Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a DP will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands, Searching for Mr. Rugoff, and Neptune Frost; also on docket this month are Criterion Editions for Ken Loach’s Kes and Visconti’s Death in Venice (complemented by The Most Beautiful Boy in the World landing on the service). And let’s not sleep on Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga, restored by Scorsese’s World Cinema Project and making its streaming debut.
See the full list of September titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
Across 110th Street, Barry Shear, 1972
Air Force, Howard Hawks, 1943
Ana and the Wolves, Carlos Saura, 1973
Another Prayer, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2013
Bell, Book and Candle, Richard Quine, 1958
Billy Liar, John Schlesinger, 1963
Boccaccio ’70, Mario Monicelli, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, and Luchino Visconti, 1962
Bronco Bullfrog, Barney Platts-Mills, 1969
Car Wash, Michael Schultz, 1976
César and Rosalie, Claude Sautet, 1972
Come Back, Little Sheba, Daniel Mann, 1952
Cousin Angelica, Carlos Saura, 1974
Darling, John Schlesinger, 1965
Death in Venice, Luchino Visconti, 1971
Discontinuity, Lori Felker, 2015
A Drownful Brilliance of Wings, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2016
Elisa, vida mía, Carlos Saura, 1977
An Evening, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2013
Elvira Madigan, Bo Widerberg, 1967
Funny Girl, William Wyler, 1968*
Funny Lady, Herbert Ross, 1975
The Garden of Delights, Carlos Saura, 1970
Good Neighbor Sam, David Swift, 1964
The Hard Way, Vincent Sherman, 1943
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Robert Ellis Miller, 1968
He Ran All the Way, John Berry, 1951
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “Inferno,” Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea, 2009*
Honeycomb, Carlos Saura, 1969
Hud, Martin Ritt, 1963
The Hunt, Carlos Saura, 1966
If…., Lindsay Anderson, 1968
Jabberwocky, Terry Gilliam, 1977
Kes, Ken Loach, 1969
A Kind of Loving, John Schlesinger, 1962
Kings Row, Sam Wood, 1942
The Knack . . . and How to Get It, Richard Lester, 1965
Late August, Early September, Olivier Assayas, 1998
Les choses de la vie, Claude Sautet, 1970
The L-Shaped Room, Bryan Forbes, 1962*
Ludwig, Luchino Visconti, 1973
Maison du bonheur, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2017
The Man Who Fell to Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976
Max and the Junkmen, Claude Sautet, 1971
Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators, Ema Ryan Yamazaki, 2017
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri, 2021
MS Slavic 7, Sofia Bohdanowicz, Deragh Campbell, 2019
Neptune Frost, Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, 2021
Never Eat Alone, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2016
The Old Man and the Sea, John Sturges, 1958
Patang, Prashant Bhargava, 2011
Picnic, Joshua Logan, 1955
Point and Line to Plane, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2020
A Prayer, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2013
The Prisoner of Zenda, John Cromwell, 1937
Pumping Iron, George Butler and Robert Fiore, 1977
Pushing Hands, Ang Lee, 1991
Room at the Top, Jack Clayton, 1959
The Rose Tattoo, Daniel Mann, 1955*
Sambizanga, Sarah Maldoror, 1972
Searching for Mr. Rugoff, Ira Deutchman, 2019
The Secret of Roan Inish, John Sayles, 1994
The Servant, Joseph Losey, 1963
The September Issue, R. J. Cutler, 2009*
Seven Beauties, Lina Wertmüller, 1975
Shining Victory, Irving Rapper, 1941
Sissi, Ernst Marischka, 1955
The Soft Space, Sofia Bohdanowicz and Melanie J. Scheiner, 2018
Sound of the Night, Chanrado Sok and Kongkea Vann, 2021
Spontaneous, Lori Felker, 2020
The Strawberry Blonde, Raoul Walsh, 1941
Stress Is Three, Carlos Saura, 1968
Sweet Hours, Carlos Saura, 1982
Swept Away, Lina Wertmüller, 1974
That Most Important Thing: Love, Andrzej Żuławski, 1975
The Wonderland, Keiichi Hara, 2019
This Is Not a Movie, Yung Chang, 2019*
This Property Is Condemned, Sydney Pollack, 1966
Veslemøy’s Song, Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2018
Yankee Doodle Dandy, Michael Curtiz, 1942
*Available in the U.S. only