The 10 best new films on the Criterion Channel right now

Paul Newman is the boorish, drunken antihero Hud Bannon in Martin Ritt’s Western masterpiece, . The film pulls us into a conflict between Hud and the family patriarch, Homer, as the two butt heads over how to handle an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on their ranch. It’s a compelling character study of “the man with the barbed wire soul” who manages to soil everything he comes across with his “lenient” approach to the law and propensity to start physical altercations. James Wong Howe works wonders as the film’s cinematographer, which emphasizes the harshness of frontier life in the Texas panhandle. The performances are top tier, and Patricia Neal took home the Oscar in 1964 for her raw performance as the Bannons’ housekeeper Alma, who falls victim to Hud’s most violent impulses.

Shortly after their lead appearances in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, James Stewart and Kim Novak would share the screen together again in the spellbinding romantic comedy . The holiday-set romp follows curiosities shop owner Gillian Holroyd (Novak), who happens to be a descendant of a long line of witches. When she finds herself alone on Christmas Eve, she sets her sights on her upstairs neighbor Shep Henderson (Stewart), casting a love spell on him with the help of her purring feline Pyewacket. The Apartment’s Jack Lemmon and Elsa Lanchester (The Bride Of Frankenstein, Witness For The Prosecution) help round out this rousing cast in a film with low stakes and high mysticism.

David Bowie—the rock star long-rumored to have hailed from another planet—made his feature film debut in Nicolas Roeg’s sci-fi venture . Thomas Jerome Newton (Bowie) crashes into Earth seeking water for his far-off, drought-stricken planet, but instead becomes consumed by the greed and corruption of humanity. It’s an ambitious film about the underlying cruelty of an Earthly existence, seen through the eyes of an outsider. The divide between Bowie and his character Newton often dissipates in the film, and the singer would go on to use stills from The Man Who Fell To Earth in the artwork for his albums Station To Station and Low.

It’s almost hard to believe Barbra Streisand made her debut in William Wyler’s , as she’s simply sensational. The camera loves so few as much as it loves Babs in this film, as she brings the character of Fanny Brice to life with a wink and glimmer in her eye. The sprawling romantic musical follows Miss Brice’s rise as a Ziegfeld girl, and eventually, her rocky marriage to Nick Arstein (played by Omar Sharif). Streisand previously led the Broadway adaptation of Funny Girl (as if there was really any other choice), popularizing songs such as “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “You Are Woman, I Am Man.”

The first of three films made in collaboration with playwright Harold Pinter, Joseph Losey’s The Servant works as a scathing and chilling critique of Britain’s social strata in the ’60s. Dirk Bogarde leads the film as the manservant Hugo Barrett, who takes on a job working for elite Londoner Tony. Through Barrett’s sly manipulation, the social dynamics begin to go topsy-turvy before taking a dark turn. It’s a little bit Hitchcockian, with some Bong Joon-ho flair.

Before the creation of his psychological horror masterpiece Possession (1981), Polish filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski wrote and directed the survival tale . German-French icon Romy Schneider stars in the drama as Nadine Chevalier, who makes a living by acting in cheap soft-core films. She then meets Servais Mont (Fabio Testi), a photographer who sets his sights on turning Nadine into a star. The two begin to fall for one another, as they navigate the degrading French film industry.

“Workin’ at the car wash, yeah!” Starring Ricard Pryor, Franklin Ajaye, Bill Duke, George Carlin, Irwin Corey, and more, the ensemble comedy chronicles one day at Mr. B’s Dee-Luxe Car Wash in Los Angeles. It’s funny, funky, fast-paced, and a great throwback to the disco-pants days of the ’70s.

In the kitchen sink drama , we meet 15-year-old Billy Casper, who’s been pegged as a hopeless troublemaker by his teachers and his working-class parents. He regularly faces beatings and unkind words from his fellow students and authority figures and has become disillusioned with life—until one day, when Casper steals a kestrel (or falcon) from a nearby farm, and takes on the task of teaching himself falconry. David Bradley is remarkable as Casper in his debut acting role, and Kes was named the seventh best British film—ever—by the British Film Institute.

With his legendary debut Breathless, the late Jean-Luc Godard changed cinema forever. The free-flowing, lively crime drama makes a star of Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays the penniless misogynistic cop-killer Michel. The Humphrey Bogart-wannabe then goes on the lam, to dismal effect, with his American girlfriend Patricia (played by the fabulous Jean Seberg).

Jean-Paul Belmondo returns as our sad clown in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. He stars opposite Anna Karina as Ferdinand Griffon, who finds himself stuck within the confines of domesticity, and chooses to run away with his ex-girlfriend Marianne. Together, they embark on a bohemian romp as they try to escape the police and a group of gangsters.