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November 2024, Criterion Channel is set to deliver an exceptional lineup of films that will excite cinephiles and casual viewers alike. The month promises a rich exploration of genres, featuring a strong selection of Coen Brothers classics such as Blood Simple (1984) and The Big Lebowski (1998), along with their more recent works like A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Noir and crime enthusiasts will revel in an array of titles, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Gilda (1946), and The Big Heat (1953), showcasing the genre’s iconic narratives and stylistic depth. International cinema also shines through with compelling French dramas like Fat Girl (2001) and Dheepan (2015), highlighting diverse storytelling from around the globe.

The lineup doesn’t shy away from classic drama, featuring timeless films like On the Waterfront (1954) and Seven Samurai (1954), which continue to resonate with contemporary audiences. Additionally, viewers can look forward to a variety of documentary and experimental films, including Wild Wheels...

With Janus possessing the much-needed restorations, Catherine Breillat is getting her biggest-ever spotlight in November’s Criterion Channel series spanning 1976’s A Real Young Girl to 2004’s Anatomy of Hell––just one of numerous retrospectives arriving next month. They’re also spotlighting Ida Lupino, directorial efforts of John Turturro (who also gets an “Adventures In Moviegoing”), the Coen brothers, and Jacques Audiard.

In a slightly more macroscopic view, Columbia Noir and a new edition of “Queersighting” ring in Noirvember. Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy and Miller’s Crossing get Criterion Editions, while restorations of David Bowie-starrer The Linguini Incident, Med Hondo’s West Indies, and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue make streaming debuts; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park arrives just in time for another grim election day.

See the full list of titles arriving in November below:

36 fillette, Catherine Breillat, 1988

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat,...

Murder USA

Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.

This week’s Blood of the Vines is a real killer. “Murder USA” hangs over the trio of classic films which get the wine pairing treatment this time. Hired henchmen who handle the dirty work for crime bosses – sounds like a job for Syrah. Isn’t that what California winemakers put in their Pinot?

There could be good money in punching out an enemy – or punching up a Pinot Noir. I wouldn’t know. I tap out humorous “observations” just ahead of deadline. I get paid in popcorn for writing these weekly musings. Good thing I like popcorn.

The 1958 noir, Murder By Contract, stars Vince Edwards as a man who doesn’t care how he makes his money, as long as he saves up for that...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Braguino (Clément Cogitore)

Le Cinéma Club excels in presentation—opening their clean website every Friday reveals a free, new, conveniently sized film playing alongside original written content—but more important is their reach: time and again they’re screening unavailable, underseen, sometimes thought-missing work by auteurs established and upcoming alike. Their current program concerns recent documentaries—starting today is French filmmaker Clément Cogitore’s Braguino, which surveys two rival families in images merging you-are-there immediacy with stunning high-definition clarity. At 49 minutes the experience is ideal for your dense quarantine lineup. – Nick N.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Columbia Noir

To celebrate their one-year anniversary, The...

The Criterion Channel launches Monday, replacing that void left in cinephile hearts everywhere after the shuttering of FilmStruck just four months ago.

Subscribers can expect very little difference on the new service that wasn’t previously available on the Criterion Collection’s home at FilmStruck.

The service’s core, permanent library available on launch day is the over 1,000 movies, 350 shorts and 3500 supplemental materials that make up the Janus Film library. These are the classic arthouse films that for decades have been a mainstay in DVD restorations as part of the Criterion Collection.

Also Read: Why the New Criterion Channel Streaming Service Won't Be a 'Netflix Killer'

Criterion President Peter Becker referred to The Criterion Channel as “an art house at your house,” adding that the library is made up of the “last name” filmmakers that any movie buff should know well: (Michelangelo) Antonioni, (Jean-Luc) Godard, (François) Truffaut, (Akira) Kurosawa,...

In just two weeks, a cinematic haven will launch. After the demise of FilmStruck left cinephiles in a dark depression, The Criterion Channel has stepped up to the plate to launch their own separate service coming to the U.S. and Canada on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, iOS, and Android and Android TV devices. Now, after giving us a taste of what is to come with their Movies of the Week, they’ve unveiled the staggeringly great lineup for their first month.

Along with the Criterion Collection and Janus Films’ library of 1,000 feature films, 350 shorts, and 3,500 supplementary features–including trailers, introductions, behind-the-scenes documentaries, interviews, video essays, commentary tracks, and rare archival footage–the service will also house films from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate, IFC Films, Kino Lorber, Cohen Media, Milestone Film and Video, Oscilloscope, Cinema Guild, Strand Releasing, Shout Factory, Film Movement,...

The Criterion Channel, the streaming service that is bringing classic films back online after the widely lamented shutdown last fall of WarnerMedia’s FilmStruck, has set the lineup for its launch on April 8. (See it below.)

The channel features the same Criterion Collection and Janus Films titles that were on FilmStruck, which went dark last fall, prompting a backlash among a long list of A-list directors, not to mention thousands of fans of the service. FilmStruck had been an effort to take the DNA of Turner Classic Movies into the streaming realm, with hundreds of Criterion titles at its core. Original programming from FilmStruck will also be back on the new channel, including Adventures in Moviegoing, Meet the Filmmakers, Observations on Film Art and 10 seasons of John Pierson’s Split Screen.

Subscriptions are $10.99 per month or $99.99 a year. A promotional offer lowers the lifetime price for those who sign up...

Out of the ashes of FilmStruck comes the Criterion Channel, which is launching April 8 and has announced an exciting first slate of new programming being added onto the streaming platform throughout its first month. When the service goes live next month it will be the exclusive streaming home for the Criterion Collection and Janus Films’ library of more than 1,000 classic and contemporary films. Original series that aired on FilmStruck will be back on the Criterion Channel, including “Adventures in Moviegoing,” “Meet the Filmmakers,” and “Observations on Film Art.”

In addition to its extensive library, Criterion Channel will be adding new films daily. The first new addition to the service on April 8 will be a spotlight on Columbia Pictures’ history of film noir through 11 movies: “My Name Is Julia Ross”; “So Dark the Night” (Joseph H. Lewis, 1946); “The Big Heat” (Fritz Lang, 1953); “Human Desire” (Fritz Lang, 1954); “Drive a Crooked Road” (Richard Quine,...

Film noir. What is it? What are its defining characteristics? What films best express its qualities? Sex appeal, violence, cynicism, anti-heroes, femmes fatales, bleak commentary on modern society, maddening twists of fate that perpetuate one’s misery, running away from danger yet never making any ground…noir is and represents a wide variety of things, so much so that film experts do not even agree on whether it is a genre unto itself. (Two of the leading voices, James Ursini and Alain Silver, agree that it represents a movement rather than a definable genre.) For well over two years now, Sound on Sight has hosted the Friday Noir column which, on a near-weekly basis, has covered a great many noir entries of the commonly recognized classic period (1941 to 1959) as well as sizable portion of neo-noirs. Slowly and steadily, the column has explored the extremely exhaustive catalogue of titles with still many to come.

Leave it to The Daily Beast to get Scorsese talking about films. Not that it would be hard to do. The man is “Mr. Cinema.” He directs, produces and he even has his own nonprofit organization for preserving classic films, The Film Foundation. The director may have toyed with other genres during his lifetime, but the one people would discuss aplenty is his contributions to crime cinema. To think of Scorsese is to think of Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed, despite also directing films like After Hours and The Last Temptation of Christ. As he turns his attention to the small screen with HBO’s Boardwalk Empire – touted as being the network’s costliest production to date – the director lists off his 15 favorite gangster movies. Scorsese writes:

“Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film.

Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, North by Northwest, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Rockford Files. Plus, there’s some classic Dr. Who coming out this week as well.

Check them out.

Movies

A Christmas Carol ~ Alastair Sim, Jack Warner (Blu-ray)

Aliens in the Attic ~ Kevin Nealon, Doris Roberts (DVD and Blu-ray)

Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 (The Big Heat / 5 Against the House / The Lineup / Murder by Contract / The Sniper) ~ (DVD)

The Claudette Colbert Collection (Three-Cornered Moon / Maid of Salem / I Met Him in Paris (1937)I Met...

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Before we get into this week's releases I thought I would alert you to an upcoming 50% off Criterion Collection titles at Barnes and Nobles beginning on November 10 and running for two weeks. The full details, and a $5 off coupon, can be found in the DVD Talk forums.

Wings of Desire (Criterion Collection) This is a huge week for major title releases on Blu-ray as Criterion's release of Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire is just the first of three titles I reviewed and most likely blew my word count for the next two weeks trying to get all of my thoughts squared away.

As for this title specifically, it was my first time seeing it and as it played on and on I began to enjoy it more and more. However, if you read my lengthy review, you will...

On top of the titles listed below I also watch the Criterion Blu-ray for Howards End and the Blu-ray for Warner Home Video's North By Northwest, both of which will be reviewed on Tuesday along with the Criterion Blu-ray for Wings of Desire. On top of that I watched the Blu-ray for Disney/Pixar's Up, which will be reviewed in a couple of weeks along with the Blu-ray versions of Monsters, Inc. and Cars.

As for the titles listed below, the first three are the final three of Sony's November 3 release of Film Noir Collection Volume One after I discussed my thoughts on The Sniper and 5 Against the House last week. You can get more details on the complete set right here and a link to buy the set is included with all three films below. As a quick note, the only one of the five I didn't particularly...

I saw quite a bit this week, but some of it I have already detailed such as my reviews for Trucker and Tormented. I also watched the Blu-ray for Love, Actually (a personal favorite and a review is forth-coming) as well as the following three films.

The second two (The Sniper and 5 Against the House) are both from the November 3 release from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Film Noir Collection Volume One. You can get more details on the complete set right here and I hope to discuss the other three films (The Big Heat, The Lineup and Murder by Contract) next Sunday or perhaps in a complete review.

As always, remember you can keep tabs on my personal Netflix queue right here. I now have 50 friends on the movie rental site and would love to have a few more if those of you out there with accounts are interested. Now,...

More good news for my favorite film genre! Back in May, I attended and wrote about the great “I Wake Up Dreaming” noir film festival at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, hosted by Elliot Lavine. Showcasing old and rare B-movies from the 30s to the 50s, the festival was so successful that it was extended for another week.

Consider this a further extension two changing seasons later, as starting this Thursday Mr. Lavine will once again bring 22 rare noir gems to the Roxie for two weeks of betrayals, knife-sharp suspense and treacherous women.

This time around, the films are newly restored 35mm archive prints from Columbia Pictures—directed by acclaimed directors like Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, Don Siegel, and king of gimmicks William Castle. As with “I Wake Up Dreaming,” the films are shown as double features: two films for $11.

This collection offers a couple of noir-horror hybrid,...