Our Criterion List
Having recently spent some serious time on the Criterion website, we eventually found a page with a cool archive of lists. Each page, put together by a celebrity (be them a director, actor, musician or other), listed the person's 10 favorite films from the Criterion catalog. Some wrote at length about each movie, some said almost nothing, just choosing to list their favorites.
Big fans of the Criterion Collection ourselves, we took a look through the 550+ title catalog and picked out some of our favorites. Our list isn't a ranking of our favorite films in the catalog, per se, but rather, a list of our favorite Criterion editions, taking into account transfer quality, extras and packaging. So here it is, the Top 30 Criterion titles that get us all hot and bothered ...
30. The Third Man (Carol Reed)
29. My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant)
28. A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
27. Slacker (Richard Linklater)
26. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes)
25. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel)
24. Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman)
23. Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant)
22. If … (Lindsay Anderson)
21. Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
20. George Washington (David Gordon Green)
19. Band of Outsiders (Jeal-Luc Godard)
18. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
17. Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch)
16. The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
15. Walkabout (Nic Roeg)
14. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)
13. Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
12. The Hit (Stephen Frears)
11. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
10. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes)
9. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)
8. Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah)
7. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)
6. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick)
5. Naked (Mike Leigh)
4. Rusmore (Wes Anderson)
3. The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
2. Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
1. The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nic Roeg)
Go HERE to see the full catalog. Go HERE to see the celebrity lists. Click HERE to send us your own Top 10!
Written by G. William Locke