in Film | March 19th, 2026 Leave a Comment

Jim Jarmusch—the direc­tor of Stranger Than Par­adise, Down by Law, and Dead Man—recent­ly stepped into The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion clos­et to share the films that shaped his aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty. In the next three min­utes, Jar­musch pays trib­ute to a box set of Pier Pao­lo Pasolini’s 1960s films, along with Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mir­ror, plac­ing it even above Stalk­er and Andrei Rublev. Along the way, he name checks a num­ber of oth­er clas­sics. And then, with a bag full of DVDs in hand, he con­cludes: “I love Cri­te­ri­on. I always say the Cri­te­ri­on Chan­nel is my drug of choice.” For any­one inter­est­ed, you can start watch­ing films on the Cri­te­ri­on Chan­nel’s stream­ing ser­vice by sign­ing up for a free tri­al here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Jim Jarmusch’s 10 Favorite Films: Ozu’s Tokyo Sto­ry, Kurosawa’s Sev­en Samu­rai and Oth­er Black & White Clas­sics