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Criterion Challenge 2026

52 movies  

https://letterboxd.com/benvsthemovies/list/the-criterion-challenge-2026/

  1. 20th Anniversary Releases
  2. Watch a film not on your watchlist
  3. Watch a film with a color in the title
  4. 2020s or an upcoming release
  5. Romance
  6. The Twenty Least Watched Films
  7. Queer Cinema
  8. 1930s
  9. 1990s
  10. Random Number Generator (Set values from 1 to whatever number Criterion has listed last here. This number will change as more releases are announced so please keep up to date by using the link I have provided as I will not be updating each time Criterion makes announcements. Watch whatever film corresponds to the spine number you are given.)
  11. King Princess’s Top 10
  12. Judge a film by its cover
  13. Song and Dance
  14. 2000s
  15. Director Approved
  16. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Closet Picks
  17. Prequel/Sequel/Remake/Reimagining
  18. 1980s
  19. Watch a film that starts with the first letter of your name
  20. Kathryn Bigelow’s Closet Picks
  21. 1940s
  22. Watch a film rated 2.0-2.9 stars
  23. Pick any category from a past Criterion Challenge year
  24. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
  25. “Good For Her” Cinematic Universe
  26. Guy Maddin’s Top 10
  27. 1960s
  28. Directed by Satyajit Ray
  29. Watch a film from any box set release
  30. Black Lives
  31. Watch a film rated 3.7 stars
  32. Elle Fanning’s Closet Picks
  33. War
  34. 2010s
  35. 1950s
  36. Glorious Restorations
  37. Must see Criterion released films as featured on Danny Peary’s “Guide for the Film Fanatic” (1986)
  38. Random Letter Generator - Watch a film that starts with the letter randomly generated
  39. The Best Movies of the 21st Century
  40. Directed by Mira Nair
  41. Spine #701-750
  42. 1970s
  43. Letterboxd Top 250
  44. Watch a film you haven’t seen that someone else watched as part of last year’s challenge
  45. Novels on the Big Screen
  46. Random Year Generator - Set values from 1915 to 2024 and watch a film from whatever year is randomly generated
  47. Women Directors: The Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films
  48. David Byrne’s Closet Picks
  49. Criterion Double Features: Film #1
  50. Criterion Double Features: Film #2
  51. 1920s
  52. Watch any Criterion film from your watchlist
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Movie

Drive, He Said (1971)
Drive, He Said
director: Jack Nicholson actor: William Tepper / Karen Black …
other title: 开车，他说 / 드라이브, 히 세이드 …
Hector is a star basketball player for the College basketball team he plays for, the Leopards. His girlfriend, Olive, doesn't know whether to stay with him or leave him. And his friend, Gabriel, who may have dropped out from school and become a protestor, wants desperately not to get drafted for Vietnam.
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Movie

Shoah (1985)
Shoah
★ 9.1 (34 ratings) director: 克洛德·朗兹曼 actor: 克洛德·朗兹曼 / 西蒙·斯雷尼 …
other title: Shoah - Extermínio / 浩劫 …
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
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Movie

Black Narcissus (1947) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Black Narcissus
★ 7.3 (81 ratings) director: 迈克尔·鲍威尔 / 埃默里克·普雷斯伯格 actor: 黛博拉·蔻儿 / 弗劳拉·罗博森 …
other title: 黑水仙 / 思凡(港) …
A group of Anglican nuns, led by Sister Clodagh, are sent to a mountain in the Himalayas. The climate in the region is hostile and the nuns are housed in an odd old palace. They work to establish a school and a hospital, but slowly their focus shifts. Sister Ruth falls for a government worker, Mr. Dean, and begins to question her vow of celibacy. As Sister Ruth obsesses over Mr. Dean, Sister Clodagh becomes immersed in her own memories of love.
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Movie

Sanjuro (1962) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
椿三十郎
★ 8.7 (254 ratings) director: 黑泽明 actor: 三船敏郎 / 仲代达矢 …
other title: 츠바키 산주로 / 椿三十郎 …
Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.
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Movie

Aparajito (1956)
অপরাজিত
★ 8.5 (95 ratings) director: God actor: Kanu Bannerjee / Karuna Banerjee …
other title: 아푸 제2부: 아파라지토 / অপরাজিত …
Aparajito picks up where the first film leaves off, with Apu and his family having moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Varanasi (then known as Benares). As Apu progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother. This tenderly expressive, often heart-wrenching film, which won three top prizes at the Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion, not only extends but also spiritually deepens the tale of Apu. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 1996.
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Movie

Hollywood Shuffle (1987) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Hollywood Shuffle
director: Robert Townsend actor: Robert Townsend / Craigus R. Johnson …
other title: 好莱坞洗牌 / 할리우드 셔플 …
Bobby Taylor wants to be a respected actor. From Sam Spade to Shakespeare to superheros, he can do it all. He just has to convince Hollywood that gangstas, slaves and “Eddie Murphy-types” aren’t the sum of his talents.
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Movie

Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
director: 王颖 actor: 缪骞人 / 黄志强 …
other title: 点心 / 黑心 …
San Francisco's Richmond District. A widow welcomes the Chinese New Year. 62 years old, she wants to make a trip to China to pay last respects to her ancestors. A fortune teller has told her this is the year she'll die, and a daughter, Geraldine, remains unmarried. Geraldine's boyfriend lives in Los Angeles and she's not sure she's ready for marriage, nor does she want to leave her mother alone in her declining years. Mrs. Tan's cheerful brother-in-law, Uncle Tam, tries to help out.
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Movie

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection
★ 7.5 (6 ratings) director: 利莫昂·杰里米·摩塞 actor: Jerry Mofokeng / Tseko Monaheng …
other title: 디스 이즈 낫 어 베리얼, 잇츠 어 레저렉션 / L’ Indomptable feu du printemps …
Amongst the mountains of Lesotho, an 80-year-old widow winds up her affairs and makes arrangements for her burial. But when her village is threatened with resettlement due to the construction of a reservoir, she finds a new will to live and ignites a spirit of resistance within her community.
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Movie

Miracle in Milan (1951) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Miracolo a Milano
★ 7.5 (38 ratings) director: 维托里奥·德西卡 actor: 埃玛·格拉马蒂卡 / Francesco Golisano …
other title: 米兰的奇迹 / Miracolo a Milano …
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.
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Movie

Journey to Prehistory (1955) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Cesta do praveku
★ 6.3 (6 ratings) director: 卡尔·齐曼 actor: Vladimír Bejval / Petr Herrmann …
other title: 史前之旅 / Cesta do praveku …
Four schoolboys go on an awe-inspiring expedition back through time, where they behold landscapes and creatures that have long since vanished from the earth.
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Movie

Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Five Easy Pieces
★ 7.5 (19 ratings) director: 鲍勃·拉菲尔森 actor: Jack Nicholson / Karen Black …
other title: 五支歌 / 五部轻松的戏剧 …
A drop-out from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil-rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.
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Movie

The Tree of Life (2011)
The Tree of Life
★ 7.2 (304 ratings) director: Terrence Malick actor: Brad Pitt / 西恩·潘 …
other title: 生命之树 / 生命树(港) …
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
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Movie

Monsoon Wedding (2001) WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Monsoon Wedding
★ 7.3 (18 ratings) director: 米拉·奈尔 actor: 纳萨鲁丁·沙 / 莉蕾特·杜贝 …
other title: 季风婚宴 / 偷欢嫁期(港) …
As the romantic monsoon rains loom, the extended Verma family reunites from around the globe for a last-minute arranged marriage in New Delhi. This film traces five intersecting stories, each navigating different aspects of love as they cross boundaries of class, continent and morality.
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