In the 1990s, underground music—from punk and hip-hop to indie rock and electronica—exploded into the pop-culture consciousness through some of the defining films of the era. Movies like Pump Up the Volume didn’t just capture the social and aesthetic codes of disaffected Gen Xers; they also delivered the soundtracks that became their personal mixtapes. In that fleeting, miraculous moment, weirdos actually scored studio budgets and turned them into anthemic works that spoke directly to the zeitgeist. Trainspotting made heroin chic sound existential. Grosse Pointe Blank made ska feel like therapy. Singles anticipated the grunge boom. Good Will Hunting earned Elliott Smith an Oscar nomination. Judgment Night practically minted a new rap-rock crossover genre. Taken together, these films form a must-listen playlist from the era when indie and mainstream cultures converged, allowing genuinely strange and exciting art to flourish on multiplex screens and Walkman headphones alike.
Coprogrammed by Yasi Salek
Pump Up the Volume, Allan Moyle, 1990
Until the End of the World, Wim Wenders, 1991
Deep Cover, Bill Duke, 1992
Singles, Cameron Crowe, 1992
Judgment Night, Stephen Hopkins, 1993
So I Married an Axe Murderer, Thomas Schlamme, 1993
Mallrats, Kevin Smith, 1995
SubUrbia, Richard Linklater, 1996
Trainspotting, Danny Boyle, 1996
Good Will Hunting, Gus Van Sant, 1997
Grosse Pointe Blank, George Armitage, 1997
Lost Highway, David Lynch, 1997
Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes, 1998
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch, 1999
COMING SEPTEMBER 1
The Crow, Alex Proyas, 1994
Few filmmakers navigate the libidinal and the lyrical quite like Spanish sensualist Bigas Luna, a provocateur with a painter’s eye, whose films are lush with eroticism, surrealist flourishes, delirium, and grotesquery. His films—including the Iberian Trilogy comprising the international sensation Jamón jamón (which launched the careers of superstars Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem), Golden Balls, and The Tit and the Moon—are celebrations of the carnal pleasures of both sex and food, laced with trenchant critiques of Spanish identity, culture, and machismo.
Jamón jamón, 1992
Golden Balls, 1993
The Tit and the Moon, 1994
Volavérunt, 1999
Sound of the Sea, 2001
Featuring a new interview with Hung, part of Criterion’s Meet the Filmmakers series
A one-of-a-kind performer, choreographer, and director, Hong Kong superstar Sammo Hung reinvented action cinema as a space of exuberant physicality and unexpected grace. Trained at the same Beijing-opera academy as Jackie Chan (with whom he costarred in films like My Lucky Stars), Hung deployed the skills he learned there in cinema, combining athleticism with impish humor. In full-throttle martial-arts extravaganzas like the off-the-wall horror comedy Encounters of the Spooky Kind; the thrillingly kinetic, tonally audacious action melodrama Pedicab Driver; and the absolutely jaw-dropping jungle adventure Eastern Condors, Hung reaches heights of acrobatic transcendence while keeping the spectacle grounded via his down-to-earth screen presence.
The Magnificent Butcher, Yuen Woo-ping, 1979
Encounters of the Spooky Kind, Sammo Hung, 1980
My Lucky Stars, Sammo Hung, 1985
Eastern Condors, Sammo Hung, 1987
Pedicab Driver, Sammo Hung, 1989
The Bodyguard, Sammo Hung, 2016
Featuring Maurice Pialat: Love Exists (2007), a feature-length documentary on Pialat’s life and career
“What I mean by realism goes beyond reality,” declared French master Maurice Pialat, whose at once raw and rigorous films capture all the intensity, vivid humanity, brutality, and tenderness of life itself. Born one hundred years ago this August, Pialat was a contemporary of the nouvelle vague, but always stood apart from the movement, pursuing an uncompromising personal vision that had more in common with his artistic forebear Jean Renoir. In masterpieces like We Won’t Grow Old Together, The Mouth Agape, À nos amours, and Van Gogh, Pialat refined a hard-hitting, elliptical style in which searing emotional realism and cutting human truth are prized above all else. Though he may not be as well known internationally as many of his contemporaries, Pialat had an incalculable effect on a generation of post–New Wave directors like Catherine Breillat, Leos Carax, Philippe Garrel, and Arnaud Desplechin, who has said, “The filmmaker whose influence has been the strongest and most constant on the young French cinema isn’t Jean-Luc Godard but Maurice Pialat.”
Features
L’enfance nue, 1968
We Won’t Grow Old Together, 1972
The Mouth Agape, 1974
Graduate First, 1978
Loulou, 1980
À nos amours, 1983
Under the Sun of Satan, 1987
Van Gogh, 1991
Le garçu, 1995
Shorts
L’amour existe, 1960
With the passing of Michael Roemer earlier this year, American cinema lost one of its most eloquent voices, a long-unsung independent trailblazer whose profoundly humanist, unfailingly truthful vision had only in recent years come to be properly appreciated. A Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi Germany as a child, Roemer made only a handful of features, but each—including the landmark portrait of Black American struggle Nothing but a Man, the wryly offbeat gangster comedy The Plot Against Harry, and the slow-burn domestic drama Vengeance Is Mine—is a small miracle of personal, defiantly anticommercial filmmaking, rich in feeling for character and place and graced with a vérité authenticity that reveals deep insights into human relationships.
Nothing but a Man, 1964
The Plot Against Harry, 1969
Dying, 1976
Pilgrim, Farewell, 1980
Vengeance Is Mine, 1984
Criterion Collection Editions
The Red Balloon and Other Stories—Five Films by Albert Lamorisse: Criterion Collection Edition #1200 Everyday life becomes an adventure in the wide-eyed fables and fantasies of the beloved French children’s filmmaker. SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: Interviews with Lamorisse and his son Pascal; My Father Was a Red Balloon, a 2008 documentary featuring Pascal Lamorisse and his daughter Lysa; and more.  Prince of Broadway: Criterion Collection Edition #1258 This early-career triumph from Sean Baker (Anora) plunges into the world of an immigrant counterfeit-merch salesman who must take care of a son he didn’t even know he had. SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES: Audio commentaries by Baker and cast and crew members, an introduction by Baker, documentaries on the making of the film, and more.  Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould: Criterion Collection Edition #1268
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