New on Criterion for April 2026
Here are five new film to the Criterion Channel you can stream for the month of April.
We're about halfway through the month, but I didn't want to miss out on recommending some new additions to the Criterion Channel, so here are five you should check out for the month of April.
- The Elephant Man
First up, we have David Lynch's 1980 biopic of Joseph Merrick, the Victorian-era Englishman who lived as a curiosity in a sideshow before being rescued by the surgeon Sir Frederick Treves. Merrick, played by John Hurt, suffered from a number of facial and body deformities that made daily life difficult, both physically and emotionally. This film is beautiful in all aspects and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, but didn't win any. In fact, after public outcry over the Academy's refusal to honor the film's incredible makeup effects, a new category was introduced at the following year's award ceremony: Best Makeup.
- High Noon
Next, we have High Noon, Fred Zinneman's 1952 Western that's also a thinly veiled allegory for the Red Scare and McCarthyism, written by "uncooperative witness" Carl Foreman. High Noon stars Gary Cooper as a marshal awaiting the arrival of a group of bandits to his sleepy New Mexico town, but when he tries to organize a posse to take them down, no one will help him. And so he's left to fend them off on his own, not unlike how Hollywood turned its back on Foreman after he refused to name names before Congress.
- Bad Day at Black Rock
Up next is Bad Day at Black Rock, a contemporary Western noir starring Spencer Tracy as a World War II veteran who arrives in a small California town looking for the father of a Japanese-American soldier who died during the war. But he's met with hostility and rage from the local townsfolk, who are hiding a huge secret they don't want him finding out. I just watched this the other night and it is STUNNING, with its barren CinemaScope vistas that don't stop the film from feeling extremely claustrophobic due to the pervasive sense of dread that lingers throughout the town.
- Out of the Past
We also have the 1947 film noir Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum as a former PI who runs away with the woman he was hired to find, played by Jane Greer. As the two try to rebuild their lives, they're pursued by the career criminal Greer had wronged, played by Kirk Douglas. If you've only ever known Mitchum as a terrifying psychopath in films like Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter, this is a great one to watch to see a different side of him.
- Antitrust
And finally, a more modern classic –2001's Antitrust, starring Ryan Phillippe and Tim Robbins. This techno-thriller stars Philippe as a programmer who is hired at a computer company headed by Robbins, a more charming take on Microsoft CEO Bill Gates who may or may not be responsible for a deadly conspiracy to keep his company on the bleeding edge.
So, if you have a subscription to the Criterion Channel--which you should--now you have five movies you should watch before they're gone. And there are a lot more than that, as well.
