Who here collects titles from The Criterion Collection? I've been collecting since about 2008, and have built up a pretty respectable collection. What are some of your favourites, and some of your "most wanted to be added"? I won't list a lot of the well known ones like 12 Angry Men or Seven Samurai, but some of my "hidden gem" favourites are:

The Phantom Carriage
Highly, HIGHLY recommended. This is the film that made Ingmar Bergman want to make films. The visual effects for it's time (1921) are unbelievable. The non-linear storyline was also revolutionary for it's time. The Blu Ray extra of a different score conducted by KTL is a great watch, as well.

The Earrings Of Madame de..
Quirky little tale about a pair of earrings that set off a chain reaction of events. A really interesting form for narrative, and it looks incredible.

A Hollis Frampton Odyssey
If you're into avant-garde, freeform or anything off the wall, this collection is for you. Some of it is a little too out-there, even for me. But there are a lot of pieces in this that are incredibly intriguing.

Heart Of A Dog
Speaking of free-form: this documentary by Lou Reed's window Laurie Anderson is pretty damn perfect. There is no real "narrative", other than getting a glimpse into someone's stream of conscience, but the stories she tells are incredible. Specifically the one about 9/11.

The eclipse series of Aki Kaurismaki's Proletariat Trilogy is hilarious, and very underrated I think. Basil Dearden's London Underground boxset was a blind purchase for me that ended up being one of my favourite sets in the collection. Also, the Allan King boxset is pretty fucking heavy, and hard to get through, but two hidden gems in there are "A Married Couple" which is genuinely hilarious, and Come On Children, a documentary, which features a teenaged Alex Lifeson who went on to be in Rush.

I could probably write a couple sentences of just about all of them (some of the old silent Japanese ones blur together for me). In terms of which films I'd like to see added; again, I could probably list hundreds but the two that come to mind RIGHT away are:

"He Who Gets Slapped", as a decent re-production of it doesn't exists as far as I know.
"Dancer In the Dark", because the only version I've ever watched it a shitty digital transfer, and it's one of my all time favourites.

PS: here is a link to my collection:
https://www.criterion.com/my_criterion/ ... collection

Other than the usual suspects (Seven Samurai, Brazil, etc), my favourite Criterion release of all time would have to be the Trilogia De Guillermo Del Toro boxset. The movies are wonderful (had a watch of Pan's Labyrinth with two friends the other week, actually, one of whom has never seen it before), the essays in the booklet are interesting, and the artwork is superb. My only quibble is that the blu-rays come in those cardboard sleeves instead of on proper spindles. But other than that, the whole thing is worth every penny.

A really great collection. The Devil's Backbone truly scared me the first time I watched it. I don't have this actual set, but I have the three individual releases. Pan's is easily my favourite of the three.

Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman collection is really impressive. It includes twenty-five films and a huge booklet with commentary, descriptions and the short story that inspired the Zatoichi character. Here are some more details: https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1012- ... -swordsman

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me will be released as a Criterion box set with an extra BluRay including The Missing Pieces later this year. I'm really looking forward to this!

I've owned (and lost) many Criterion Collection films over the years. I only have two of them now: The Seventh Seal and Kuroneko. The former speaks for itself, but Kuroneko isn't so well known, although it's a good movie. Without putting too fine a point on it, it's a Japanese movie about the vengeful ghosts of a mother and her daughter. There's also a cat that features prominently in it, which alone should be enough to win over most people on the MA forum.

Besides those two, let's see.... Ingmar Bergman movies made up the greatest percentage of my Criterion Collection... collection. I had Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, Persona, The Silence, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Summer Interlude, Summer with Monika, The Magician, and Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie. Most of these are great, or very good at least. Summer Interlude and Summer with Monika are both mediocre, however, and I've never cared for The Silence, although I'm way overdue for a reassessment. (I didn't like Persona much at first either, and now it's one of my favorites.) The Magician is also fairly middling, though certainly better than the two 'summer' movies.

Additionally, I had Ikiru, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Wings of Desire, House, Godzilla, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Throne of Blood, Ugetsu, Rashomon, and Vampyr; they're all winners, but I must say that the CC version of Godzilla is not the one to get. Not only do you have to deal with CC's going price of $4,678.13 per DVD, but the transfer isn't that much better (if at all better) than the earlier Classic Media release, and - most egregiously - it doesn't even include Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (The Classic Media release did.) I expect much better from Criterion, and they dropped the ball here - and since it's Godzilla, I'm less forgiving that I might be with some lesser movie like (the ever-shitty) Gone with the Wind or (the very-good) Citizen Kane.

I lost some of my old ones while moving, or roommates ended up with them. =[

I recently bought another copy of the Naked Lunch one, though. I can't even remember what's on it, it's been so long since I originally had that. So many DVDs and BluRays lost over the years from moving too much though, it bums me out to think about it.


Looking forward to that one also.

I grabbed a few in the 00's:

L'Avventura - Great print of the film...kinda turned me into a movie snob for a spell
The Double Life of Veronique - Two words...Irene Jacob
L-Eclisse - Another Antonioni/ Monica Vitti film, own it, but haven't gotten around to watching it for some reason
In the Mood for Love - My 12 year old Rav 4 is known as The Maggster, named after Maggie Cheung
Le Samurai - Great film, nice booklet
Ugetsu - I should really check out the special features on this DVD someday
Band of Outsiders - Maybe my fav French New Wave flick
The Rules of the Game - Bought this due to the film's reputation...it was kind of underwhelming

I have a great appreciation for what the Criterion Collection has been doing, and I'd own a lot more of their catalogue if I had the time and money to invest. These are some of my favorites from the DVDs/Blu-Rays that I own.

Winter Light: Ingmar Bergman
This is by far my favorite Bergman film. It starts and ends the same way, but you have a much darker view at the end. His atheism is unapologetic here and he makes his case for it in a sinister way. On a personal level, one of the darkest films I've ever seen.

The Tin Drum: Volker Schlöndorff
One of the weirdest films I've ever seen. An understanding of symbolism is needed to appreciate it, and you might find yourself laughing and feeling disgusted at the same time. It's not as grotesque as Gummo, but you're gonna need to be a little prepared for this one.

The Sword Of Doom: Kihachi Okamoto
As much as I love Japanese cinema, I'm not a huge fan of samurai films. This one's different, though. Speaking from a cinematography perspective, the fight scenes are masterfully done with their tracking shots and camera placement. I don't really like violence for violence sake, but you really feel like you're Tsukue when he's just massacring multiple people at a time, all without really breaking a sweat.

Night On Earth: Jim Jarmusch
My favorite Jarmusch film. All five stories are engaging, and the Helsinki story is absolutely gut-wrenching. He used the same story-telling device as he did in Coffee And Cigarettes, but it works so much better in this film. To date, I still think it's the best film he's ever done.

The Cranes Are Flying: Mikhail Kalatozov
Excellent story-telling and the absolute best tracking shots I've ever seen captured on film. It re-affirms my love for black and white filmmaking. The Soviets knew what they were doing behind the camera, and not just with this film.

Army Of Shadows: Jean-Pierre Melville
Le Samouraï was cool for the sake of being cool, but I think Melville really hit his stride with this one. Just the look of the film was enough to draw me in; when you add the story of resistance fighters subverting the Nazis, it makes for a very engaging film. As much as I like the other French filmmakers of that era, Melville was the best of the best.

This one's always been way up there for me as well. It's so unrelentingly bleak, and I love the constant tension and outbursts between Gunnar Björnstrand and Ingrid Thulin. Man, did Bergman have an eye for actors or what?

I've always loved the religious themes in many of Bergman's films, and they connect with me on a very deep level. A movie like this or The Seventh Seal might seem outdated to many younger viewers to whom atheism is an easy, common choice, but if you've ever really struggled with questions of faith and all the implications thereof, there's a lot to be gotten out of these films - all the more so because they never offer a clear answer to your doubts.

I'm real glad to see some love for Winter Light. Bergman has so many stone cold classics that this one gets lost in the flood sometimes. In the Film Trilogy boxset, it's by far my favourite title, and It's probably in my top 5 Bergman films, which would look a little something like:

1. Wild Strawberries
2. Fanny & Alexander
3. Persona
4. Winter Light
5. Seventh Seal

I agree with an above post as well about Summer with Monika being one of his less-than-great works. I've only seen it once, but I have such little memory of it.

I have a few; usual suspects include Gojira, Seventh Seal and Scanners. My mom has a copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock. I have a handful of others but two worth mentioning are:

Vengeance is Mine- A horrific, gritty Japanese film from the 70's that follows the doings of a cold-hearted serial killer, as well as minor plot threads following the lives of his victims. You really get deep in to the world of this bastard, and you can never tell when he'll snap and kill again.

White Dog- Another 70's flick, this one effectively managing to combine a straightforward killer dog exploitation movie with a hardboiled drama examining the ugliness of racism head-on. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year, but a harrowing and fascinating film all the same.

Vengeance Is Mine is fucking fantastic. I haven't seen White Dog yet. I am waiting (hoping) for them to re-issue it on Blu Ray, so I haven't picked up the DVD yet.