls groupie Susan Sarandon, who finds herself torn between young hotshot Tim Robbins and veteran catcher Kevin Costner. The film made or bolstered the stars of the three leads, and stands as an all-time American great.

Midnight Cowboy
British director John Schlesinger made a distinctly American masterpiece in this story of Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a Texan who dreams of New York City, and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman, a New York conman who only wants to be in Florida. The two hustlers work the streets of NYC, encountering a cross-section of late-60s urban America. Despite an X-rating (largely for daring to mention homosexuality), the film was a major success and won a best picture Oscar. It was also a crucial step toward the more frank and naturalistic American films of the 1970s.

The Silence of the Lambs
Oh, Clarice. Jonathan Demme’s adaption of the Thomas Harris serial killer crime novel has become so much a part of the culture,the key bits have become shorthand: everyone knows what organ pairs best with fava beans and a nice chianti. But the movie is much more than the sum of the references it created: it’s a taut, tense, psychological thriller that’s as much a police procedural as a contest of wills between the smart, well-meaning, but damaged FBI agent played by Jodie Foster and the brutal but effortlessly charming cannibal she enlists to help her. There’s a reason why the film won every award imaginable, and this new restoration provides a delicious excuse to revisit it.

The Breakfast Club
Finally, one more film that probably never imagined itself in the pantheon. With The Breakfast Club, John Hughes established himself as the preeminent chronicler of American youth in the ’80s. It was popular at the time, with an utterly flawless cast of future Rat Pack royalty: Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy all find themselves in Saturday detention.Despite all of the trappings of the Me Decade, The Breakfast Club stands the test of time because it touches on universal experiences of teenager-dom that transcend time. It’s a movie that brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses, and criminals can all enjoy.
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