The Criterion Closet represents a very particular flavor of wish fulfillment: A sort of film nerd’s paradise, where you not only get to bask in the presence of some of the best movies ever made, but also show off your film snob (or pack rat) tendencies for admirers to analyze. And while a new fan-made virtual presentation of The Closet—created by someone posting online as “olievans”—can’t necessarily give you the experience of showing off your high-class film taste for the judgment of others, it does make for a pretty gorgeous substitute for getting to stand in that famed cubicle o’ movies yourself.
Featuring more than 1,200 movies in Criterion’s collection (in order of their addition), The Closet is a genuinely nifty piece of online tech: From a first-person view, you can click on the spine of any title to see its Criterion cover art, get a synopsis, purchase it through Amazon, and—and this is the bit that could really start devouring your day—instantly bring up a YouTube embed of its trailer. Given how seamless it all is, it is very easy to imagine killing a whole day like this, just clicking from film to film, watching snippets of a huge mass of great movies.
Beyond the experiential element, The Closet also has some nice search tools for those who can tear their eyes away from the stacks to look “behind” them in its interface. You can filter by language, decade, country of origin, and director, or—if you’re a nerd—turn off the whole “Closet” view and instead just scroll a big list of all the movies. And, sure, you could argue that, like much of the hubbub around Criterion, this is just free promotion for one particular film release brand. But it’s impossible, while browsing these virtual stacks, not to be struck by how many good and great movies are visible here; if you’ve ever watched a famous person scrolling their eyes along the Closet’s shelves, envious of the cinematic stream of consciousness that arises from being bombarded by one beloved movie after another, this is an incredibly slick little substitute. (Plus, it doesn’t force you to stand in line for 10 hours to experience it, which is a nice little bonus.)
Keep scrolling for more great stories.