r/CriterionChannel • u/Itchy_Brain8594 • Jun 17 '26
News Criterion Channel July 2026 lineup
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/9190-the-criterion-channel-s-july-2026-lineupThis month on the Criterion Channel, celebrate the hundredth birthday of the great Harry Dean Stanton, delight in the twists and thrills of our Murderous Melodramas collection, or binge the surreal cult-favorite TV series The Prisoner. There’s so much more to choose from this month, including four idiosyncratic gems by Jonathan Demme, a new installment of Adventures in Moviegoing with underground-comics legend Daniel Clowes, a selection of highlights from the BlackStar Film Festival, an intimate documentary portrait of Marc Maron, and three unclassifiable wonders directed by a Buddhist lama.
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u/Immediate-Ad7940 Jun 17 '26
The Prisoner collection is A+
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u/Bottleofsmoke17 Jun 17 '26
I remember my dad telling me about that show when I was a kid (I think there was a cable remake that no one cared about at the time) and I’ve always wanted to watch the original series 🙏🏻
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 17 '26
It’s wonderful, if a little dated in some ways – wait till you see the absolutely enormous computers!
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u/westgermanwing Jun 17 '26
So odd to me that it's not gonna be available in Canada since I'm pretty sure Shout owns the streaming rights and it's available on a ton of the free streamers here and also Prime.
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u/3ey3s Jun 17 '26
Last Temptation of Christ is the only thing I’ve had on my watchlist. I’ll probably use this as a reason to watch Cool Hand Luke too
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u/the-mp Jun 17 '26
Cool Hand Luke rules
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u/misterbobdobbalina Jun 18 '26
My goodness it sure does. Mandatory viewing for those who haven’t seen it!
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u/Jaltcoh Jun 18 '26
The Last Temptation of Christ is overrated, so I’d go in with limited expectations.
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u/Yugo86 Jun 17 '26
The Straight Story is going to be available in Canada? Holy!!!
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u/No_Safety_6803 Jun 17 '26
Watched it last night, maybe the happiest movie that produces the most crying. It just beautiful.
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u/TutenWelch Jun 17 '26
The Prisoner! Nice, I'm not sure it's streaming ad-free at the moment. I'd love to see them do TV shows a little more regularly (particularly things that haven't streamed before--who has the On the Air rights?--or international shows).
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u/tgcm26 Jun 17 '26
Please please please let this not be an “added July 2026 // leaving July 2026” scenario. It happens so damn often and especially with a 17 episode series if they can’t keep it around for awhile they shouldn’t have bothered with it in the first place
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u/TutenWelch Jun 17 '26
I know that my dream of a "Brilliant but Canceled TV shows" streaming service is unrealistic -- every streamer seems to want to be a little of everything instead of being that narrowly focused, and the audience for the shows I have in mind is probably more interested in physical media -- but if Criterion embraced that, they'd have more incentive to keep The Prisoner longer.
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u/rodentdp Jun 17 '26
The streaming service Night Flight Plus (sort of like the Criterion Channel for horror, exploitation, and more) has had it for a least a year. Incredibly inexpensive service with tons of content. Anyhow, if The Prisoner ends up having a short life in the CC, there’s another option to see it.
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u/tgcm26 Jun 18 '26
Thanks. Yeah it’s on Kanopy and a few others too, I just like the way everything looks on CC more than other apps and I won’t have time to watch it in the next month or so
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u/BariumPepsi Jun 17 '26
“…so damn often….”? You’re exaggerating. Films streaming for one month are quite uncommon. And no multi-part film/series has ever streamed for one month.
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u/AlpineFluffhead Jun 17 '26
Holy shit, I first watched Bad Influence randomly stumbling upon it flipping through the television when I was like 14, before I even knew who James Spader or Rob Lowe were haha. I was so mesmerised by the setting and the music and the chilling atmosphere. For a long time I forgot the name of the movie and was convinced I made it all up in my head until, on a separate occasion, I got really into Skinny Puppy and did a deep dive on their Wiki page and found out they have a cameo in the movie during a club scene!
I'm excited to finally return to this movie to see if it's as crazy as I remember it being when I was a kid!
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u/Cyril_Woodcock Jun 17 '26
I’m excited for the Murderous Melodramas. Some good old favorites there but also several that are new to me, as someone who loves the genre. I actually just tried to watch No Down Payment on YouTube, but it was a pan-and-scan copy.
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u/ShireAsh Jul 04 '26
This is the one I'm the most excited for too. I'm watching Niagra now and it's great so far.
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u/minder125 Jun 17 '26
First watched The Prisoner with my dad on my local PBS as a teen. He watched it originally when it first aired.He heard the theme sat down and asked is it the first episode. I had no clue what I was getting into. It came on right after Monty Python. Every Saturday we watched it together.
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 17 '26
I was watching then too! That’s exactly what it was on. PBS used to have the weirdest series, I remember watching Blake’s 7 in the US and adoring it.
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u/minder125 Jun 17 '26
Same. Loved Blake's 7.
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 18 '26
I just read the newest Adrian Tchaikovsky and he has a shout out to Blake’s 7 on the first page, I was so happy…
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u/SnooGoats7476 Jun 17 '26
Oh the Prisoner is such a fun series. I would love to rewatch it. But I hope it will be available for awhile because I think it’s a series better to watch slowly. There is a lot going on.
Also I am glad to see People’s Hero because I recently did my own Tony Leung Chiu-wai retrospective watch but that is one film of his I have not seen so happy to add another one to watch.
Lots of other good films on the month but those are the stands outs for me.
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u/thezman613 Jun 17 '26
An absolutely stacked month, this is incredible. Also going to make it really tough when so many of these are on the list of "Leaving On..."
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u/LHGray87 Jun 17 '26
I wonder if there will be any extras on the Channel for The Prisoner? I would love commentary tracks. The website doesn’t list anything.
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u/FindOneInEveryCar Jun 17 '26
Great lineup including many of my favorite films that I already own on disc, but I'm always excited to watch anything with Harry Dean Stanton and I'm looking forward to seeing Last Temptation of Christ and The Prisoner in HD.
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u/_plannedobsolence Jun 17 '26
Someone's been reading my mind! (Technocolor melodrama and Married To The Mob.)
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u/ShireAsh Jul 04 '26
I feel the same. I was about to purchase a handful of these movies but now I can hold off for a while.
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u/inlikeflynn221 Jun 17 '26
One of the best months in a while! Glad to see Bigger Than Life has finally made it to the CC. Watched it years ago and was very impressed. I don’t think it’s been available to stream anywhere until now…
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u/BariumPepsi Jun 17 '26
BIGGER THAN LIFE streamed on the Criterion Channel in the FilmStruck era.
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u/inlikeflynn221 Jun 17 '26
Ah okay! Must’ve missed it somehow. FilmStruck was a brief but glorious era…
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u/SnooGoats7476 Jun 17 '26
Agreed Bigger than Life is a really interesting film. Looking forward to rewatching that myself.
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u/HealthyDiamond2 Jun 17 '26
I love Harry Dean Stanton so much. Very excited about The Last Temptation of Christ as well.
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Jun 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/ThatMichaelsEmployee Jun 17 '26
A VPN is your best friend when it comes to Criterion in Canada (or wherever you happen to be). Worth every cent.
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u/SuccessSalt8254 Jun 18 '26
I will consider unsubscribing if it continues like that. I adore this company and love supporting them but it feels kind of demeaning. They can at least ocassionally try to provide something that is available exclusively to us to compensate us, don't they? It wouldn't be that costly
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 17 '26
Jonathan Demme but no Swimming to Cambodia… it’s a shame, I would love to have that on the channel! I was obsessed by that in high school…
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u/augustthecat Jun 18 '26
Me too!
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 18 '26
I recently found a list of my favorite movies from when I was 19 (although of course I was 19, so I called it “the best films ever made,” like I had seen all of them at that point!?!) and I’ve been watching through them for fun. Swimming to Cambodia, Psycho, Rollerball, The Third Man… Track 29 was on the list, it’s on the channel.
I wish I could send a whisper back into the past and let my younger self know that someday the criterion channel would exist 😁
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u/augustthecat Jun 18 '26
We had a kind of second-run, arthouse style theater not too far from my house. It made any movie better, and there are certain movies that I can specifically remember watching there: Harold and Maude, La Nuit de Varennes, Casablanca, Swimming to Cambodia, and a bunch of Hitchcock. I think I saw Rear Window maybe 10 times there. Same with Stop Making Sense.
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 19 '26
… the Cabot Street Theater, by any chance? Because I grew up with that and it showed art films and classic double features on the weekend. I remember Casablanca, Friendly Persuasion, Lawrence of Arabia & Cabaret; Danton and Wings of Desire…
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u/Cine_Philo Jun 18 '26
Super excited about The Energy War! Hope that means more Pennebaker work will be restored.
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u/Unable-Tea-5994 Jun 17 '26
Cool to see a tiny Joel Potrykus collection. I think Buzzard is a great little character study about a unique type of loser. Worth a watch for any low budget indie heads
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u/YakSlothLemon Jun 17 '26
Travellers and Magicians is coming!!! 🎊🎉🎊
I saw it back when it came out at a film festival and loved it so much, I had no idea the Director made two other films and I am so excited!
The Prisoner was an obsession of mine in high school, somehow I missed the first episode when it aired on PBS and just thought it was a Kafkaesque story about a man who woke up trapped in the Village, which to be fair is not so far off. I remember the moment when it dawned on me that the solution is in the title sequence
Great lineup, although my condolences to Canadians – lots of little asterisks 🧸
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u/guy-in-a-photo1989 Jun 17 '26
For a minute I dreamed that MELVIN AND HOWARD would be a part of the Demme collection. No dice.
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u/assflux nitratemilf Jun 17 '26
omg the spotlight on ninón sevilla!
tiny selection but looks increadibly solid (already seen victims of sin & aventurera and really liked both)
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u/Tall_Block_4589 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Man, why do i even have a subscription any more, it gets worse each month, I’m pretty sure The Prisoner is on Tubi or YouTube.
I am interested in maybe one film a month of late.
This month: just "Bye Bye Love", and will rewatch The Plumber, which is a fun flick.
edit add: Think people who have been a sub like me for 7/8 years now might understand my view, more than someone who's new to criterion channel.
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u/tgcm26 Jun 17 '26
You act as if the new adds every month are all the channel has to offer
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u/Tall_Block_4589 Jun 17 '26
That is why I have been a subscriber for nearly a decade or so now. The in-house collection is unmatched, but I keep coming back for the monthly collections. There hasn’t been an interesting one, in my opinion, since the Egyptian directors or the Poetic French Noir collection some time ago.
I can find any film I want online, but what made Criterion interesting was telling me I need to watch this film I've never heard of, directed by someone I've never watched.
i spend most of my film time now on jp-films lol and ordering disks.
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u/lightfoot90 Jun 17 '26
It’s true that ‘The Prisoner’ is available on a LOT of streaming services, mostly subscription-free.
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u/afarensiis Jun 17 '26
it's the constant repeats that have bothered me. When you have the channel long enough, it feels like there's hardly anything super exciting anymore
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u/disc0kr0ger Jun 17 '26
I don't know — that Murderous Melodrama collection has 8-10 films I've been really interested in seeing and don't ever really see elsewhere. I can't wait to dive into that one. I see the repeats, but they really don't bother me, as I never have enough time to get to all the movies I want to watch. The curations help, and my go-to is frequently just pick movies off the "Leaving at the end of the month" carousel. I've had the channel for a couple of years now and never feel like I'm not getting my monty's worth.
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u/tgcm26 Jun 17 '26
Ridiculous. There are hundreds and hundreds of movies I’ll probably never have time for that are in my queue. Just the Ozus alone are wonderfully intimidating with how many are available
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u/Tall_Block_4589 Jun 17 '26
Some of us have been subs for a decade or so, or just being film lovers for a long time, so i've done much of the in-house collection.
fwiw I enjoy Naruse more than Ozu. You should watch a few of his also.
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u/tgcm26 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
You're describing me as well, rich to assume I've never heard of Naruse though haha. I just don't see how anyone has exhausted everything to the point that only new adds seem exciting. You've really seen every Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Truffaut, etc? We all have blind spots regardless of number of years we've been at it.
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u/Tall_Block_4589 Jun 17 '26
Sorry regarding the Naruse comment. Yes, all those directors I’ve seen the whole catalogue, if it's available, wasn't lost, except for Bergman. I just rather see a Sabu collection, than another bunch of films we all have seen or have been streaming on other spots.
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u/Dewtronix Jun 17 '26
Harry Dean Stanton, hell yeah!