Letterboxing With its eighth LaserDisc release,
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Criterion introduced the letterbox format, which added black bars to the top and bottom of the
4:3 standard television set to preserve the original
aspect ratio of the film, rather than cropping the image to fit a standard television display.
Commentary soundtracks In 1984, the Criterion Collection's second LaserDisc title,
King Kong (1933), was the debut of the scene-specific
audio commentary 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 (1942),
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), ''
Singin' in the Rain (1952), and The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). 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. Adding directors' commentary tracks as bonus material was another Criterion innovation. Some of the earliest were recorded by
Martin Scorsese for the
Taxi Driver and
Raging Bull LaserDiscs from Criterion. 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 2007, 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 (1973),
Brazil (1985), and
Seven Samurai (1954).
Film restoration Originally, the Criterion Collection focused on releasing
world cinema, mainstream cinema classics, and critically successful obscure films.
M (1931),
Children of Paradise (1945),
The Third Man (1949),
Seven Samurai (1954), while some even have featurettes comparing the restored and unrestored images. In 1989, the company released
Ghostbusters (1984), a controversial choice at the time, as it was a comedy starring Bill Murray that grossed more than $200 million at the box office. ''
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Armageddon (1998) in 1999, and The Rock'' (1996) in 2001.
Licenses Some previously licensed Criterion Collection titles, such
The Harder They Come (1972), become commercially unavailable as new product, and are only available in resale (used) form, because they went out-of-print. Titles such as
RoboCop (1987),
Hard Boiled (1992),
The Killer (1989), and
Grand Illusion (1937) became unavailable when their publishing licenses expired or when Criterion published improved versions, such as those for
Beauty and the Beast (1946),
M (1931),
The Wages of Fear (1953), and
Seven Samurai (1954). over 200 of the 384 titles from the List of Criterion Collection Laserdisc releases have been re-released. Another example is the film
Charade (1963), 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 (such as Universal's and
Terry Gilliam's 1985 film
Brazil); 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 (2008), in 2022. This was not the result of an ongoing deal between
Disney (who has maintained a relationship with the distributor for titles from
Touchstone Pictures and, since 2019,
20th Century Studios) and Criterion, but rather licensed as a one-off, with Stanton approaching Criterion and "wanting to be part of the club". In 2023, Criterion announced it would be working with Janus Films to create Janus Contemporaries, a home-video line for first-run international releases.
Representation Beginning in 2018 via streaming service FilmStruck, Criterion started offering curated film collections organized around queer themes for the month of June in recognition of
Pride Month. Since FilmStruck shut down in November 2018 and Criterion debuted its own streaming service, The Criterion Channel, in April 2019, In 2020, after a
The New York Times article titled “How the Criterion Collection Crops Out African-American Directors” was published, Peter Becker, Criterion’s president at the time, admitted to what he called his “blind spots.” Subsequently, and in response to the murder of
George Floyd, Becker said in a 2024 interview with
The NYT, the company would correct course. Since then, it has released additional films by
Steve McQueen and
Ousmane Sembène as well as added films from
Marlon Riggs,
Cheryl Dunye, and others. ==Formats==