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A kindred spirit of Luis Buñuel, but one whose existential compulsions are more palpable, Pier Paolo Pasolini perpetually rebelled against moral hegemony, commiserating with outcasts and creating and dying as one. Today, his canon has been co-opted by forces on the right and left, the faithful and the secular. Which is to say, he belongs to us all.

The Criterion Collection’s new box set, Pasolini 101, represents the most comprehensive collection of Pasolini’s films to date, collecting nine of his features, as well as two shorts (1963’s La Ricotta and 1969’s The Sequence of the Paper Flower) that he made for anthology films and two documentaries that he shot during his travels. In addition to his own work, the set’s extensive and richly informative extras, among them two commentary tracks and a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, remind us...

Following Ingmar Bergman, Agnès Varda, Bruce Lee, Federico Fellini, Godzilla, and Wong Kar Wai, the next major box set collection coming from the Criterion Collection has been announced. Arriving this June is Pasolini 101, a 9-Blu-ray set dedicated to the legendary, late Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini.

“Released in celebration of the 101st anniversary of Pasolini’s birth, this collector’s set provides an essential window onto a transformative period for an artist whose legacy remains a wellspring of freedom and revolutionary force,” Criterion notes. “Including nine provocative, lyrical, often scandal-inducing films from the 1960s––Accattone, Mamma Roma, Love Meetings, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Oedipus Rex, Teorema, Porcile, and Medea––the decade in which this celebrated poet, novelist, and intellectual embarked on a feature filmmaking career, Pasolini 101 is a monument to the artist’s daring vision of cinema.”

The release features new 4K digital restorations...

Any list of the greatest foreign directors currently working today has to include Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The directors first rose to prominence in the mid 1990s with efforts like “The Promise” and “Rosetta,” and they’ve continued to excel in the 21st century with titles such as “The Kid With A Bike” and “Two Days One Night,” which earned Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama

The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...

A breezy five-episode compilation movie about swindles plays out in five film capitals, under the eye of five different directors including Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard. But Roman Polanski’s Amsterdam segment couldn’t be included, which is a shame. It’s in B&W ‘scope, and everybody gets to bring their favorite cameraman and composer along.

The World’s Most Beautiful Swindlers

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1964 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 95 108, 124 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / Les plus belles escroqueries du monde / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Mie Hama, Ken Mitsuda, Nicole Karen, Gabriella Giorgelli, Jan Teulings, Arnold Gelderman, Guido Giuseppone, Giuseppe Mannajuolo, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Catherine Deneuve, Francis Blanche, Sacha Briquet, Jean-Louis Maury, Philomène Toulouse, Charles Denner, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Seberg, László Szabó.

Cinematography: Raoul Coutard, Tonino Delli Colli, Jerzy Lipman, Asakazu Nakai, Jean Rabier

Film Editor:

Original Music: Serge Gainsbourg, Pierre Jansen, Krzysztof Komeda, Michel Legrand, Keitaro Miho, Piero Umiliani...

The Gospel According to Matthew

Written and Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Italy, 1964

As an avowed Marxist, homosexual, and atheist, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini may seem to some a dubious choice to have made one of the most austere, faithful, and simply one of the best films about the life and death of Jesus Christ. But, with The Gospel According to Matthew, from 1964, that’s exactly what the controversial filmmaker, poet, novelist, and theorist did. This gritty and unpolished depiction of the life of Christ contains many of the narrative hallmarks featured in other film versions of the same story: the virgin birth, the early miracles, the apostles, Christ’s persecution and, ultimately, the crucifixion. However, no other cinematic depiction of this well-known chronicle looks, sounds, or feels quite like this one.

Before making this film, Pasolini had directed his first feature, Accattone!, in 1961, followed by Mamma Roma, starring...