Criterion completism with sharp, messy charm.
Lost in Criterion treats the Criterion Collection as both viewing project and friendship ritual. Each episode pairs close attention to film craft, translation quirks, props, genre cycles, and political subtext with jokes that wander far from the assigned movie.
PRESS PLAY
Lost in Criterion is a film criticism project with a deliberately unreasonable premise: keep moving through the Criterion Collection and talk about every stop along the way. The show is not sterile canon worship. It is chatty, funny, argumentative, and unusually attentive to the odd little choices that make a movie stick in memory. A single visual detail can take over the room. Boater hats become class markers and fashion crimes. A white telephone headset becomes a conversation about how films signal surveillance. A gag turns into an extended riff on prop scale, character logic, and the absurdity of an action hero hiding where he cannot possibly fit. That looseness is the show’s engine. The hosts may wander into bartender stories, bonus episodes, music videos, anti-car movies, or the emotional residue of a long friendship, but the movie remains the gravitational center. Their criticism is grounded in watching closely rather than sounding grand. They care about translation, wordplay, plot setup, performance habits, recurring franchise rules, and when a film asks a familiar character to behave strangely. They also care about politics, including class, policing, infrastructure, and racism when the movie or a bonus-film conversation points there. The tone is informal and sometimes blunt. It can be very funny. It is also built for patient listeners who enjoy hearing a reading develop in real time, with jokes, corrections, side roads, and affectionate irritation left intact. Guests appear when a particular film benefits from another voice, as with Casey Bigler on Frances Ha. The show’s long archive gives it a lived-in quality: Criterion titles become chapters in an ongoing friendship, and the side conversations become part of the criticism.
Made for: For film listeners who like close readings without classroom stiffness, especially those who enjoy Criterion titles, samurai series, silent comedy, international cinema, and digressive host chemistry.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is the mix of granular film attention and long-running conversational trust. It can treat a prop, translation choice, or franchise inconsistency as seriously as a theme, then turn the whole thing into a joke without losing the argument.
The Adam Glass and John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan, attempt the sisyphean task of watching every movie in the ever-growing Criterion Collection and talk about them. Want to support us? We’ll love you for it: www.Patreon.com/LostInCriterion
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Zatoichi detour tests character, fate, and what a familiar hero refuses to do.
Zatoichi's detour turns the hero's moral instinct into the episode's central problem. The hosts focus on his refusal to help an imprisoned boss, a choice that feels odd because Zatoichi so rarely denies someone asking for aid, and because his dealings with bosses have often been…
A loose, attentive conversation that catches Frances Ha's awkwardness without sanding it down.
Lost in Criterion spends this stop on Frances Ha, and the discussion settles into the Vassar scene, Sophie's drunkenness, Francis trying to get her back to her dorm, and the small physical habits, like rearranging shelves, that make awkwardness feel immediate.
Bike banter gives way to a focused Dardenne brothers discussion of grief, loss, forgiveness, and ambiguity.
Lost Criterion opens with a joke about parasocial attachment to a bike, then eases into travel logistics: a ride to the bar, a family reunion trip, and a bicycle crossing of Ohio.
Indie filmmakers, festival stories, real movie talk.
Horror recaps with sharp teeth.
Entertainment stories with the polish left off.
Horror talk with strange-case static.
This episode of Lost in Criterion discusses the San Francisco Seals baseball team, its manager Lefty O'Doul, and historical context in 1950s San Francisco.
John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan and Adam Glass are joined by friend Casey Bigler to discuss the 2012 Criterion film Frances Ha, spine number 681.
Hosts John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan and Adam Glass discuss 'The Kid with a Bike,' the third Dardenne brothers film in the Criterion Collection.
The hosts of Lost in Criterion discuss the challenges of obtaining change from banks and share personal anecdotes about money transactions before presumably transitioning to a review of the film Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 2.
The hosts discuss Karen Blixen's problematic colonial past and a shocking racist photograph from her biography while introducing an episode about the film Babette's Feast.
Lost in Criterion's spine 700 episode examines Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr.
Lost in Criterion examines Errol Morris's 1991 documentary A Brief History of Time, its portrait of Stephen Hawking, and its limited treatment of Hawking's science.
Lost in Criterion: Spine 697: Tess examines Roman Polanski's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles alongside Polanski's criminal history and continued status in the film canon.
Lost in Criterion examines Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, focusing on its anti-Nazi politics, unstable wartime context, and unusually fragmented production.
The hosts introduce their podcast about Criterion Collection films, discuss boater hats as a fashion statement, and promote their Patreon with bonus content like a recent episode on Spike Jonze's music videos.
The hosts introduce the episode discussing the film 'Touki bouki' from the Criterion Collection, touching on translation and wordplay, and promote their Patreon for bonus content.
The hosts discuss the visual and audio details in a Criterion Collection film, focusing on the design of telephone headsets and how they enhance storytelling.
The hosts of Lost in Criterion welcome a special guest to discuss the film Frances Ha, reflecting on friendship and their podcast's origins.
The hosts of Lost in Criterion discuss bartending experiences and unusual cocktail ideas, including hot dog water in Bloody Marys and sweet tea vodka.
The hosts discuss the final Zatoichi film in the Criterion series, expressing disappointment about ending the series while joking about absurd elements like Zatoichi hiding in small objects.
Lost in Criterion covers Zatoichi’s Revenge, Zatoichi and the Doomed Man, and Zatoichi and the Chess Expert, films 10–12 in a 25-film box set.
The hosts discuss their Patreon bonus content, including a recent episode on Who Framed Roger Rabbit that blends film effects analysis with themes of infrastructural racism.