Every month, Criterion Channel subscribers know they can expect a slew of fresh classics both vintage and contemporary, and this February is no different in that regard. As it’s also Black History Month, February’s programming sees the addition of works starring Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and more, along with wide-ranging collections of features, documentaries, and shorts from a variety of artists from a variety of eras. Let’s look at seven of the best entries to check out this month.
The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968)
Available: February 1st
Directed by: Melvin Van Peebles
Written by: Melvin Van Peebles
Cast: Harry Baird, Nicole Berger
In the early 1960s, frustrated by his inability to establish himself as a director of Hollywood films (after having made a couple of well-received shorts) Chicago native Melvin Van Peebles moved to Europe, eventually ending up in France, where he learned the language and wrote a novel called La Permission. He would then get a grant from the French Cinema Center to adapt this novel into his first feature, The Story of a Three-Day Pass. Starring British actor Harry Baird, it tells a bittersweet story of interracial love and bigotry, and its poignancy, biting humor, and artfulness would only be the beginning of the director’s celebrated, inevitable Hollywood career.
Running on Empty (1988)
Available: February 1st
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Written by: Naomi Foner
Cast: Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, River Phoenix, Steven Hill
New York’s Sidney Lumet already had a storied career (including five Academy Award nominations) before he began working on Running on Empty, and had developed a reputation as a sensitive artist able to get sensitive, naturalistic performances out of his actors. The fact that he got to work with a nuanced, visceral actor like River Phoenix before his untimely death is a gift not just to fans of the two artists, but to fans of film in general. Empty tells the story of two parents on the run after they bomb a napalm lab in protest of the Vietnam War. Phoenix plays their teenage son with eyes on attending Julliard, and the movie explores the tensions and stresses such a dream places on his family, who live a life motivated by the need to evade capture. It is romantic, and sad, and intense, and more than worthy of the awards attention lavished upon it.
The Learning Tree (1969)
Available: February 1st
Directed by: Gordon Parks
Written by: Gordon Parks
Cast: Kyle Johnson, Estelle Evans, Alex Clarke, Dana Elcar, Richard Ward, Mira Waters
The Learning Tree was one of the first films protected by the National Preservation Board at the Library of Congress. It’s the first major studio film directed by an African-American, one who was just three years shy of 60 years old upon its release (the aforementioned studio was Warner Bros.). Though he would go on to direct the much more culturally splashy Shaft, this coming-of-age tale is plenty confrontational in its own ways, telling an autobiographical story filled with observations about manhood, friendship, love, violence and crime in the post-Civil War American Midwest.
Hive (2021)
Available: February 8th
Directed by: Blerta Basholi
Written by: Blerta Basholi
Cast: Yllka Gashi, Çun Lajçi, Aurita Agushi
The official submission from Kosovo for the 2022 Academy Awards, Hive tells the story of a woman who goes into business for herself after her husband’s disappearance in the Kosovo War. It’s a David and Goliath social drama in which women must defy the expectations placed on them by their society, and it won all three main awards when it debuted at Sundance, meaning it not only has things to say, but it knows how to deliver that message in a way audiences can enjoy. It’s a nice, modern offering as good as many of the more talked-about dramas that vied for Best International Feature Film consideration this year, and even better than a few of them.
Citizen Ruth (1996)
Available: February 10th
Directed by: Alexander Payne
Written by: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
Cast: Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly Preston, Burt Reynolds, Kurtwood Smith, Mary Kay Place, Tippi Hedren
This month Criterion has got collections celebrating Alan Arkin and Douglas Sirk, as well as the previously mentioned Van Peebles. The only other actor with their own movie playlist on the service is Laura Dern, and this next entry goes to her. Before its director made the Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick dark comedy Election, and the Sandra Oh-starring indie-adjacent hit Sideways (its haul of $109 million on a $16 million budget is a very Blumhouse-ian feat for character dramedy), he made this movie, his very first. Citizen Ruth is the Juno of its year, sharing that movie’s willingness to provoke and some of its subject matter, but with a DNA all its own. Plus it’s got Laura Dern turning in one of her characteristically committed performances.
Death on the Nile (1978)
Available: February 12th
Directed by: John Guillermin
Written by: Anthony Shaffer
Cast: Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Lois Chiles, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, David Niven
If you have read box-office receipts recently, the title of this film will look familiar. Gal Gadot and Kenneth Branagh just put on a production of this Agatha Christie detective story for the post-Knives Out age. Its 1970s predecessor is an expectedly star-studded affair, and it’s not hard to imagine Rian Johnson being directly inspired by not just this film, but its functional prequel Murder on the Orient Express, which came just four years before it (and was directed Sidney Lumet!). Peter Ustinov is a subtle protagonist in a mystery filled with very big personalities.
The Metamorphosis of Birds (2020)
Available: February 28th
Directed by: Catarina Vasconcelos
Written by: Catarina Vasconcelos
Cast: Manuel Rosa, Ana Vasconcelos, Henrique Vasconcelos, Inês Melo Campos, João Móra
This year at the Academy Awards, the feature film/documentary hybrid to beat is Flee, the animated drama about an Afghan refugee in Denmark with a complicated past. The Metamorphosis of Birds came just a couple of years ago, and it’s just as much a creative explosion of beautifully rendered, personal storytelling and the almost tactile sense of being transported somewhere else, to take on someone else’s emotions. It is the feature-length debut of Portuguese director Catarina Vasconcelos, having premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February of 2020, making this the two year anniversary of its director’s major festival introduction. It reaches into Vasconcelos’s family history at an epic scale. As it does, it explores ideas about mortality and love and the capital-S Self. It is a reminder that films can be many kinds of art at once, and that documentaries can open avenues for learning without being clinical or overly academic.