The Criterion Channel’s March schedule mixes a seven-film Romanian New Wave strand, a curated VHS-themed program, director retrospectives, anime season streaming and several newly restored rarities
The Criterion Channel’s March slate is a tightly focused program that marries director retrospectives, format-driven deep dives and significant streaming premieres. Across restored classics, modern auteurs and a nostalgia-tinged VHS strand, the month highlights films that pushed cinematic form alongside newly surfaced or freshly restored prints that expand the channel’s archival reach.
Romanian New Wave: austere, urgent, essential
A seven-film strand spotlights the Romanian New Wave’s leading voices—Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristian Mungiu and Radu Muntean—bringing together landmark titles like Sieranevada, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. These films share a pared-down realism: long takes, observational staging and a moral pressure that turns everyday moments into intense drama.
Why revisit them now? Because their aesthetic still ripples through contemporary cinema. Seen together, these works form a compact lesson in how formal restraint can be politically and ethically charged. The Channel’s restorations and contextual materials make this a useful program for students, critics and curious viewers who want to trace influence and technique rather than skim a movement’s surface.
VHS Forever and Videoheaven: tape culture on screen
Two companion blocks—VHS Forever and Videoheaven—explore how a physical format shaped taste, access and fandom. The programming pairs familiar titles associated with tape culture (Videodrome, Clerks) with cult and transgressive works such as Hisayasu Sato’s Re-Wind and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bleeder, and includes the streaming premiere of Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven.
These packages go beyond nostalgia. They assemble trailers, distributor ephemera, interviews and essays that reveal how rental shelves, bootleg networks and fan archiving affected which films endured and which were forgotten. For researchers, the materials are a handy map of provenance; for casual viewers, they turn the ritual of renting and rewinding into a lens for thinking about media and memory.
Director spotlights, restorations and world cinema
The Channel deepens its archival focus with concentrated retrospectives—Monika Treut’s multi-film survey, near-complete works by Robert Bresson and selections from William Klein—alongside notable restorations and rediscoveries. Highlights include the director’s cut of Who Killed Teddy Bear and titles from the World Cinema Project such as Chronicle of the Years of Fire, Kummatty, Yam daabo and The Fall of Otrar. These prints have rarely circulated in contemporary venues, so their appearance here feels like a genuine reclamation.
Anime, contemporary premieres and Criterion Editions
March also signals a stronger commitment to animation and recent cinema. The schedule offers the full first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the film version of Gunbuster, alongside Criterion Editions picks like Drive My Car, Gomorrah, Tiny Furniture, The Fisher King and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. New shorts from Charlie Kaufman (Jackals & Fireflies) and Jessie Buckley’s How to Shoot a Ghost join Ja’Tovia Gary’s shorts, Errol Morris’ American Dharma and Mark Cousins’ The Storms of Jeremy Thomas among the month’s exclusives.
Curation that serves different viewers
Across strands, the Channel balances depth and accessibility: thematic packages invite newcomers in while supplementary essays, interviews and restoration notes reward deeper study. The programming is designed to boost discoverability without sacrificing context—pairing well-known contemporary works with rarities, and framing restorations so viewers can compare and connect.
Practical notes
Expect curator notes and archival materials to accompany many releases; the Channel will update the full schedule as additional programs are announced. Whether you’re assembling a syllabus, hunting down a hard-to-find print, or just in the mood for a focused month of film discoveries, March on The Criterion Channel offers something thoughtfully curated for every kind of viewer.