"A great film by Paul Schrader, best known for having penned a bunch of legendary screenplays for Martin Scorsese. The film revolves around Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, and jumps between the story of his life and dreamlike depictions of scenes from his books. It’s got a particularly good score by Philip Glass, who I usually find to be tedious, but this one is nice. Schrader’s use of color and set design during the book segments of the film are quite theatrical and feel closely related to Robert Wilson’s on Einstein on the Beach—although I don’t have any evidence to back that connection up. Great flick, though."

"Finally I’m gonna say The Wizard of Oz, because that movie, again, is not like any other film — it’s a completely original experience and it has stood up against the test of time. Children are still enchanted by it, adults are still enchanted by it, and nobody has ever been able to capture that feeling since; and it’s a musical. Plus, that first introduction to color film, that doorway sequence and going in to Munchkin land — it’s just mind-blowingly beautiful. And her performance, her voice, Judy Garland — you know, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. So, I would say those would be the top five."

"I have been collecting Criterion Collection DVDs almost as long as I have owned a DVD player,” writes Alex Ross Perry, the director of Impolex (2009), The Color Wheel (2011), and Listen Up Philip (2014). “These are not my top ten favorite films in the Criterion Collection but my top ten favorite Criterion Collection DVD purchases. This is virtually impossible. My entire apartment has pockets of Criterion DVDs everywhere, and I am forced to just go with my gut and pick ten that shaped my ideas of cinema, meant a lot to me, and I can’t imagine not owning and having access to whenever I desire"

"Hugo Santiago was obsessed with the flowers of the jacaranda trees that he remembered from the streets of his dear Buenos Aires. Hugo had shown me an Edward Hopper painting I had seen before without ever noticing its compositional mystery: a monochromatic tendency disrupted by a hint of a new color. There’s a curious red square that makes the chimney on top of the house stand as a key to unlock a private mystery. For the mise-en-scène of what ended up being his last film, Hugo chose the jacaranda’s hue: purple. For my new film, Isabella, I chose purple in his honor."

"I have been collecting Criterion Collection DVDs almost as long as I have owned a DVD player,” writes Alex Ross Perry, the director of Impolex (2009), The Color Wheel (2011), and Listen Up Philip (2014). “These are not my top ten favorite films in the Criterion Collection but my top ten favorite Criterion Collection DVD purchases. This is virtually impossible. My entire apartment has pockets of Criterion DVDs everywhere, and I am forced to just go with my gut and pick ten that shaped my ideas of cinema, meant a lot to me, and I can’t imagine not owning and having access to whenever I desire"

"I have been collecting Criterion Collection DVDs almost as long as I have owned a DVD player,” writes Alex Ross Perry, the director of Impolex (2009), The Color Wheel (2011), and Listen Up Philip (2014). “These are not my top ten favorite films in the Criterion Collection but my top ten favorite Criterion Collection DVD purchases. This is virtually impossible. My entire apartment has pockets of Criterion DVDs everywhere, and I am forced to just go with my gut and pick ten that shaped my ideas of cinema, meant a lot to me, and I can’t imagine not owning and having access to whenever I desire"