We’ve always loved setting trends at The Film Stage and are accordingly chuffed that, nine months after we screened a 35mm print at the Roxy, Roman Polanski’s late-career triumph The Ghost Writer comes to the Criterion Channel in next month’s Coastal Thrillers, a series that does what it says on the tin: The Lady from Shanghai, Key Largo, The Long Goodbye, The Fog, and the other best film of 2010, Scorsese’s Shutter Island. It pairs well with Noir and the Blacklist (postwar realism, left-leaning artists) featuring films by Joseph Losey, Fritz Lang, Jules Dassin, and so on. Retrospectives are held for Terry Southern, Kathryn Bigelow, Jem Cohen, and (just in time for Caught By the Tides) Jia Zhangke, while Spike Lee gets his own Adventures In Moviegoing.
For recent restorations, Antonioni’s Il Grido and Anthony Harvey’s Dutchman appear. Criterion Editions include The Runner, Touchez pas au grisbi, Godzilla vs. Biollante, Paper Moon, and Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris. I’ll also note that Abel Ferrara’s Ukraine / Patti Smith doc Turn in the Wound makes a streaming debut, which for just about anybody is simply a debut.
See the full list of May titles and more at the Criterion Channel:
24 City, Jia Zhangke, 2008
Aerie, Jem Cohen, 2024
Anesthesia, Tim Blake Nelson, 2016
August Visitor, Ifeyinwa Arinze, 2023
Ballad of Philip Guston, Jem Cohen, 2022
Barbarella, Roger Vadim, 1968
The Beach, Danny Boyle, 2000
Benjamin Smoke, Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen, 2000
The Big Night, Joseph Losey, 1951
Birth of a Nation, Jem Cohen, 2017
Blue Steel, Kathryn Bigelow, 1990
Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan, 1981
The Breaking Point, Michael Curtiz, 1950
Chain, Jem Cohen, 2004
Copycat, Jon Amiel, 1995
Counting, Jem Cohen, 2015
Crossfire, Edward Dmytryk, 1947
Crossing Paths with Luce Vigo, Jem Cohen, 2010
The Deep, Peter Yates, 1977
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick, 1964
Dutchman, Anthony Harvey, 1966
Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper, 1969
End of the Road, Aram Avakian, 1970
Eye of God, Tim Blake Nelson, 1997
The Fog, John Carpenter, 1980
Free, Jem Cohen, 2007
Gerhard Richter Painting, Corinna Belz, 2011
The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski, 2010
The Grey Zone, Tim Blake Nelson, 2001*
Gun Crazy, Joseph H. Lewis, 1950
Hangmen Also Die!, Fritz Lang, 1943
The Hedonists, Jia Zhangke, 2016
He Ran All the Way, John Berry, 1951
Hero, Sylvia Chang, Joan Chen, and Li Shaohong, 2022
The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, Heiny Srour, 1974
Il grido, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1957
Insomnia, Christopher Nolan, 2002
Instrument, Jem Cohen, 1999
Intruder in the Dust, Clarence Brown, 1949
Joonam, Sierra Urich, 2023
The Keep, Michael Mann, 1983
The Lady from Shanghai, Orson Welles, 1947
The Lawless, Joseph Losey, 1950
Leaves of Grass, Tim Blake Nelson, 2009*
Leila and the Wolves, Heiny Srour, 1984
Little Flags, Jem Cohen, 2000
Long for the City, Jem Cohen, 2008
The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman, 1973
Lost Book Found, Jem Cohen, 1996
The Loveless, Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery, 1981
Lucky Three, Jem Cohen, 1997
The Magic Christian, Joseph McGrath, 1969*
Makeshift (for Mekas), Jem Cohen, 2019
Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke, 2015
Museum Hours, Jem Cohen, 2012
Nice Evening, Transmission Down, Jem Cohen, 2001
None Shall Escape, André De Toth, 1944
NYC Weights and Measures, Jem Cohen, 2005
O, Tim Blake Nelson, 2001*
Odds Against Tomorrow, Robert Wise, 1959
On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan, 1954
Opened Ending, Jem Cohen, 2020
Out of the Fog, Anatole Litvak, 1941
Paper Moon, Peter Bogdanovich, 1973*
The Passage Clock (for Walter Benjamin), Jem Cohen, 2008
Revive, Jia Zhangke, 2017
The Runner, Amir Naderi, 1984
Saving Face, Alice Wu, 2004*
Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese, 2010*
Still Life, Jia Zhangke, 2006*
Strange Days, Kathryn Bigelow, 1995
Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, Jia Zhangke, 2020*
Thieves’ Highway, Jules Dassin, 1949
Touchez pas au grisbi, Jacques Becker, 1954
A Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke, 2013
Tree Song, Jem Cohen, 2019
Try and Get Me!, Cy Endfield, 1950
Turn in the Wound, Abel Ferrara, 2024
Vox Populi, Jonas Mekas, 2018
Wild Things, John McNaughton, 1998
Workingman’s Death, Michael Glawogger, 2005
Xiao Shan Going Home, Jia Zhangke, 1995
*Available in the U.S. only
