The best new Criterion Channel movies in August 2022 include a classic murder mystery and an underrated DeNiro comedy

A highlight of Criterion’s “Noir In Color” collection, John M. Stahl’s shows what happens when one woman just wants to hang out with her oblivious man while he’s hellbent on inviting her whole family to their honeymoon. Gene Tierney is rock solid as the obsessive Ellen Berent, who’s willing to take down anyone—and we mean anyone—in order to capture her newlywed’s attention, played by Cornel Wilde. To top it off, the film closes with a sublime courtroom scene featuring none other than Vincent Price.

After penning the screenplays for The Yakuza and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader made his directorial debut with 1978’s , starring Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto, and Harvey Keitel. The three portray auto assembly line workers who get fed up with their wack management and corrupt union representation. In order to make bank, they hatch a plan to loot a safe at the union headquarters, making off with something much more valuable than cash: Blackmail material. Described as one of the “great American films of the 1970s,” Blue Collar offers laughs, grit, and a rugged, still relevant look at labor in the U.S.

Denzel Washington and ’s romance in director Mira Nair’s is a warm, sensual affair that upends expectations. After her family is exiled from Uganda, Choudhury’s Mina crashes—literally—into Demetrius (Washington) while living in the depths of Greenwood, Mississippi. The duo’s palpable chemistry, set against the globetrotting background of political turmoil overseas and race relations in the South, offers a beautiful juxtaposition between the transcendence of love and the realities of the world, which Nair handles with a delicate, skilled hand.

Celebrate Robert De Niro’s recent birthday with a screening of Martin Brest’s , which follows ex-cop turned bounty hunter De Niro, who catches bail-jumping accountant Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) after he embezzles $15 million from the Mob and donates it to charity. However, De Niro’s Jack Walsh isn’t the only one after Mardukas, with the FBI, the Mob, and an unscrupulous competitor (John Ashton) on their tail. The oddball pair reluctantly find themselves working together to avoid the growing fleet of pursuers in this cross-country comedy.

Making its streaming premiere from the Donbas, Ukraine, war zone is the tender and robust documentary The Earth Is As Blue As An Orange, directed by Iryna Tsilyk. With a need for an outlet and a passion for filmmaking, Hanna Gladka and her four children turn to recording their daily life in the war-torn region, with all its joys and trauma. The documentary questions art’s role in ongoing times of strife, and exemplifies not only the desire to record our lived experiences, but the absolute necessity.