7 Criterion Movies to Binge-Watch This Weekend (While You Still Can)
The bad news: we'll no longer have access to 350 online streaming Criterion videos after this Friday. (Please read this post for all the details we've got.)
The good news:
a) You'll still have access to 50 of the most popular Criterion films through our (seriously excellent) Kanopy streaming service. (Don't worry, we still have 8 1/2. And The Great Dictator. And The 400 Blows, and Pather Panchali… it'll be okay.)
b) You've got a whole week left to binge-watch all the Criterion movies you can handle.
To help you get started, here are a few films that I am personally planning to binge-stream this week (library card login required):
Grey Gardens, dir. Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
"Meet Big and Little Edie Beale: mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, and reclusive cousins of Jackie Onassis. The two manage to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton, New York, mansion, making for an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camelot. An impossibly intimate portrait, this 1976 documentary by Albert and David Maysles, codirected by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen."
A Brief History of Time, dir. Errol Morris
"Errol Morris turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking."
El Norte, dir. Gregory Nava
"Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It's a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism."
Carnival of Souls, dir. Herk Harvey
"Herk Harvey's macabre masterpiece gained a cult following through late night television and has been bootlegged for years. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, Carnival of Souls was intended to have the 'look of a Bergman" and "feel of a Cocteau," and succeeds with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score."
Stranger Than Paradise, dir. Jim Jarmusch
"Rootless Hungarian émigré Willie (John Lurie), his pal Eddie (Richard Edson), and visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) always manage to make the least of any situation, whether aimlessly traversing the drab interiors and environs of New York City, Cleveland, or an anonymous Florida suburb. With its delicate humor and dramatic nonchalance, Jim Jarmusch’s one-of-a-kind minimalist masterpiece forever transformed the landscape of American independent cinema."
Daisies, dir. Vera Chytilova
"Maybe the New Wave's most anarchic entry, Věra Chytilová's absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be "spoiled," they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing—food, clothes, men, war—is taken seriously. Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that's widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema."
Cronos, dir. Guillermo del Toro
"Guillermo del Toro made an auspicious and audacious feature debut with Cronos, a highly unorthodox tale about the seductiveness of the idea of immortality. Kindly antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) happens upon an ancient golden device in the shape of a scarab, and soon finds himself the possessor and victim of its sinister, addictive powers… Featuring marvelous special makeup effects and the haunting imagery for which del Toro has become world-renowned, Cronos is a dark, visually rich, and emotionally captivating fantasy."
Which Criterion movies will you watch this week? Let us know in the comments!
6 thoughts on “7 Criterion Movies to Binge-Watch This Weekend (While You Still Can)”
Bicycle Thieves! And possibly, The Bicycle.
Just noticed this post and see that Alexander Street is only showing short samples. Google turns up a Criterion-on-Demand Canada service (criterionondemand.com) located in the GTA, apparen’tly for educational institutions. I see University of Toronto offers its web browser streams to those with UofT library login. I wonder if there’s any possibility of replacing Alexander Street with this? (Criterion seems to have a consumer subscription service Filmstruck, only available in US, UK, France and Spain so public library access would not be compromising that.)
Hi Jeff! Thanks for doing this research. Looking into their homepage, I’m wondering if this might be a different organization from The Criterion Collection (criterion.com)? They seem to be carrying films from other distributors. That said, we appreciate your interest – and we’re looking into different ways we might offer more Criterion Collection streaming films in the future.
Thanks for the quick reply. I see that Filmstruck is formally linked at the bottom of criterion.com page, and it similarly offers a range of non-Criterion distributors for streaming. No idea about relationship to the Canadian same-name, and the catalog search box only works for log in users, but the UofT subscription seems to speak well of it. I will miss Alexnder Street.
Sorry to revive this, but as a subscriber to the (very informative) Criterion email list I just got notified that Filmstruck is being shut down as of end of November, and Criterion online streaming is (stay tuned) homeless for now. It seems to me the TPL might get in touch with Criterion to let them know how the recent moves left thousands of potential Canadian stream viewers without any access and that they should keep us in mind when they rebuild their service under a new banner.
Further to above, I’ve just submitted this to KANOPY via its “contact” interface hoping it might expand its Criterion list:
I’m a Toronto Public Library subscriber, much appreciating the limited number of Criterion films on offer through your service. Currently Kanopy is the only service in Canada offering any streaming of Criterion films.
I’m writing to inform you of an email from Criterion announcing that its current relationship with Filmstruck service is ending in November 2018 due to shutdown of that platform. The email begins: “We have some sad news to share: earlier this morning, Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced plans to shut down FilmStruck, the streaming service that has been our happy home for the last two years. Like many of you, we are disappointed by this decision.”
I would suggest Kanopy could be an ideal platform for a MUCH LARGER share of films in the wonderful Criterion catalog, and that Kanopy should consider initiating contact with Criterion about agreeable terms.