The story
Founded by Joe Medjuck and Robert Stein in 1984.1
The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein, and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker, and Jonathan B. Turell founded the Voyager Company to publish educational multimedia CD-ROMs (1989–2000), and the Criterion Collection became a subordinate division of the Voyager Company, with Janus Films holding a minority stake in the company, and decided to expand its product on videocassettes and videodiscs.
In 1984, Citizen Kane was the first film the company released on Laserdisc, which included supplementary materials like a video essay and extensive liner notes on the provenance of the negative from which the restoration was made. In 1989, Voyager put out its first CD-ROM about Beethoven's ninth symphony. In March 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH bought 20% of Voyager for US$6.7 million; the four founders each retained a 20% owner's share.
In 1995, Aleen Stein resigned as President of Voyager, but remained a partner, and went on to found the Organa LLC multimedia publishing company. In November 1996, Bob Stein stepped down as company chief. In December 1996, it was announced Voyager would absorb Holtzbrinck's Electronic Publishing arm, with Holtzbrinck gaining two seats on Voyager's board. In 1997, the Voyager Company was dissolved.
The remaining three partners, Aleen Stein, Becker, and Turell owned the Criterion Collection company, which has a business partnership with Janus Films and had one with Home Vision Entertainment (HVE) until 2005, when Image Entertainment bought HVE. On November 4, 2013, it was announced Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) would handle distribution. In May 2024, Janus Films and Criterion were acquired by Steven Rales, founder of Indian Paintbrush.
Home Vision Entertainment
In 1986, Charles Benton founded Home Vision Entertainment (HVE), the home-video division of Public Media Inc. (PMI), which he had previously founded in 1968. The HVE company sold, advertised, marketed, and distributed Criterion Collection DVDs, and also sold its own HVE brand of DVDs (co-produced with Criterion), including The Merchant Ivory Collection and the Classic Collection, a joint venture between HVE and Janus Films. The latter enterprise published HVE imprint films, for which Janus Films owned the video rights, but were unavailable from the Criterion Collection; however, Criterion published the Classic Collection films. In 2005, Image Entertainment bought HVE, making it the exclusive distributor of Criterion Collection products until 2013.
Online ventures and marketing
The Criterion Collection began to provide video-on-demand (VOD) in partnership with Mubi (formerly The Auteurs) in 2008. In February 2011, Criterion began switching its VOD offerings exclusively to Hulu Plus. In November 2016, FilmStruck, a film streaming service from Turner Classic Movies (TCM), succeeded Hulu as the exclusive streaming service for the Criterion Collection. Some Criterion films were streamed by Kanopy. In October 2018, Warner Bros. Digital Networks and Turner announced that FilmStruck would shut down on November 29. Criterion stated in a blog post that it was "trying to find ways we can bring our library and original content back to the digital space as soon as possible".
On November 16, 2018, Criterion announced the launch of the Criterion Channel as a standalone service, wholly owned and operated by the Criterion Collection, in the US and Canada. The service launched in 2019. Through a multi-year deal with HBO Max, some of Criterion's offerings are also available on the HBO streaming platform.
British film magazine Sight & Sound revealed in its April 2016 issue that Criterion would be expanding its releases to the UK. The first six titles were released on April 18, 2016.
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The Criterion Closet is a film closet containing every title distributed by Criterion. It is located in Criterion's Manhattan headquarters and was made from a disused bathroom. Since 2010, Criterion regularly uploads videos of prominent film directors and actors (such as Martin Scorsese and Cate Blanchett) selecting films from the closet on their official YouTube channel. The first guest to be recorded in the closet was director Guillermo del Toro. In 2024, Criterion introduced a 18-foot delivery van containing all 1,500 films, the Criterion Closet, to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
In July 2025, Criterion agreed to pay US$4.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it unlawfully shared subscriber information with third parties including Meta and Twilio.
In February 2026, it was announced that two Netflix releases, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and KPop Demon Hunters, were being added to the Criterion Collection, given both films' Academy Award nominations and the latter becoming Netflix's most popular film. Original Netflix titles are largely limited to streaming, but partnership with Criterion allows them to receive physical releases. This first happened in 2020 with Roma (spine #1014), followed by Marriage Story (spine #1038), and The Irishman (spine #1058).
In April 2026, Criterion’s The Wes Anderson Archive: Ten Films, Twenty-Five Years box set won the "Title of the Year" award at the annual Home Entertainment Media Play Awards.
From Wikipedia’s article on The Criterion Collection, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4