All of the movies on the earth — all of the TikToks and Instagram Reels you might presumably eat — can’t convey one underrated side of visiting the Criterion Cell Closet. It smells actually, actually good.
No less than, that was my first response upon coming into the well-stocked van on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition earlier this week. Freshly packed and sealed DVDs and Blu-rays, crisp plastic, and disarmingly well-vacuumed carpet, getting into the van is an organized cinephile’s dream. The whole lot is so neat and tidy, really easy to seek out, simply at your fingertips.
If Criterion makes it, it’s within the van. That features the most recent titles, situated down and to the suitable, the place I spent nearly all of my go to to the cell closet. IndieWire has visited the van with regularity because it first set out: at NYFF after a go to to “Display Speak” by Criterion’s personal Peter Becker, at SXSW, even at residence in LA. This was my first time.
For its first foray into worldwide house, the van — designed to imitate the precise Criterion Closet on the boutique imprint’s NYC workplace — arrived at this 12 months’s TIFF for a four-day keep in a superb location. Simply throughout the road from the TIFF Bell Lightbox theater, the van posted up on King Road, which is closed to site visitors in the course of the first days of the fest, all the higher to encourage strolling and mingling.
It was onerous to overlook not simply the van, however the sprawling line outdoors of it, which stretched down the road and doubled again on itself. Throughout its four-day keep on the competition, the cell closet noticed an estimated 400 and 500 company a day; and in the course of the weekend alone, over 1,000 folks stepped via the van, which Criterion famous is a brand new file for the cell closet. Criterion brass instructed IndieWire that, when issues obtained actually busy, they’d sometimes stack up guests, letting folks in three or 4 at a time.
However no drawback there, as even individuals who didn’t enter the road realizing one another walked away as pals (and a few individuals who enter the road already acquainted exited the van on a brand new stage: a pair obtained engaged within the van at SXSW 2025). What higher place to bond with fellow movie followers than on the Criterion Cell Closet?
And what does an hours-long wait within the line get you? A complimentary tote bag, a information to the Assortment, and a Polaroid memento of your alternatives. Buys are restricted to 3 discs every, however with a not-too-shabby 40 p.c off the complete invoice. The van is stocked with greater than 1,700 movies, together with each in-print version from the Criterion Assortment, Eclipse, and Janus Up to date strains.
Actual discuss: As a member of the press, I used to be granted an early, assigned slot on Sunday morning. Take perks when you may get them! The remainder of my course of was typical: you enter the van, undergo a darling little curtain, and step into (fresh-smelling) film magic. Even in case you’ve seen different closet movies, it’s fairly thrilling to take it in for your self, and the inside itself is spacious, orderly, and greater than a bit intimidating. In the event you’d wish to file your go to, a useful telephone mount is offered on your use, and Criterion additionally movies every go to on their very own to probably use in different movies and advertising supplies.
My first and finest suggestion: Include a plan. I arrived with my three picks outlined, 4K upgrades for some perennial favorites. All three are pretty new (you don’t want to come back with backbone numbers memorized, the extremely knowledgable van workers will direct you to any and all discs you’re on the lookout for), which despatched me to the nook containing the latest additions. Having each my plan and a particular space to deal with helped, there’s simply so a lot to take a look at.
The picks in query: William Friedkin’s “Sorcerer” (all-time finest bridge-crossing on movie ever, even in case you most likely must put your head between your knees whereas watching it), Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” (a very unimaginable entry into dumb man cinema), and Paul Brickman’s “Dangerous Enterprise” (the type of film a latchkey child like me watched means too typically at too younger of an age, now with even higher image and sound). It went means too quick and it was means too enjoyable.
My solely remorse? I ought to have stood within the line, too.
The subsequent cease for the van has not but been introduced, however provided that this time final 12 months, it was prepping to roll into the New York Movie Competition, we’d preserve our eyes peeled for an NYC return, and quick. By no means been to the closet earlier than? Take a gander at some movies of our favourite stars throughout their very own visits as they share their picks.