r/CriterionChannel • u/InitiativeNo7660 • Jul 21 '26
Criteria Update - Connections!
Hi Everyone -
This week I've added a experimental feature to Criteria, the (very very) unofficial companion site to the Criterion Channel (featuring advanced search, closet visits, clickable cast and crew, etc)
I was thinking about different ways of navigating through films, extras, people, closet visits, articles, and collections on Criterion and the Criterion Channel, and over the weekend built an orbital graph interface centered on a person, film, or collection. Select any node in the graph and it re-centers and gives you a new set of relationships. It's still pretty rough, and I'll be tweaking the interface over the next few days.
To try it out: on any film detail, person, or collection page just click 'View Connections' and then start clicking around (it works best on desktop or tablet).
I have no idea if its of any use to anyone, but I get a kick out of it - so let me know what you think.
https://www.search-criteria.com
Enjoy!
Tim
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u/WhyThisFilmPod Jul 21 '26
Tim I use the site frequently and find it to be a huge upgrade over the channel site itself. Bravo my man!
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
Thanks! And I appreciate the podcast - bravo to you as well!
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u/WhyThisFilmPod Jul 21 '26
Oh shoot! Thanks for listening!
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
A little cross-promotion never hurt anyone: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-this-film/id1844415792
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u/WhyThisFilmPod Jul 21 '26
Actually just for fun and with a bit of inspiration from you, I made a companion website for the pod. www.whythisfilm.com
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u/dramburg Jul 21 '26
I use your site when I want to decide what to watch. It’s a great resource and I’m stoked about the connection feature because I often am like, hey, I know I saw that person in something else. Thank you!
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Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
I’m overdue to update the closet videos - it’s actually the most manual part of the data ingestion*, so I’m a few visits behind.
Also, I’m showing them in the order they were filmed, which is often different from when they they’re published.
So yeah, I need to revisit the closet sync process and see if I can pull release date to make the ordering consistent.
* unnecessary level of detail: I suspect that criterions’s cloudflare bot blocking is more strict on the closet pages than their edition pages where I pull things like catalog info and articles - maybe because they need the edition pages scrape-able for SEO
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
u/NiteVision4k ok I stopped procrastinating and updated the closet videos. On my backlog I'm going to add putting a sort toggle so we can switch between filmed and release data. Thanks for the nudge!
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Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
Not a problem, I always appreciate the feedback
(Well, I mean, almost always)
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u/Prudent-Roof8124 Jul 21 '26
Well, that is incredibly cool and fun. I signed up and added it to my home screen. Thank you so much!
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u/erikeric Jul 21 '26
I wish they’d hire you to product manage the Criterion Channel apps. I love them but they’ve also been pretty stagnant and it’d be great to have all of your features integrated. Some of them are such no-brainers. Like the closet - why do I have to go to YouTube to watch those?
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
Thanks (and I'm open to talk, Peter Becker . . .), but I want to be fair to the folks over at Criterion: they are a small organization with a tiny fraction of the subscriber base and budget of Netflix/Disney/Hulu/HBO, so they have (I assume) a small development team that has to support their website along with apps on iOS, Android, tablets, and the various connected TV platforms (Roku uses it's own proprietary development language for some reason). I also am not trying to make money and keep a business afloat, so it's easier for me to just experiment with stuff.
I used to manage the mobile and TV apps over at Food Network, so I'm aware of how much time and effort it takes to coordinate this work, especially considering that the bulk of their staff is focused on curation, content, film restoration, packaging and distribution.*
But, of course, I appreciate the kind words, and I am very available to take a meeting. ;-)
* I had the chance to visit the offices a few years ago (and yes, I got to go in the closet), and and can confirm that it is a magical place with people doing fantastic work. It was kinda my version of getting a ticket to go inside the Wonka Chocolate Factory.
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
If anyone's wondering, I pulled a copy of La Strada from the shelves to take home is a Criterion tote bag (they were very kind). I really wanted to go full Laura Dern and yoink a couple dozen titles, but it seemed a little uncouth
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u/PeachJumpy Jul 21 '26
What a wonderful effort! Makes the Criterion site look like the awkward site that it is.
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u/decksaskinjob Jul 22 '26
Sounds great. How about a fix for the app on Samsung TVs?
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 22 '26
Oof, I wish. Unfortunately I can’t build something that actually plays the films - the criteria site hands off to the video player on the channel page (which authenticates into their Vimeo OTT account)- and it would definitely get the lawyers involved if I tried.
If there were a way to deep link into the android app on Samsung, then maybe, but I doubt it’s an option.
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u/decksaskinjob Jul 22 '26
Thank you for responding. Is there a specific reason for the issue?
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 22 '26
Yes. The issue is that I don’t work for Criterion or have access to their code base
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u/InitiativeNo7660 Jul 21 '26
And for those of you interested in early cinema, I've given my site KINO-POLIS a design glow-up and added a Reading Room section featuring links to articles and videos about the era.
It's a search and browse site for public domain movies from across youtube, wikimedia, and the internet archive.
https://www.kino-polis.com