The Criterion Channel’s August lineup pays tribute to auteurs of all kinds: directors, actors, and photographers, fictional or otherwise. In a notable act of preservation and advocacy, they’ll stream 20 titles by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, here introduced by the great Richard Peña. More known (but fun all the same) is a five-title Paul Thomas Anderson series including the exclusive stream of Licorice Pizza, as well as a Philip Seymour Hoffman series that overlaps with Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love (a Criterion Edition this month), and The Master, plus 25th Hour, Love Liza, and his own directing effort Jack Goes Boating. Preston Sturges gets five movies (The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, and Hail the Conquering Hero), with Sullivan’s Travels arriving in October.
Theme-wise, a photographer series includes Rear Window, Peeping Tom, Blow-up, Close-Up, and Clouzot’s La prisonnière; “Vacation Noir” features The Lady from Shanghai, Brighton Rock, Kansas City Confidential, Purple Noon, and La piscine. Alongside the aforementioned PTA and Antonioni pictures, August’s Criterion Editions includes the recently restored Victims of Sin. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures of Ghosts and restorations of Patrick Tam’s My Heart Is That Eternal Rose and Raoul Peck’s Lumumba: Death of a Prophet make streaming debuts. Meanwhile, Steven Soderbergh’s underrated Haywire is a welcome surprise.
See the full list of films below:
25th Hour, Spike Lee, 2002
Adieu Bonaparte, Youssef Chahine, 1985
Alexandria . . . Why?, Youssef Chahine, 1979
Alexandria: Again and Forever, Youssef Chahine, 1989
Alphabet City, Amos Poe, 1984
An Egyptian Story, Youssef Chahine, 1982
Baba Yaga, Corrado Farina, 1973
The Blazing Sun, Youssef Chahine, 1954
Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966
Brighton Rock, John Boulting, 1948
Caballerango, Juan Pablo González, 2018
Cairo Station, Youssef Chahine, 1958
Capote, Bennett Miller, 2005
Christmas in July, Preston Sturges, 1940
D.O.A.: A Right of Passage, Lech Kowalski, 1980
Dangerous Crossing, Joseph M. Newman, 1953
Dark Waters, Youssef Chahine, 1956
Dawn of a New Day, Youssef Chahine, 1965
Delirious, Tom DiCillo, 2006
Desert Fury, Lewis Allen, 1947
Destiny, Youssef Chahine, 1997
The Devil of the Desert, Youssef Chahine, 1954
The Emigrant, Youssef Chahine, 1994
La espera, Juan Pablo González, 2016
Eyes of Laura Mars, Irvin Kershner, 1978
Farewell My Love, Youssef Chahine, 1956
Father Amin, Youssef Chahine, 1950
Female on the Beach, Joseph Pevney, 1955*
The Great McGinty, Preston Sturges, 1940
Hail the Conquering Hero, Preston Sturges, 1944
Haywire, Steven Soderbergh, 2011*
His Kind of Woman, John Farrow, 1951
Inferno, Roy Ward Baker, 1953
Jack Goes Boating, Philip Seymour Hoffman, 2010*
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, Julien Temple, 2007
Kansas City Confidential, Phil Karlson, 1952
The Lady Eve, Preston Sturges, 1941
The Lady from Shanghai, Orson Welles, 1947
Lady of the Train, Youssef Chahine, 1952
The Land, Youssef Chahine, 1969
The Last of Sheila, Herbert Ross, 1973
Leave Her to Heaven, John M. Stahl, 1945
Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021
Love Liza, Todd Louiso, 2002*
Lumumba: Death of a Prophet, Raoul Peck, 1991
Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999
My Heart Is That Eternal Rose, Patrick Tam, 1989
My One and Only Love, Youssef Chahine, 1957
Niagara, Henry Hathaway, 1953
Las nubes, Juan Pablo González, 2017
One Hour Photo, Mark Romanek, 2002
The Other, Youssef Chahine, 1999
The Palm Beach Story, Preston Sturges, 1942
Pecker, John Waters, 1998
Pictures of Ghosts, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2023
La prisonnière, Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968
The Public Eye, Howard Franklin, 1992*
Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002
Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
Return of the Prodigal Son, Youssef Chahine, 1976
Saladin the Victorious, Youssef Chahine, 1963
The Savages, Tamara Jenkins, 2007
The Sixth Day, Youssef Chahine, 1986
Smoke, Wayne Wang, 1995*
The Solitude of Memory, Juan Pablo González, 2014
The Story of O, Just Jaeckin, 1975
Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman, 2008*
There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007*
Victims of Sin, Emilio Fernández, 1951
*Available in the U.S. only