Hulu's New Criteria For Movies

For cinephile streamers and cord cutters who remember a time when a few subscriptions were all they needed - hey, shouldn't there be a website for that?!? - Hulu's loss of the Criterion Collection was a traumatic, life-altering event. True film geeks and deep pocketed subscribers may have followed the collection of foreign and classic movies to FilmStruck and now the Criterion Channel. Yet at the end of the day, most viewers who have to choose between Seinfeld or Fassbinder were going to make the same choice that Hulu did. (Seinfeld, icyww).

However, in the years since parting ways with the Criterion Channel's extensive library, Hulu has quietly but steadily compiled a very solid collection of acclaimed international films. Anyone who peruses the foreign selections will notice two recent Palme d'Or winners in Ruben Östlund's The Square and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters, as well as selections like The Kid With a Bike and Two Days, One Night from Cannes favorites and two-time winners the Dardenne brothers. Beyond the shores of Cannes (but not too far), there are also options like Maïwenn's Polisse, about the cops who protect the children of Paris, and Susanne Bier's After the Wedding because there's never enough Mads Mikkelsen to go around. Film lovers who can't access the new Criterion Channel, don't want to pay the extra money, or are afraid it will go the way of FilmStruck still have some excellent options on Hulu.