Today, Max and HBO announced a multiyear deal extension with The Criterion Collection to continue bringing the award-winning catalog of hundreds of titles to the platform, including films newly available on Max in the U.S.
"We are excited to continue to bring the Criterion Collection’s catalog of top-quality films to our audiences,” said Royce Battleman, Executive Vice President, Content Acquisitions, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Both the existing and new additions to the collection provide Max viewers with the opportunity to experience cinematic excellence as part of our offering.”
Showcasing the Criterion Collection’s acclaimed films alongside a rich collection of titles from Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Classic Movies, A24, Studio Ghibli, and more, further solidifies Max as the top destination for movie night. From hit blockbusters like "Wonka,” “Dune,” “Joker,” and award-winning films like "Barbie," “The Boy and the Heron,” and "Everything Everywhere All at Once," to classics old and new like "Casablanca," "The Wizard of Oz," “West Side Story,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Pretty Woman,” “Independence Day,” and “Raging Bull,” Max has something for every film buff.
Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality. No matter the medium, Criterion Collection presents films in state-of-the-art
Modern Times (1936)
Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard). With its barrage of unforgettable gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, the Academy Award nominated film — though made almost a decade into the talkie era and containing moments of sound (even song!) — is a timeless showcase of Chaplin’s untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy.
Tokyo Story (1953)
A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, the Academy Award nominated film is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo, surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores. Featuring lovely performances from Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, Tokyo Story plumbs and deepens the director’s recurring theme of generational conflict, creating what is without question one of cinema’s mightiest masterpieces.
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s film is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combining gruesome gore with acute social commentary and quietly breaking ground by casting a Black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role. The film was Inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1999.
Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time Academy Award nominated portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, the film is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
The list continues with popular titles like L'Avventura, Eraserhead, Academy Award-winning The Last Emperor, A Room with a View, The Great Beauty, La Strada, Fanny and Alexander, 8½, Babette's Feast, Academy Award-nominated Seven Samurai, Cries and Whispers, and more
