April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films (The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Cruising, Jade, and the rarely mentioned Deal of the Century) and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill out this month’s “Criterion Editions”; series include a film of one-night dramas (e.g. Collateral and Before Sunrise) and noir from 1950 (among them Sunset Boulevard and In a Lonely Place). And don’t sleep on the restoration of Paul Vecchiali’s The Strangler.
See the full list below and more at the Criterion Channel:
5 Centimeters per Second, Makoto Shinkai, 2007
After Hours, Martin Scorsese, 1985
Alix’s Pictures, Jean Eustache, 1980
All the Days of May, Miryam Charles, 2023
The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston, 1950*
An Autumn’s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987
As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, Søren Lind and Larissa Sansour, 2022
Assault on Precinct 13, John Carpenter, 1976
Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara, 1992
Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater, 1995
Born in Flames, Lizzie Borden, 1983
Born to Be Bad, Nicholas Ray, 1950
The Breaking Point, Michael Curtiz, 1950
Caged, John Cromwell, 1950
Children Who Chase Lost Voices, Makoto Shinkai, 2011
Collateral, Michael Mann, 2004*
Come Back, Africa, Lionel Rogosin, 1959
Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Peter Ho-sun Chan, 1996
The Damned Don’t Cry, Vincent Sherman, 1950
Deal of the Century, William Friedkin, 1983
A Dirty Story, Jean Eustache, 1977
Doors of the Past, Rosine Mbakam, 2011
Employment Offer, Jean Eustache, 1982
The Exorcist, William Friedkin, 1973
Exterior Turbulence, Sofia Theodore-Pierce, 2023
Family Nest, Béla Tarr, 1979
Farewell China, Clara Law, 1990
The File on Thelma Jordon, Robert Siodmak, 1950*
Full Moon in New York, Stanley Kwan, 1989
The Garden of Words, Makoto Shinkai, 2013
Gun Crazy, Joseph H. Lewis, 1950
Heat, Michael Mann, 1995
Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Delights, Jean Eustache, 1981
House of Pleasures, Bertrand Bonello, 2011
In a Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray, 1950
L’escale, Paul Shemisi, Nizar Saleh, Rob Jacobs, and Anne Reijniers, 2022
Lush: A Far from Home Movie, Phil King, 2024
Mambar Pierrette, Rosine Mbakam, 2023
Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back, John Carluccio, 2019
Microcosmos, Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou, 1996
Mommie Dearest, Frank Perry, 1981
The Mother and the Whore, Jean Eustache, 1973
A Movement Against the Transparency of the Stars of the Seas, Esy Casey, 2023
My Little Loves, Jean Eustache, 1974
Night and the City, Jules Dassin, 1950
No Way Out, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950
Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello, 2016
Numéro zéro, Jean Eustache, 1971
One Way Street, Hugo Fregonese, 1950*
Oslo, August 31st, Joachim Trier, 2011*
Panic in the Streets, Elia Kazan, 1950
Party on the CAPS, Meriem Bennani, 2018
Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas, 2016
Phase IV, Saul Bass, 1974
Pier Paolo Pasolini – Agnès Varda – New York – 1967, Agnès Varda, 2022
The Pig, Jean Eustache, 1975
The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Makoto Shinkai, 2004
Promised Lands, Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, 2018
Regrouping, Lizzie Borden, 1976
Robinson’s Place, Jean Eustache, 1963
Running Scared, Wayne Kramer, 2006
Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, Jean Eustache, 1966
She and Her Cat, Makoto Shinkai, 1999
The Sleeping City, George Sherman, 1950*
Sorcerer, William Friedkin, 1977
Stage Fright, Alfred Hitchcock, 1950
The Strangler, Paul Vecchiali, 1970
Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder, 1950
The Taking, Alexandre O. Philippe, 2021
Them!, Gordon Douglas, 1954
Theta, Lawrence Lek, 2022
Try and Get Me!, Cy Endfield, 1950
The Virgin of Pessac, Jean Eustache, 1969
The Virgin of Pessac 79, Jean Eustache, 1979
A Visual Diary, Shirley Clarke, 1980
Voices of a Distant Star, Makoto Shinkai, 2002
Werckmeister Harmonies, Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, 2000
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Otto Preminger, 1950
The Witches of the Orient, Julien Faraut, 2021
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Mike Nichols, 1966
Yaangna Plays Itself, Adam Piron, 2022
You Will Be My Ally, Rosine Mbakam, 2012
*Available in the U.S. only