If 2021 has been a calvacade of bad decisions, dashed hopes, and warning signs for cinema’s strength, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming has at least buttressed our hopes for something like a better tomorrow. (Apologies for starting like so—it’s Sunday, 4:30, and already getting dark.) Anyway. The Channel will let us ride out distended (holi)days in the family home with an extensive Alfred Hitchcock series to bring the family together—from the established Rear Window and Vertigo to the (let’s just guess) lesser-seen Downhill and Young and Innocent—Johnnie To’s Throw Down and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons in their Criterion editions, and some streaming premieres: Ste. Anne, Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.
Special notice to Yvonne Rainer’s brain-expanding Film About a Woman Who . . .—debuting in “Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers,” a series that does as it says on the tin—and a Joseph Cotten retro boasting Ambersons, Shadow of a Doubt, Gaslight, The Third Man, and Henry Hathaway’s Niagara; nice seeing an Italian Neorealism series that runs outside the Intro to Cinema Studies classics, too.
See the full list of December titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
Angela, Rebecca Miller, 1995
The Bandit, Alberto Lattuada, 1946
By Way of Canarsie, Emily Packer and Lesley Steele, 2020
A Christmas Dream, Karel Zeman, 1945
Christmas Eve, Edwin L. Marin, 1947
Downhill Racer, Michael Ritchie, 1969
Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock, 1976
The Fancy, Elisabeth Subrin, 2000
A Family Submerged, María Alché, 2018
Family Tree, Nicole Amani Magabo Kiggundu, 2020
Film About a Woman Who . . . , Yvonne Rainer, 1974**
The French Connection, William Friedkin, 1971
Frenzy, Alfred Hitchcock, 1972
Gaslight, George Cukor, 1944
Gasman, Lynne Ramsay, 1998
Girl in the Window, Luciano Emmer, 1961
The Gold Diggers, Sally Potter, 1983
The Gold of Naples, Vittorio De Sica, 1954
The Hard Stop, George Amponsah, 2015
The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel, 2008
High Art, Lisa Cholodenko, 1998**
Home, Ursula Meier, 2008**
I Dream You Dream of Me, Jennifer Reeder, 2018
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Maria Maggenti, 1995
The Innocents, Anne Fontaine, 2016
Karaoke Girl, Visra Vichit-Vadakan, 2013
Kill the Day, Lynne Ramsay, 2000
The Lawless, Joseph Losey, 1950
Lifeboat, Alfred Hitchcock, 1944
The Lights Are On, No One’s Home, Faye Ruiz, 2021
Like Flying, Peier Tracy Shen, 2020
The Little Princess, Walter Lang, 1939
The London Story, Sally Potter, 1986
Long Way North, Rémi Chayé, 2015
Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over, Beth B., 2019
The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles, 1942
The Maids, Christopher Miles, 1975
The Man Who Knew Too Much, Alfred Hitchcock, 1956
Marnie, Alfred Hitchcock, 1964
The Milk of Sorrow, Claudia Llosa, 2009
The Mill on the Po, Alberto Lattuada, 1949
The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Desiree Akhavan, 2018
The Music Lovers, Ken Russell, 1971
Nenette and Boni, Claire Denis, 1996
Not Black Enough, Jermaine Manigault, 2020
Personal Velocity, Rebecca Miller
Polygraph, Samira Saraya, 2020
Ratcatcher, Lynne Ramsay, 1999
Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
The Return of the Soldier, Alan Bridges, 1982
Rope, Alfred Hitchcock, 1948
The Rose of Manila, Alex Westfall, 2020
Saboteur, Alfred Hitchcock, 1942
Scrooge, Ronald Neame, 1970
Second Coming, Debbie Tucker Green, 2014
The Second Mother, Anna Muylaert, 2015
Shadow of a Doubt, Alfred Hitchcock, 1943
Shooting Women, Alexis Krasilovsky, 2008
Sister, Ursula Meier, 2012**
Slip, Nicole Otero, 2019
Small Deaths, Lynne Ramsay, 1996
Social Butterfly, Lauren Wolkstein, 2013
Something to Remember, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, 2019
Ste. Anne, Rhayne Vermette, 2021
Stevie, Robert Enders, 1978
Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley, 2012**
Strange Victory, Leo Hurwitz, 1948
Sunday Bloody Sunday, John Schlesinger, 1971
Swallow, Elisabeth Subrin, 1995
Sweet Ruin, Elisabeth Subrin, 2008
The Trouble with Harry, Alfred Hitchcock, 1955
Throw Down, Johnnie To, 2004
Topaz, Alfred Hitchcock, 1969
Torn Curtain, Alfred Hitchcock, 1966
Troublemaker, Olive Nwosu, 2019
Tuesday, After Christmas, Radu Muntean, 2010**
Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
A Woman, a Part, Elisabeth Subrin, 2016
The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014
**Available in the U.S. only