The Best Warm Movies to Watch on Criterionchannel

While the market for animation is mostly dominated by American 3D and Japanese anime, once in a while, a film outside the two industries comes up with an entirely new style of its own, with the design inspired by their respective countries. European animation has garnered some interest with Loving Vincent, but Chicken with Linda! […]

Like people, places have things that change and things that remain the same. Most of us keep our thoughts about our hometowns to wistful conversations and the recesses of our memory, but Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho instead captures Recife in Pictures of Ghosts. It’s a meandering tour, shifting from topic to topic, place to […]

In his last film, American Serb film historian Peter Bogdanovich celebrates silver screen legend Buster Keaton. The subject alone is compelling to watch. It would be easy to pull clips from Keaton’s works, dig through the headlines, pull in some celebrity interviews, and call it a day. However, in Bogdanovich’s hands, this documentary handles Keaton […]

Without context, Minbo, or the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion seemed like a goofy satire, especially when the silly trumpet score pops up, and unfortunate hotel employees Suzuki and Wakasugi flounder around trying to solve the hotel’s yakuza problem on their own. And when Nobuko Miyamoto shows up as the brilliant lawyer, it’s so satisfying […]

The sunniest installment of Éric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons series is a sly, slow burn of a character study. Everything looks sensuously beautiful in the honey-toned French sunshine, except for the ugly egotism of Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud), the full extent of which is gradually revealed over the film’s runtime to amusing — if […]

Sometimes, in life, we’re forced to be with people we don’t immediately get along with, like in the classroom, the workplace, or, if you’re unlucky, in a jail cell. Down by Law is black-and-white drama focused on three men in a jail cell, two of them outright hating each other, but not as much as […]

When Castro took over Cuba in the 1950s, Havana’s nightlife shifted as clubs and casinos were closed down, leading to certain traditional step-based genres like son, bolero, and danzón to decline. A few decades later, prominent American musician Ry Cooder travelled to Cuba with his friend documentarian Wim Wenders, to pay homage to traditional Cuban […]

After an initially disappointing breakthrough attempt to Hollywood, Jackie Chan pivoted back to Hong Kong, unexpectedly creating an iconic film franchise and maybe perhaps one of the best martial arts movies ever made. Police Story seems to be a simple story at first, but it was through this film that Chan’s spectacular stunts evolved for […]

The entirety of Pieces of April takes place on Thanksgiving Day, a busy holiday meant to bring loved ones together. Sure enough, April, the eldest Burns daughter, takes great pains to prepare a nice dinner for her visiting family. But we soon learn that she is motivated less by excitement than by dread: she’s long […]

An absolute delight of a gem starring a young Winona Ryder as well as an amazing cast. Arguably Jim Jarmusch’s best film, it tells the story of 5 different places at night from the perspective of cab drivers and their passengers: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. It’s really hard to pick a […]

Grand gestures, over-the-top declarations of love, and elaborate gifts… These normal romcom acts can sometimes make it seem that romance can only be done by the wealthy. But, in reality, love can happen anytime, and the first film of Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy suggests that love is ultimately necessary in a world where two lovers […]

New York, especially in older movies, seems to be an enchanting place with endless possibilities, as long as you’re willing to put in the work. With Hong Kong’s handover to China, it’s no wonder plenty of Hong Kong natives decided to emigrate to the Big Apple. That being said, this experience isn’t always smooth. Mabel […]

Kindness is universally considered as a virtue, but so too is it considered a weakness– Reciprocation isn’t necessarily guaranteed and some people take advantage of the kindness given to them. But there are few instances when humanity does give back to those who have been generous to others, and one such instance is in Beijing […]