LET ME IN! Dream Picks: My Top 5 Films from the Criterion Closet

Apr 10

So, if you’re not familiar, The Criterion Collection is a video distribution company that was founded in 1984. They license, restore, and distribute classic films and basically bless the public by screening them in their highest quality. The best part about Criterion is not only do they preserve the directors' original vision for their films, but they also add some extras to their work. Commentaries, archival interviews, articles, and documentaries—a bunch of goodies that give us more insight into the film's development and its legacy. They also have cool packaging. I should also mention that Criterion did this before Blu-Ray releases came with special features, before YouTube and Instagram, and before we could google behind-the-scenes footage from our phones. This is a company that knows film like no one’s business.

The Criterion Closet is filled to the brim with films open to filmmakers, actors, and enthusiasts, allowing them to choose (and discuss) their ‘closet picks’, to take home. This was turned into a segment on YouTube in 2015, and now it’s a desired stop for cinephiles in the industry.

Basically, I AM MANIFESTING MY OWN SEGMENT, but since I have yet to be known by Criterion, I decided I’d play a game and give my unsolicited list of films I would snag from the closet if I were invited. A girl can dream right?

This is probably going to be an ongoing newsletter with multiple parts, so I won’t get too obscure this time around, especially since I’m on my romance, drama, comedy tip lately. Let me know what your picks would be at the end of this list. :)

OK, let’s get into it! My picks on my first hypothetical visit to the criterion closet would be:

1. Claudine - 1974 film about a single mother from Harlem, on welfare with 6 children who falls in love and starts a relationship with a sanitation man. This relationship complicates their lives on several different levels, especially compromising Claudine’s welfare benefits, due to suspicion that she now has a partner that assists her financially. It’s like a romcom, documentary and drama all wrapped into one.

This film stars Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones…and Curtis Mayfield wrote and produced the score!!

2. Paris is Burning - is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston that dives into the engaging, heartbreaking, and revolutionary lives that forged New York City’s ball culture in the late 1980s. It showcases scenes from the balls, performance preparations, and interviews with the iconic Black, Latin, and LGBTQIA+ figures of the time. If you watched Pose, you would absolutely love this and find this to be a wonderful resource if you’re looking for a history lesson. This multi-faceted masterpiece is an education and the icons in this film continue to inspire everyone to this day.

This film stars Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, Venus Xtravaganza and many more.

3. A Philadelphia Story- 1940, a film about Tracy, the daughter of a wealthy socialist family, set to marry her fiancé on a beautiful weekend when it’s crashed by her ex-husband, who her father didn’t see fit to be with her, and two journalists, one of which thinks he’s falling in love with her. Madness ensues when Tracy suddenly has three men to tango with the night before her wedding. Divorce was scandalous back then, so this must have been a fun watch in 1940 with the ‘calling off the wedding, dating, re-marry” comedy cycle. (Cool easter egg in the movie: James Stewart plays the journalist that falls in love with Tracy, and he sings Over the Rainbow, one year after the theatrical release of The Wizard of Oz. it’s amazing)

Characters are played by Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart —lovely and funny film.

4. Do the Right Thing - a 1989 comedy-drama written, produced, and brilliantly directed by Spike Lee. Spike tells the story of a hot summer day in Bed-Stuy, filled with racial tensions that ultimately cause tragedy, as it so often does. This film is a masterpiece with a New York backdrop that also highlights the simmering issues of gentrification in Black neighborhoods. I may be biased because I grew up in an NYC neighborhood much like this one, but any film that accurately depicts the outer boroughs before the vast changes that overwhelmed this city is 5-stars in my book—especially when it’s a Spike Lee joint! (Easter egg: Spike Lee’s father produced the soundtrack that includes some original compositions)

This film stars Spike Lee, John Turturro, Rosie Perez, and many more.

5. Malcolm X - An iconic biographical drama about one of the most important figures in American history, this film chronicles the intriguing life of El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. It follows his journey from childhood to marriage, civil rights activism to self-reflection, conversion to Islam to ministry, and ultimately his assassination in 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.

Co-written and directed by Spike Lee, and based on the book by Alex Haley, the film is perfectly executed by the incomparable Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Delroy Lindo, and many more. (Notably, this was the first non-documentary film allowed to shoot in Mecca. Nelson Mandela makes a cameo, adding to the film's significance.)

Denzel Washington captures a multitude of emotions seamlessly throughout the entire film, while Spike Lee delivers powerful imagery, classic camera work, and colorful costumes that tell an interesting story all on their own.

"Relating a person to the whole world: that is the meaning of cinema."

~ Andrei Tarkovsky

OMG, thank you so much for reading and/or browsing through my cries for attention from Criterion. I hope you enjoyed this list and please let me know what films in the Criterion Collection, you would add in your bag if you were invited. :)

A long-term plan for me, is to create a film club where we can watch a movie a month and breakdown the stories, their directing, cinematography and all that good stuff. Hopefully you’ll join me! <3

Lastly, if you haven't seen Closet Picks or don't know much about John David and Malcolm Washington, check out their feature. These adorable cinephiles geek out over their favorite films and even add their dad's work to their collection. (and if you’re on letterboxd, let’s be friends! link below)

With love,

november|eleventh