Today the Criterion Collection launched Criterion Channel, a new film streaming service. This comes after FilmStruck—which previously housed films from both the Criterion Collection and Turner Classic Movies—was shut down in November 2018 due to WarnerMedia restructuring. This new platform will host both Criterion Collection and Janus Films’ library of over 1,000 feature films, 350 shorts, and 3,500 supplementary features. That’s a veritable Fuck Ton of films.
It’s a bit unclear how many of those thousands of feature films will be permanently available to stream, but the company guarantees that all films will be available for a minimum of 90 days unless it says otherwise.
Criterion Channel is also more focused on thematic programming tied to days of the week, just like its recently deceased sister. Tuesdays will be Short + Feature pairings like Annie Silverstein’s short Skunk and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank. Wednesdays to women filmmakers, Fridays are double features, Saturdays a family-friendly matinee, and Sundays for major spotlights.
The most noteworthy aspect of this new platform is that all the films and supplements are personally curated by a human being. Not some algorithm that thinks you want to watch Bird Box after silently weeping during Roma or that is constantly trying to push its own original content on you. Channel Programmer Penelope Bartlett told Decider that:
“An algorithm is not a great tool for discovery or for launching a moviegoer. Netflix and any other data-driven service are going to find things you want to watch based on sophisticated understandings of things that you’ve liked in the past, and now they’re also going to produce things based on that information, too. It’s an amazing business. Lots of people are having good experiences with those services. But we fundamentally see this as about people—and as people as audience members.”
It’s important to note here that she says “people” and not “data points.” I like the thought of what we have watched not necessarily dictating what we will want to watch. That there’s still some human, unquantifiable, untraceable element to what we want to watch that isn’t strictly dictated by our past. Data tracking is how the cinematic equivalent of a dumpster fire, Bird Box , happened. Not saying that constructing entire movies off of randomly accrued data points is wrong, but it should be noted!
In any case, Criterion Channel is $10.99 a month. You can sign up for it here.
Criterion Channel Trailer (Director’s Cut) from Criterion Collection on Vimeo.
