Last month, the sight of an 18-foot delivery van, labeled “The Criterion Closet” and containing all 1,500 celebrated film titles from renowned distributor the Criterion Collection, set social media atwitter. This week, comedian-actor Bill Hader officially announced that the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary by taking its fabled film cache on the road. It will debut at Lincoln Center on September 28, just in time for opening night at the New York Film Festival.
American cinephiles will have an opportunity to record their own videos talking about their favorite titles, a tradition that Criterion started 14 years ago, when it launched its “Closet Picks” YouTube series. Each one invites an authority across artistic disciplines into the Closet itself to choose five films to take home. Guillermo del Toro kicked off the series in 2010, pulling movies like Crumb (1994)—which tells the story of American cartoonist R. Crumb—as well as the mockumentary thriller The Magician (1958) from the Closet’s then-novel BluRay section.
Two years later, Laurie Anderson also selected The Magician. “You know, I was going to make music for this thing,” said the artist-musician in her segment. “Somebody had asked me to do that for some weird version of it.” Meanwhile, after first pulling the cult classic horror film The Blob (1958), filmmaker and art collector John Waters said, “Let’s get a little arty,” selecting storied Italian director Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963). “We used to take LSD and see his movies all the time,” Waters added. Dutch photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn, on the other hand, included Midnight Cowboy (1969) among his colorful selections.
The Criterion Collection launched in 1984, with the release of special laser disc editions of Citizen Kane (1941) and King Kong (1933). Since then, the Collection has stockpiled and distributed thousands of the most important films ever made. It has included numerous art-related titles over the years, such as Miranda July‘s debut film, Me And You And Everyone We Know (2005), and Laura Poitras’s ode to Nan Goldin’s activism, All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022).
The Criterion Closet, which houses physical copies of the full collection, has become somewhat of an urban legend. Fans have questioned if it’s really a closet, and where it might be. Yes, it’s real, and it’s in New York.
Bill Hader in The Criterion Closet. Courtesy of the Criterion Collection.
This month’s 40th anniversary initiative marks the Criterion Closet’s first time on the road. While Criterion is remaining tight-lipped about the itinerary, the company has conceded that it will travel to a few more major U.S. cities. Those lucky enough to receive a visit, besides the opportunity to record their own Closet Picks, will also enjoy a 40 percent discount on the van’s contents, which include yet more art-adjacent titles, like Anderson’s documentary Heart of a Dog (2015) and David Lynch’s ode to the creative process, The Art Life (2016). Guests can even take their finds home in the same tote bags that appear in the Closet Picks series—and receive a Polaroid documenting the experience.
Keep your eyes on the Criterion Collection’s site to see if your hometown made the cut. If not, you can always order the luxurious CC40 commemorative box set.