Criterion Collection Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

While Criterion devotes itself to essential classics and contemporary films, in a rare but not unprecedented move, the boutique DVD/Blu-Ray cinephile label is adding some TV to its collection in June. Just announced, Barry Jenkins’ ten-episode “Underground Railroad” mini-series, originally having premiered on Prime Video in 2021, is coming to the Criterion Collection this summer.

Tom Cruise has finally entered The Criterion Collection. While technically, “Cocktail” has been available on the Criterion Channel in the past (no, really), in announcing its July titles today, Criterion made Cruise’s inclusion with a DVD/Blu-Ray title official today with the addition of 1983’s classic comedy, “Risky Business,” the actor’s breakthrough film.

While the movie industry seemingly buckles, Disney’s seemingly cutting back on any physical media anymore, and Best Buy is apparently ending its run of selling DVDs and Blu-Rays, companies like the Criterion Collection are staying the course. As usual, the boutique, cinephile-friendly company always aims to release and rediscover classic movies in the annals of film history, and they’re doing much the same with their May 2024 announcements.

The Criterion Collection is constantly curating and adding the best and brightest of cinema to its collection, but its April 2024 is pretty stellar and adds two classic films that haven’t been in the collection previously that really deserved to be there. The first film added to the collection in April is notable because of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr.

You know what time it is: time for a Criterion Collection update with their newly announced November releases. Two significant highlights anchor November: a six-film Jackie Chan box-set, “Jackie Chan: Emergence Of A Superstar,” and Martin Scorsese’s classic low-level gangster film “Mean Streets.” “Mean Streets” needs little introduction.

Before “The Underground Railroad.” Before “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Before his Best Picture-winning “Moonlight,” there was “Medicine for Melancholy.” The debut feature from writer/director Barry Jenkins, “Medicine for Melancholy” is a mumblecore journey through the streets of San Francisco shared by Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo (Tracey Heggins), two brief lovers who share a day together after a one-night stand.  Released in 2008, the low-budget film captures a specific moment in San Francisco before it gentrified from a vibrant denizen for young artists into a moneyed landscape composed of tech giants.

Every month, the Criterion Collection adds a few more excellent titles to its esteemed library and restores ones that already CC titles for a rerelease or two. And in March 2023, it’s none other than David Lynch‘s “Inland Empire“ that frontlines the new release.

The summer is known for big studio blockbusters, but for many fans of The Criterion Collection, releases are in store for something special in June as they’ve announced six additions are coming in glorious 4K UHD. Criterion presents a group of films that includes Joachim Trier’s charming Oscar contender, “The Worst Person in the World”; Hong Kong master Stanley Kwan’s romantic ghost story, “Rouge”; Ekwa Msangi’s remarkable debut feature debut, “Farewell Amor”; and “Shaft,” the blaxploitation action-hero classic from Gordon Parks that helped launched serious black-led action films, now on 4K UHD.

It is too easy to throw superlatives around when talking about filmmakers. Many directors with a decent enough filmography, who have been around long enough to be forgotten about can attain such a status.

Sometimes it takes more than a decade for a feature to be added to the Criterion Collection. Other times, it could be 60-plus years.

The Criterion Collection prides itself on curating fantastic classic cinephile-friendly films that may have gone under-the-radar in the home release market and their upcoming Blu-Ray release won’t be any different. Criterion has announced that they’ll be putting together an essential collection of Melvin Van Peebles movies with their latest offering, “Melvin Van Peebles: Four Films” set to be released on September 28.

Lizzie Borden’s groundbreaking film “Working Girls” is coming back to theaters. The project, detailing the lives of sex workers, approaches the topic with a seldom-seen motivation towards removing stigmas.

Another month, another array of Criterion Collection releases, and it’s a particularly great month of releases. First up, a crown jewel from the Howard Hawks’ oeuvre, the legendary screwball comedy “Bringing Up Baby” with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Filmmaker Wong Kar Wai exists in liminal spaces— the pauses between words, the gaps between cultures, the chance encounters between strangers who will become lovers or almost become lovers before they’re strangers again. His films are about potential, not expiation; his characters are each “about to,” and that they don’t know that is heartbreaking.

Just in time for Oscar season, Amazon Studios is bringing three of its award contenders to the Criterion Collection, the first time the studio’s had a movie make it to the collection since 2018. READ MORE: ‘Fast Times,’ ‘Nightmare Alley’ & More Join The Criterion Collection In May IndieWire reports that Darius Marder‘s “Sound of Metal,” Regina King‘s “One Night in Miami,” and Garrett Bradley‘s “Time” will join the prestigious Criterion Collection.

While 2020 forced many of us to rely on streaming more than ever before, due to cinemas shutting down, physical media remains both relevant, and the best way to acquire and watch films. This is to say that the monthly release announcements by The Criterion Collection are always worth being excited about, and April 2021 is no different.

Alberto Lattuada, the Italian filmmaker who generously supplied Federico Fellini’s first director’s credit for 1950’s “Variety Lights,” once claimed that he “invented Fellini.” His peer, Massimo Mida, disputed this, noting that if anyone invented il Maestro, it was legendary Italian auteur Roberto Rossellini. Respectfully, they’re both wrong.

Another month begins, another announcement from the Criterion Collection, with all the wares they’ll be hocking in the new year. The company has released thousands of classic films over the years, but even deep into their massive collection, still find more masterpieces to add.

“The director that shakes me and moves me most is Wong Kar-wai.

The Criterion Collection could easily take a month off in 2020, maybe two, and rest easy at winning the title for best cinephile DVD/Blu-Ray company (how many years in a row they’ve already won that title is something we’ll leave you to debate with friends).

The pandemic might be killing us and all our businesses, but you know who seems unaffected? The Criterion Collection who are having a killer 2020 so far. Not only have they made moves like scoring Neon’s Academy Award Best Picture winner “Parasite” just a few short months after it won the Oscar, but they’re having a field day with box sets like the Agnes Varda complete set and the upcoming Federico Fellini set.

Evoking realism, hyperrealism, and the surreal, Elem Klimov’s nightmarish, technically marvelous 1985 movie “Come and See,” is a mesmerizing and legendary, if little-seen, WWII masterpiece that finally received its due earlier this summer thanks to the Criterion Collection.

In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, home video curator and distributor the Criterion Collection has taken down the paywalls for many of its films by and about black lives.