Filmstruck / Criterion Channel

January 2024 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8335-the-criterion-channels-january-2024-lineup

The cat in a A Cat From Outer Space was incredibly talented!

There's a Channel FB group with a stathead named M!ch@el Hµtch!ns, who puts together an annual roundup. Credit to him for this.

2023 State of the Channel Report

Featured films: 2833 (2777 in 2022, 2% increase)
Janus Streaming Library: 1716 (1631 in 2022, 5% increase)
Criterion Channel Streaming Library: 659 (810 in 2022*)
Limited Engagements: 458 (336 in 2022*)
* Films in the CC Streaming Library have streamed for 12 months or more. Limited Engagements have streamed for less than 12 months. Many of the LE films will move to the CCSL after streaming for 12 months. Adding these two figures results in a slight decrease from the 2022 totals.

Analysis of the total number of 2833 featured films:
1148 Feature-length films released physically by Criterion
446 Feature-length films in the streaming-only Janus Films library (319 from Hulu & FilmStruck)
260 Feature-length non-Criterion films streaming in limited engagements
107 Feature-length non-Criterion films streaming in long-term engagements (12 months or more)
Totals
*1961 Feature-length films featured on the Channel

276 Short films released physically by Criterion
52 Short films in the streaming-only Janus Films library
151 Short non-Criterion films streaming in limited engagements
393 Short non-Criterion films streaming in long-term engagements
Totals
*872 Short films featured on the Channel
*2833 Featured films on the Channel
plus
459 Non-Criterion films which are supplements to a featured film (241 features + 218 shorts)
Totals
3292 All films streaming on the Channel

Length of current engagements as of December 2023
88 Streaming for one month
71 Streaming for two months
56 Streaming for three months
58 Streaming for four months
37 Streaming for five months
47 Streaming for six months
20 Streaming for seven months
29 Streaming for eight months
118 Streaming for 9 - 12 months
276 Streaming for 13 - 23 months
2033 Streaming for 24 months or more
2833 Total

NEW FILMS STREAMING IN 2023
Films added: 922, average per month: 77, lowest: 62 (May and October), highest: 104 (September)
Films removed: 880, average per month: 73, lowest: 35 (April), highest: 127 (January)

Regions:
630 from North America (598 from USA) (68.3%)
168 from Europe (64 from UK) (18.2%)
91 from Asia (31 from Hong Kong) (9.9%)
16 from Africa (1.7%)
11 from South America (1.2%)
6 from Australia (0.7%)
Films made by women: 161 (17.5%) (101 different women directors)
Streaming Premieres: 35 (39 in 2022)
Returning films: 255 or 27.7% with an average of 21/month (219 in 2022 or 20.7% with an average of 12/month)

Directors with 10+ films (only for new films added)
30: Hal Hartley
22: Buster Keaton
19: Alfred Hitchcock
13: Abbas Kiarostami
13: Georges Méliès
13: Roscoe Arbuckle
11: Derek Jarman

Sources (only of new films added):
126: MGM/Warner
97: Janus Films
93: Universal
70: Kino Lorber/Zeitgeist
62: 20thCentury Fox
49: Columbia/Sony
27: Possible Films (Hal Hartley)
14: Strand Releasing
14: Oscilloscope
14: Flicker Alley
13: StudioCanal
343: Others

ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING
49: Collection teasers (47 in 2022)
13: Meet the Filmmakers (6 in 2022)
9: Introductions to collections (film critics and scholars) (19 in 2022)
3: Spotlights (10 in 2022)
2: Adventures in Moviegoing (4 in 2022)
1: Observations on Film Art (4 in 2022)
1: Queersighted (2 in 2022)
1: Art House America (0 in 2022)
0: Visual essays (5 in 2022)

Collections:
48: Director (46 in 2022)
36: Theme (45 in 2022)
17: Star (21 in 2022)
Criterion Collection Editions: 30 (55 in 2022)

If you like con artist capers Nine Queens is good, twisty fun and worth catching before it leaves. Nice location filming on the streets of Argentina.

The Jan. additions were announced on 12/12, and here it is the 23rd with nothing yet. I wish they'd be a bit more consistent.

avoid the Disney cat movies. they're exactly what you'd expect.

I like That Darn Cat though!

Odd they didn't include The Incredible Journey which has some of the best cat acting I've ever seen.

xxp they announced the February line-up around the same time earlier this month.

Link please? I'm not seeing it at https://www.criterion.com/current/category/19-on-the-channel

OK, weird that criterion.com doesn't have anything about 02/24 on their own website, but I guess they sent out a press release early this month that other sites picked up on. Feb 2024 additions: https://cinephilecorner.com/blogposts/criterion-channel-february-2024/

They also posted on their social media accounts, e.g.:

✨ Announcing our FEBRUARY 2024 Criterion Channel lineup! ✨

💗Interdimensional Romance
💗GRETA GERWIG'S ADVENTURES IN MOVIEGOING
💗 Gothic Noir
💗 Celebrate Black History
💗 Hong Kong Hits
and more! pic.twitter.com/EwqG900k2s

— Criterion Channel (@criterionchannl) January 11, 2024

I assume it's just negotiated rights, but I'm still confused why Criterion can have the rights to release and distribute and keep in print a title on DVD, but not stream it on the channel. For example, as far as I can tell the channel is streaming more or less everything by Kieslowski, from his shorts to "Red," but not The Dekalog, even though The Dekalog is available on blu-ray (and even though the channel is streaming the expanded Short Film about Love and Short Film about Killing). What's up with that?

Yeah. Assume it’s vaguely parallel to MUBI having streaming rights abroad but not in the US

On a film by film basis I mean.

Yes, physical media rights (many of which were negotiated pre-Criterion Channel) and streaming rights are different things.

Has Dekalog ever made a streaming appearance there? Maybe it was on Filmstruck, briefly?

No, it never did.

Okay, maybe I'm late to the party, but I watched The Swimmer(1968) on Criterion on Saturday, starring Burt Lancast... mind blown. I was not even aware of this film, but I found it really moving, was thinking about it all the next day

Which is more than I can say about Poor Things which I promptly forgot as the credits were rolling

Just a heads-up that That Darn Cat is leaving at the end of the month.

B-b-but what about THE CASSANDRA CAT?

March 2024 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8388-the-criterion-channels-march-2024-lineup

I guess this means I'll finally have to watch Cocktail, though it seems like a bad idea.

There is some kind of perfection in Cocktail being the asymptotic limit of all 80s movies and Tom Cruise vehicles.

Lead somewhat buried there. This is an awesome collection:

And the Razzie Goes to . . .
Every year, the Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. the Razzies) honor the “worst” in contemporary cinema. Yet in doing so, they have often inadvertently shed light on films so out-there, so uncompromising, so beyond the bounds of accepted “good” taste that they demand attention. While some infamous Razzie winners like Xanadu, Barb Wire, and Gigli live on as classics of camp and cult, others, like Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Elaine May’s Ishtar, and Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls have been reclaimed as fearlessly ambitious expressions of personal vision. In a topsy-turvy way, this program pays tribute to those divisive films that continue to fascinate and provoke debate, while calling into question the very line that separates high and low culture.

FEATURING: Cruising (1980), Heaven’s Gate (1980), Xanadu (1980)*, Querelle (1982), Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Ishtar (1987), Cocktail (1988), Showgirls (1995), Barb Wire (1996)*, The Blair Witch Project (1999), Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Swept Away (2002), Gigli (2003), The Wicker Man (2006)

(alongside early Hou Hsiao-hsien)

Cocktail is p good; 80's NY as featured is pretty great to look at (TGI Fridays)

Barb Wire is close to unwatchable. Gigli is NOT good also Gigli (spoiler) is Affleck's character and not JLo, which is shocking. Wicker Man 06 is unapologetically great. Showgirls is a fine movie I never need to watch again.

Fully the first six of those movies listed -- Cruising (1980), Heaven’s Gate (1980), Xanadu (1980)*, Querelle (1982), Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Ishtar (1987) -- are not just good but in many cases great.

Cocktail is p good; 80's NY as featured is pretty great to look at (TGI Fridays)

Cruise is hot as fuck in Cocktail, about the only time he ever was. I wish he'd made more trash.

Cocktail is not a good movie but it is a fun time capsule.

Yeah I'm going to be watching it more as a historical anthropology exercise.

This was the period when young me confused Bryan Brown and Michael Caine.

Bryan Brown's FX, now that's a great movie. Or at least I remember it as one when I was in middle school and really wanted to do special effects and horror movie makeup.

I’ve tried Showgirls twice, never managed to get through it.

guess I finally have to watch heavens gate

blair witch project got a razzie????

the razzies are dumb, kinda wish this was just a "so bad it's good" or "underrated at the time" category rather than being tied to the razzies

I managed to block that Blair Witch was in the mix for the '99 Razzies. Nominated for worst picture (lost to Wild Wild West) but, gallingly, Heather Donohue "won" worst actress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Golden_Raspberry_Awards

Razzies are also incredibly sexist

And lazy and reactionary ... they're all the bad things

John Mellencamp recorded a Buddy Holly cover I really liked for Cocktail - I don't think I've really seen the movie though, maybe just a chunk of it many years ago when it was screening on local TV over a weekend.

Ishtar is really uneven but what's best about it - mercilessly satirizing U.S. policy in the Middle East - is really great. I want to say the intentionally horrible musical numbers are done too well because it was really hard to sit through that climactic show.

Cocktail I only know from Walmart DVD bargain bins. They loved minor movies with big stars. The Seventh Sign with Demi Moore was another common one.

Lol

Arrebato (1979) is leaving today. The opening logos are worth a look....

April 2024 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8418-the-criterion-channel-s-april-2024-lineup

Co-sign on The Swimmer, see it if you haven’t before it leaves at the end of the month. Very thought provoking.

I was also really moved by Testament, a nuclear war film that starts like a Hallmark Channel movie, but gets deeper and darker as it progresses.

Jean Eustache?

That will make for an interesting streaming challenge

After Hours, which I watched last night, is better than I remembered but not much better.

Really? I remember liking it when it came out but maybe you had to be there