The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributor Janus Films, Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,200 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. Many of these films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates.
The Criterion Collection is considered the leading boutique Blu-ray label.
In the United States, their releases are distributed by Alliance Entertainment, via their Distribution Solutions division. In the United Kingdom, Spirit Entertainment handles distribution of Criterion titles since October 2023. In Canada, their releases are distributed by Unobstructed View since 2019, after their deal with Entertainment One expired that year.
History
The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker and Jonathan B. Turell founded the Voyager Company to publish educational multimedia CD-ROMs, and the Criterion Collection became a subordinate division of the Voyager Company, with Janus Films holding a minority stake in the company, and decided to expand its product on videocassettes and videodiscs. In March 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH bought 20% of Voyager for US$6.7 million; the four founders each retained a 20% owner's share.In 1997, the Voyager Company was dissolved, and Holtzbrinck Publishers sold the Voyager brand name, 42 CD-ROM titles, the Voyager web site and associated assets to Learn Technologies Interactive, LLC. Stein sold 42 Voyager titles to LTI from his Voyager/Criterion company share. The remaining three partners, Aleen Stein, Becker and Turell owned the Criterion Collection company, which has a business partnership with Janus Films and had one with Home Vision Entertainment until 2005, when Image Entertainment bought HVE. On November 4, 2013, it was announced that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment would handle distribution. In May 2024, Janus Films and Criterion were acquired by Steven Rales.
Home Vision Entertainment
In 1986, Charles Benton founded Home Vision Entertainment, the home-video division of Public Media Inc., which he had previously founded in 1968. The HVE company sold, advertised, marketed and distributed Criterion Collection DVDs, and also sold its own HVE brand of DVDs, including The Merchant Ivory Collection and the Classic Collection, a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films. The latter enterprise published HVE imprint films, for which Janus Films owned the video rights, but which were unavailable from the Criterion Collection; however, Criterion published the Classic Collection films. In 2005, Image Entertainment bought HVE making it the exclusive distributor of Criterion Collection products until 2013.Online ventures and marketing
The Criterion Collection began to provide video-on-demand in partnership with Mubi in 2008. In February 2011, Criterion began switching its VOD offerings exclusively to Hulu Plus. In November 2016, FilmStruck, a film streaming service from Turner Classic Movies, succeeded Hulu as the exclusive streaming service for the Criterion Collection. Some Criterion films were streamed by Kanopy. On October 26, 2018, Warner Bros. Digital Networks and Turner announced that FilmStruck would shut down on November 29. Criterion stated in a blog post that it was "trying to find ways we can bring our library and original content back to the digital space as soon as possible".On November 16, 2018, Criterion announced the launch of the Criterion Channel as a standalone service, wholly owned and operated by the Criterion Collection, in the United States and Canada. Some of the VOD service's offerings are also available on the HBO Max streaming platform.
British film magazine Sight & Sound revealed in its April 2016 issue that Criterion would be expanding its releases to the United Kingdom. The first six titles were released on April 18, 2016.
The Criterion Closet is a film closet containing every title distributed by Criterion. Criterion regularly uploads videos of prominent film directors and actors selecting films from the closet on their official YouTube channel.
In July 2025, Criterion agreed to pay US$4.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it unlawfully shared subscriber information with third parties including Meta and Twilio.
Contributions and influence
Letterboxing
With its eighth LaserDisc release, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Criterion introduced the letterbox format, which added black bars to the top and bottom of the 4:3 standard television set in order to preserve the original aspect ratio of the film. Thereafter, Criterion made letterboxing the standard presentation for all its releases of films shot in widescreen aspect ratios.Commentary soundtracks
The Criterion Collection's second LaserDisc title, King Kong, was the debut of the scene-specific audio commentary contained in a separate analog channel of the LaserDisc, in which American film historian Ronald Haver spoke about the production, cast, screenplay, production design and special effects. He also provides commentary on the LaserDisc editions of Casablanca, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz. Typically, the chapter-indexed commentaries are exclusive to the Criterion releases and their initial DVD reissues; they became collector's items when the original studios reissued titles previously licensed to Criterion, regardless of whether new commentary tracks were produced.Special editions
The Criterion Collection began in 1984 with the releases of Citizen Kane and King Kong on LaserDisc, the latter's source negatives courtesy of the Library of Congress. The company later became known for pioneering the "special edition" DVD concept containing bonus materials such as trailers, commentaries, documentaries, alternate endings and deleted scenes. The success of these releases established the special-edition version in the DVD business. In 2006, taking advantage of advanced film-transfer and film-restoration technologies, Criterion published higher-quality versions, with bonus materials, of early catalog titles such as Amarcord, Brazil and Seven Samurai.Film restoration
Originally, Criterion released art, genre and mainstream movies on LaserDisc such as Halloween, Ghostbusters, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Armageddon and The Rock. Increasingly, the Criterion Collection has also focused on releasing world cinema, mainstream cinema classics and critically successful obscure films. Using the best available source materials, the company produced technologically improved and cleaner versions, such as those for The Passion of Joan of Arc, M, Children of Paradise, The Third Man, Seven Samurai and Amarcord. Almost every title contains film-cleaning and film-restoration essays in the booklets, while some even have featurettes comparing the restored and unrestored images.Licenses
Some previously licensed Criterion Collection titles, such as The Harder They Come, are now commercially unavailable as new product, and are only available in resale form. Titles such as RoboCop, Hard Boiled, The Killer and Ran became unavailable when their publishing licenses expired or when Criterion published improved versions, such as those for Beauty and the Beast, M, The Wages of Fear and Seven Samurai. over 200 of the 384 titles from the List of Criterion Collection Laserdisc releases have been re-released.Another example is the film Charade, which had become a public-domain property for lacking the legally-required copyright notice. Criterion produced a restored edition under license from Universal Pictures for the initial edition and for the later anamorphic widescreen re-release edition of the film.
Periodically, Criterion releases material on DVD and Blu-ray disc licensed from the studios with whom the company had previously dealt ; these new releases are generally undertaken on a case-by-case basis.
Criterion released its first Walt Disney Pictures title, Andrew Stanton's WALL-E, in 2008. This was not the result of an ongoing deal between Disney and Criterion, but rather licensed as a one-off, with Stanton approaching Criterion and "wanting to be part of the club".