Show HN: Criterion Closet as a website – pull any of 1,247 films off the shelf

https://the-criterion-closet.vercel.app

by olievans • 1 month ago

194 56 1 month ago

the-criterion-closet.vercel.app

Are those movies public domain?

olievans9• 1 month ago

The Criterion Collection is a boutique film distributor. They are famous for their Criterion Closet videos on youtube. This project was to recreate the experience 'virtually'.

j5dgx76• 1 month ago

Its not even close to Boutique. Napolean Dynamite was rejected. That breaks the coccyx.

Triphibian2• 1 month ago

There are public domain movies in the collection, notably Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls.

starkparker2• 1 month ago

Missing quite a few compilations,

olievans9• 1 month ago

could you give an example you can't find? Thanks!

starkparker2• 1 month ago

All of the films without spine numbers, see https://www.criterion.com/shop/browse/list

More specifically:

Eclipse Series films i.e. https://www.criterion.com/films/2959-a-colt-is-my-passport, https://www.criterion.com/films/27516-come-on-children, https://www.criterion.com/films/12521-sanshiro-sugata - these stand out the most since several actual Criterion Closet picks are from the Eclipse Series, and most (all?) of them lack spine numbers because their cases are slimline and lack spines altogether

Films in similar box sets like The Ranown Westerns that don't have standalone releases, i.e. https://www.criterion.com/films/32211-comanche-station

apresmoi• 1 month ago

Really nice. You could use polycss.com and render the library and form all together!

VarunMenon• 1 month ago

really nice! Criterion should have this as a view on their website!

sarmadc• 1 month ago

This is so cool!

olievans9• 1 month ago

Thanks so much!

jbaber• 1 month ago

Very, very nice!

olievans9• 1 month ago

Thank you! Much appreciated!

aarmenante• 1 month ago

you need to add a feature where You can put your self in there with a webcam and record a interview

dnlzro• 1 month ago

I’m going to use the heck out of this!

Just one suggestion: Could you add another sort order for the list view based on the number of “closet picks”? It would be cool to see which films are most popular among Criterion Closet guests.

olievans9• 1 month ago

Thanks for the feedback, planning to add this in!

topherjaynes• 1 month ago

Also, which haven't been picked, I would be curious to see those.

mcint• 1 month ago

Nice to be reminded of the collection, and another way to present it.

I want to view the boxes, especially after filtering, grouped near eye level and seeing the faces not just the spines.

Nice to see VR (potential for XR), cool use!

davidhariri• 1 month ago

Awesome! I recently replaced Netflix for Criterion so this is quite welcome!

olievans9• 1 month ago

Thanks!

thombat• 1 month ago

The link to Criterion streaming doesn't work for "Brazil" (#51) - it shows a list of movies that likely have the word in their synopsis such as "Kiss of the Spider Woman" but not the actual film (which famously doesn't reference the country at all)

emmelaich• 1 month ago

Same for Mean Streets

bashtoni• 1 month ago

This is great, but unusable for people like me that need to have the y axis inverted. It would be amazing if you could add that functionality.

globular-toast2• 1 month ago

Why do you need it?

nhinck22• 1 month ago

Decades of muscle memory is hard to overcome?

asymmetric• 1 month ago

Nice!

Would be really nice to have links to director's picks. Eg I clicked on Che, saw that it was in Denis Villeneuve's list, and wanted to check out his other picks.

olievans9• 1 month ago

It's coming! Thanks for the suggestion!

JKCalhoun3• 1 month ago

I would add: Indicate which ones are listed in the "1001 Movies to See Before You Die".

(Perhaps also the "AFI Top 100" list as well.)

alper• 1 month ago

If you're going to go into this direction, it seems like this would become sort of a "Letterboxd list visualizer" which honestly could be pretty cool.

thrilleratplay2• 1 month ago

Sounds like an idea for another closet.

Cider9986• 1 month ago

Just btw, the Amazon links are affiliate/tracking.

klaussilveira• 1 month ago

The text really needs some better rendering technique. It is very hard to read. Have you considered Slug https://github.com/EricLengyel/Slug ?

lou1306• 1 month ago

Today I learned that This Is Spin̈al Tap is on the Criterion Collection.

DuncanCoffee• 1 month ago

Wow! Definitely not what I was expecting. If you turn around and look at the door there's a menu with some filters.

olievans9• 1 month ago

Thanks!

gosub100• 1 month ago

If you don't know what the Criterion Closet is, it's a YouTube channel run by Criterion which is a movie publisher/ distributor (?).

https://youtu.be/VsywXM8vMLs?is=YBuq2lZEilUb_B9x

The channel has a mobile trailer full of their movies in DVD and blu ray. They are well respected in the industry and are able to get famous actors to come into the "closet" and pick out their favorite movies and comment on why they like them.

JKCalhoun3• 1 month ago

They really tapped into clever marketing with that one. (Good for them.)

throw2ih0202• 1 month ago

Distributor with a focus on restorations of important films (especially films important to the history of filmmaking). Kind of like GOG but for movies instead of games.

TimC123456• 1 month ago

This is impressive! Perhaps this is because I’m from an English-speaking country, but I believe even in the real Criterion Closet, the spine title text orientation is top-to-bottom, rather than bottom-to-top.

olievans9• 1 month ago

Will change that now! Thanks for the feedback!

actionfromafar• 1 month ago

Are these tapes? 16mm film?

thedougd2• 1 month ago

IMO, the text is in the wrong direction. I thought it felt uncomfortable to read. On my real life bookshelf, it flows from top to bottom.

brainwad• 1 month ago

This is locale-dependent. English is top to bottom but German is bottom to top, for example. It looks bad when you have a mixed language shelf...

thedougd2• 28 days ago

I thought this might be the case. Thanks.

a_c• 1 month ago

I thought I can flip open the book and read

thrilleratplay2• 1 month ago

I love this and wasted more time than I want to admit looking through the collection. This is a closet I hope to own some day.

LeonRubin• 1 month ago

Nice... love it, what a shame I couldn't use it more before

allmysecrets• 27 days ago

Wow! This is so cool.

Show HN: Criterion Closet as a website – pull any of 1,247 films off the shelf

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