Perhaps I’ll need to burn my cinephile card if I suggest that the Criterion Channel’s best addition next month—best addition all year?—is a TV series. But I let out an actual exhale upon reading that they’re adding all 17 episodes of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, which simultaneously boasts ’60s surrealism, spy story, structural experiment, and a Beatles needledrop par excellence. Before somebody (maybe the long-rumored Christopher Nolan) adapts and fails to contain The Prisoner into feature-film form, watch this and become obsessed with it on its own terms (and maybe consult Reddit for the best-possible viewing order).
Onto cinema, as I tend to head. July also includes an 18-film Harry Dean Stanton retrospective spanning Monte Hellman’s Jack Nicholson-scripted Ride in the Whirlwind to John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky, the in-between comprising David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Alex Cox, John Carpenter—Jesus, what a filmography this guy had! Jonathan Demme and Terry Zwigoff are subject of four- and two-title retrospectives, respectively; Joel Potrykus, Khyentse Norbu, Onyeka Igwe, and Mexican actress Ninón Sevilla are also highlighted. For a larger scope, the BlackStar Film Festival is paid due with an extensive series of features and shorts.
New to streaming are the Marc Maron doc Are We Good?; D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell’s three-part The Energy War; Hong Kong pictures People’s Hero and Pom Pom and Hot Hot; and Isao Fujisawa’s Bye Bye Love. For something you can more easily watch with your parents, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventurea nd Curtis Hanson’s Bad Love make appearances, while Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC and A Band Called Death offer some musical reprieve.
Criterion Editions feature Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs and Something Wild, Zwigoff’s Ghost World, the Stanton-starring The Last Temptation of Christ and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, plus Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life and Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art.
See the full list of films below and more at the Criterion Channel:
A Moving Image, Shola Amoo, 2016
Are We Good?, Steven Feinartz, 2025
Art School Confidential, Terry Zwigoff, 2006
Aventurera, Alberto Gout, 1950
Bad Influence, Curtis Hanson, 1990
A Band Called Death, Jeff Howlett and Mark Christopher Covino, 2012
Bigger Than Life, Nicholas Ray, 1956
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Stephen Herek, 1989
The Burial of Kojo, Blitz Bazawule, 2018
Buzzard, Joel Potrykus, 2014
Bye Bye Love, Isao Fujisawa, 1974
Carita de dielo, José Díaz Morales, 1947
The Changing Same, Cauleen Smith, 2001
Christine, John Carpenter, 1983
Cool Hand Luke, Stuart Rosenberg, 1967
Desert Fury, Lewis Allen, 1947
The Energy War, D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell, 1978
Escape from New York, John Carpenter, 1981
Evolution of a Criminal, Darius Clark Monroe, 2014
Farewell, My Lovely, Dick Richards, 1975
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam, 1998*
Fire Through Dry Grass, Andrés “Jay” Molina and Alexis Neophytides, 2023
Ghost World, Terry Zwigoff, 2001
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Richard Fleischer, 1955
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, Sophie Huber, 2012
Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait, Khyentse Norbu, 2016
High Art, Lisa Cholodenko, 1998
Home from the Hill, Vincente Minnelli, 1960
A Kiss Before Dying, Gerd Oswald, 1956
Landfall, Cecilia Aldarondo, 2020
The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese, 1988*
Leave Her to Heaven, John M. Stahl, 1945
The Long, Hot Summer, Martin Ritt, 1958
Lucky, John Carroll Lynch, 2017*
Married to the Mob, Jonathan Demme, 1988
The Miracle on George Green, Onyeka Igwe, 2022
the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered, Onyeka Igwe, 2019
Niagara, Henry Hathaway, 1953
Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC, Danny Garcia, 2022
No Down Payment, Martin Ritt, 1957
Penkelemes, Onyeka Igwe, 2025
The People Could Fly, Imani Dennison, 2024
People’s Hero, Derek Yee Tung-sing, 1987
Pig at the Crossing, Khyentse Norbu, 2024
Pom Pom and Hot Hot, Joe Cheung Tung-cho, 1992
Portrait in Black, Michael Gordon, 1960*
The Prisoner, 1967–1968*
Restless City, Andrew Dosunmu, 2011
S the Wolf, Sameh Alaa, 2025
The Second Game, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2014
The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991
a so-called archive, Onyeka Igwe, 2020
Some Came Running, Vincente Minnelli, 1958
Something Wild, Jonathan Demme, 1986
Specialised Technique, Onyeka Igwe, 2018
Straight Time, Ulu Grosbard, 1978
Take Me in Your Arms, Julio Bracho, 1954
Test Pattern, Shatara Michelle Ford, 2019
Travellers and Magicians, Khyentse Norbu, 2003*
Violent Saturday, Richard Fleischer, 1955
Vulcanizadora, Joel Potrykus, 2024
We Need New Names, Onyeka Igwe, 2015
Where the Lilies Bloom, William A. Graham, 1974
Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk, 1956*
*Available in the U.S. only