The Criterion Collection is often hailed as the most prestigious movie preservation company on the globe. With an emphasis on releasing and restoring "important classics and contemporary films," the home video distributor is also praised for its wealth of bonus DVD and Blu-ray material that includes rich film commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, rare interviews, critical essays, and the like.
Since being founded in 1984, Criterion has released more than 1,100 films and counting. The first ten films issued feature an eclectic mix of old and new international masterpieces, all of which boast high critical marks.
Walkabout (1971) - Spine #10 (84%)
Although directed by acclaimed English director Nicolas Roeg, Walkabout is widely considered one of the greatest Australian movies ever made. With gorgeous photography of sweeping landscapes, the experiential tale follows two siblings stuck in the Aussie outback.
Boy (Luc Roeg) and Girl (Jenny Agutter) are two well-off British children who get separated from their parents while on a picnic. Left to their own devices, the siblings desperately wander through the open landscapes until they find help in the form of an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil).
Amarcord (1973) - Spine #4 (87%)
The fourth film issued by Criterion was Amarcord, Federico Fellini's roving 1930s-set comedy that entails several different episodes in Northern Italy.
The film traces the quotidian affairs of a quirky family as they come of age during the rise of Mussolini's regime. Titta (Bruno Zanin) and his older brother interact with their loving mother, disapproving father, philandering grandfather, and bummy uncle as they try to make sense of the world around them.
Hard Boiled (1992) Spine #9 (94%)
John Woo's hyper-violent action film Hard Boiled stars Chinese film legend, Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector Tequila Yuen, a grizzled cop who teams with an undercover officer to bring down a brutal gun-running mafia outfit.
With unmatched verve, intensity, and choreographed shootouts, Hard Boiled elevates the slam-bang crime genre to a level of artistic prestige rarely seen before or since.
Beauty And The Beast (1946) - Spine #6 (95%)
Jean Cocteau's sumptuous version of Beauty and the Beast was the sixth film to be issued by Criterion. Set in France, the story follows Belle (Josette Day), a young woman who vows to atone for her father's theft of a rose belonging to the Beast (Jean Marais).
Upon apologizing to him, the Beast falls in love with Belle and proposes marriage daily, which she refuses each time. However, Belle is eventually drawn to the Beast's animal magnetism and reciprocates his romantic feelings.
Grand Illusion (1937) - Spine #1 (97%)
Jean Renoir's 1937 French antiwar film Grand Illusion was the very first movie to be released by Criterion. Nominated for Best Picture, the film traces two French POWs and their dogged attempt to escape a German prison camp during WWI.
Aside from the technical mastery, the film became infamous when Joseph Goebbels declared Renoir as "Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1" and banned the film upon the German occupation of France. According to the Criterion bonus material, the film was thought to have been destroyed in an air raid but was later smuggled to Berlin by film archivist and then Nazi officer Frank Hansel.
The Killer (1989) - Spine #8 (98%)
John Woo's The Killer was issued one spot ahead of his 1992 film Hard Boiled, making him the only director to have two films in the Criterion Collection's first 10 titles.
The great Chow Yun-Fat plays Ah Jong, a Hong Kong hitman who becomes jaded and cynical after accidentally blinding an innocent woman. Dispirited, Jong takes one final mission in order to fund the woman's restorative eyesight. However, the job becomes botched with brutal and ultra-bloody consequences.
The Lady Vanishes (1938) - #3 (98%)
Labeled Spine #3, The Lady Vanishes is the first Alfred Hitchcock movie to be released by Criterion. As the title suggests, the story follows the maddening mystery of Miss Froy (May Whitty), a woman who suddenly disappears from a snowbound European train.
The only person to confirm Miss Froy's presence is Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), who shared a train car and a cup of tea with the vanished woman. Painted as paranoid, Iris works diligently to figure out what happened to Miss Froy and why.
A Night To Remember (1958) - Spine #7. (100%)
Adapted from the Walter Lord novel, Roy Ward Baker's A Night To Remember hasn't a single dissenting voice among critics polled on Rotten Tomatoes. Much like James Cameron's record-breaking Titanic, the film traces the harrowing events that took place on the ill-fated ocean liner in April of 1912.
A Night to Remember was named Best English-Language Foreign Film at the 1959 Golden Globes and won the Top Foreign Films Award from the 1958 National Board of Review.
The 400 Blows (1959) - Spine #5 (100%)
Francois Truffaut's universally beloved coming-of-age masterwork The 400 Blows is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The peerless French classic concerns 14-year-old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a lonely and neglected adolescent who slips into a life of petty crime and anxious sexual wonderment.
Coming from a troubled home with ever-quarreling parents and a philandering mother, Antoine retreats into his own world of street hustling that lands him in a juvenile prison. When the boy escapes, his world only begins.
Seven Samurai (1954) - Spine #2 (100%)
Besting The 400 Blows by two critical votes is Akira Kurosawa's often imitated and never duplicated combat masterpiece, Seven Samurai. The second film issued by Criterion concerns a rundown Japanese village being bombarded by a ruthless band of violent thieves.
In response, the village dispatches seven highly-skilled \ samurai to come in and protect the land and its people at any cost. In addition to its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, Seven Samurai currently ranks #19 on IMDB's Top 250. The film is often considered one of the finest and most important ever made.