15 years in the Criterion Closet
In 2010, Guillermo del Toro was filmed visiting the Criterion offices near Union Square in New York. In that grainy footage, you can see the Pan’s Labyrinth director gleefully rack up a handful of films from their Closet, including Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, like a kid in a candy shop.
Nearly 15 years later, celebrities and film lovers alike are eager to get their turn in the now iconic closet, which has become an opportunity for stars to solidify their position as bastions of cinematic knowledge and coolness, flexing their cinephile muscles in what has become a highly sought-after experience.
The three-by-three-foot archival treasure trove has become a rite of passage for hundreds of actors and directors, including Martin Scorsese, Isabella Rossellini, Bong Joon Ho, Cate Blanchett, Aimee Lee-Wood, Ayo Edebiri, Ben Affleck, Ari Aster, and Julia Fox, to name a few.
The original closet houses over 1000 DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K formats. But to celebrate Criterion’s 40th anniversary last year, the closet was reconstructed as a mobile van, widening its capacity to a luxurious 18 feet and setting up shop outside Lincoln Centre over two weekends during the New York Film Festival, before touring nationally. In a clear sign of the times, there were queues around the block, with some visitors camping outside or waiting as long as ten hours to enter the van and purchase a Criterion title.
How the Criterion Closet became a pop culture phenomenon
The popularity of the Criterion Closet is also part of a wider trend in the way we consume movies. While films used to remain firmly within the confines of the cinema, the red carpet, and the rounds of interviews with established film journalists, over the last few years, the medium has taken on a whole new meaning. It has become culturally and socially resonant beyond the cinema’s four walls, with everyone wanting a slice of the action, thanks in part to the likes of social media accounts like Letterboxd, whose ‘Four Favourites’ segment catapulted their Instagram following, along with the branding identity of producers and distributors like A24 and Neon Rated.
If you’re a film buff and trawl social media as a cinephile, this won’t come as a surprise. There’s a high chance you also follow, or have at least come across, the Criterion Closet. Curated by Criterion’s Instagram account, which has now amassed nearly 1.5million followers, no doubt spring-boarded by the carefully curated and highly coveted Closet Picks. Celebrities take turns to peruse the closet’s shelves while being filmed waxing poetic on the titles they pop into their cotton tote bags before posing for a nostalgic Polaroid photo that is shared on social media to thousands of adoring fans.
There is something charmingly old-school about the simplicity of the idea of a film closet, which seems to be part of its unique appeal. In this pokey room where the lighting is grey and saturated and actors are far removed from the glitz and glamour of the red carpet, they let down their guard. They candidly wear the excitement on their face when they find an old copy of a film they watched as a child, divulging unexpected favourites and indulging in their inner thoughts, offering fans rare intellectual glimpses into the worlds of their favourite actors and directors, eagerly noting down their favourites and adding them to their watchlists.
It’s oddly comforting watching celebrities in casual clothing, captured on an old Polaroid, handling DVDs. When we’re often told that physical media is dead, be it CDs, books or DVDs, it’s reassuring to see these places brought to life and celebrated by some of the industry’s most influential names.
Last year, also to celebrate Criterion’s 40th anniversary, a box set containing 40 of the films most frequently selected from the closet was announced, including classics like In The Mood for Love and A Woman Under the Influence. In a space traditionally regarded as high-brow, the Criterion Closet has managed to achieve pop culture cult status while maintaining its voice as the unique intellectual authority on all things film, all the while exemplified by the look of glee on Guillermo del Toro’s face during his visit in 2010, celebrating the magic of the movies.
