"I didn’t know anything about this film; I decided to just try it. I loved it. An old-style movie, and Mifune’s wild-man performance gives it special stature. There are not many actors with his charisma, a true strength, and humor, vulnerability, and truth. The film is well told, strong, honest, and simply filmed. I found it refreshing to be reminded that these simple qualities made the film, now fifty years old, beautiful and alive to me; a classic just like you promised, Crit"

"It's one of those pictures that puts the lie to that idea that the sequel is never better than the original. Again, you have a filmmaker in James Whale who has now been given more resources to explore the same themes and issues as he did in the first film but he brings along with it an attitude towards the material and a result he doesn?t so much kid it as parody it. It?s a beautiful film to look at, extremely well acted, very witty."

"It’s hard for me to speak on the influence of these two beautiful films without getting emotional. Both put a woman at the center of a nightmare that is too true for many of us in our day-to-day lives, and both give the audience access to the crisis of not being believed. Both also imagine a world where the family unit itself fails us, where it’s possible for our partners, our children, and even our own maternal feelings to ensnare and ruin us. Essential viewing."

"It’s hard for me to speak on the influence of these two beautiful films without getting emotional. Both put a woman at the center of a nightmare that is too true for many of us in our day-to-day lives, and both give the audience access to the crisis of not being believed. Both also imagine a world where the family unit itself fails us, where it’s possible for our partners, our children, and even our own maternal feelings to ensnare and ruin us. Essential viewing."

"A lush formal return to the 1970’s Mexico City of Cuaron’s youth and life with his maids. I can’t get First-time actor Yalitza Aparicio’s wide open face out of my mind – she is the film for me. The father, and then the mother parking the Ford Galaxy is beautiful, frustrated and funny. But it is the scene on the beach with the near drowning that brings us to where Cuaron was headed all along. The family protecting itself. A wonderful world of women."

"Of all the titles in the Collection, this may be the one whose content is most radically altered by the shift from film to video, projection to electronic display. What’s lost in translation—flicker, physicality, the sheer thingness of a Brakhage film flung through space—is made up for by our ability to study the intricate compositions, structures, and rhythms in detail. Taken frame by frame, it’s like owning a Brakhage monograph with 350,000 plates. Is Commingled Containers the most beautiful of all films? Yes."

"Possibly the first film I rented only because it was on Criterion, without ever having heard a single thing about it. Now it is one of my favorite films of all time. Beautiful example of the company putting support behind a film and elevating it from “cult” to “canon.” I wonder how many fewer people would know about this film if it, like many others, had not been given a proper home video release by the most reputable of companies at exactly the right time."

"Kiarostami has spooky power. The wind, the dust, passersby, stray sounds, even your attention—they all slow down and fall into his rhythm. He seems able to control everything inside and outside the frame, and it’s all poetry. Taste of Cherry was my introduction to him. It’s a very sad and beautiful film about life via death. I’ll think about the coda for a long time. I’m also a big fan of The Wind Will Carry Us, Where Is the Friend’s Home?, and Close-up."

"This is another Sunday afternoon record that I'd listen to a lot with James. In fact I think I still have the MiniDisc that has both of those records on it. I only discovered him recently, maybe ten to 12 years ago. The first song on that record, 'Mace And Grenades', is really beautiful, and when you listen to it on a Sunday afternoon it's very haunting. I don't really know what else to say about it other than it's one of my favourite records."