13 Jan 2025
John David Washington and Malcolm Washington’s Closet Picks
The actor joins the director of his new film The Piano Lesson in the Criterion Closet, where they shout out the importance of Menace II Society, reflect on the beauty of Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda’s artistic relationship, and praise Spike Lee’s Malcolm X as the “greatest achievement in American filmmaking.
Filmed together, each with a page of their own: John David Washington and Malcolm Washington
Criterion's own upload · on criterion.com
This visit as a strip, a cell for each choice: paler the older the film, indigo for a box set, which is one cell however many films it holds. The order is the order Criterion's own page lists them in, which is probably but not provably the order they came off the shelf.
| Chose | Director | Year | Taken by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Dekalog | Krzysztof Kieślowski | 1988 | |
| 2 |  Mirror | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1975 | |
| 3 |  Menace II Society | Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes | 1993 | |
| 4 |  Drylongso | Cauleen Smith | 1998 | |
| 5 |  Irma Vep | Olivier Assayas | 1996 | |
| 6 |  Rosetta | Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne | 1999 | |
| 7 |  Black Orpheus | Marcel Camus | 1959 | |
| 8 |  The Underground Railroad | Barry Jenkins | 2021 | |
| 9 |  Faces | John Cassavetes | 1968 | |
| 10 |  The Essential Jacques Demy box set, 6 films | |||
| 11 |  The Complete Films of Agnès Varda box set, 22 films | |||
| 12 |  Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar box set, 6 films | |||
| 13 |  Malcolm X | Spike Lee | 1992 | |
| 14 |  Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai | Jim Jarmusch | 1999 |
How far across film history it reaches
The axis is the same 1920 to 2030 on every visit page, so a haul that stayed inside one decade looks like one. A box set is drawn across the years of the films inside it, which is a range of release dates and not a claim about the set. Nothing here is in the order the choices were made: displayed position moves film year by a fifth of one percent of its variance, which is not a slope worth drawing.
How long this haul is
43 of its 45 films carry a runtime, and those alone run at least 70.8 hours. One of the others is a television series, which has no total on record at all: TMDB gives one episode's length, not a series'. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.
What one of its choices was worth is not published for this visit. That figure divides the whole runtime by every choice, so a total missing two films would understate it rather than be approximately right.
How unusual this haul was
Its 14 choices had been taken by 6.64 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. One of them has been taken by nobody else. The least-picked was Irma Vep, taken by this visit alone.
This visit reached the work of Agnès Varda, through Cléo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda, through Vagabond, Agnès Varda, through La Pointe Courte, Agnès Varda, through Le bonheur, Agnès Varda, through Jacquot de Nantes, Agnès Varda, through Uncle Yanco, Agnès Varda, through Black Panthers, Agnès Varda, through Lions Love (. . . and Lies), Agnès Varda, through Mur Murs, Agnès Varda, through Documenteur, Agnès Varda, through One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, Agnès Varda, through Daguerréotypes, Agnès Varda, through The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès Varda, through Varda by Agnès, Agnès Varda, through The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, through One Hundred and One Nights, Agnès Varda, through The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later, Agnès Varda, through Jane B. par Agnès V., Agnès Varda, through Kung-Fu Master!, Agnès Varda, through Faces Places, Agnès Varda, through Les créatures, Agnès Varda, through Agnès de ci de là Varda, Barry Jenkins, through The Underground Railroad, Cauleen Smith, through Drylongso, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, through Rosetta, Jim Jarmusch, through Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, JR, through Faces Places, Luc Dardenne, through Rosetta, Agnès Varda, through Cléo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda, through Vagabond, Agnès Varda, through La Pointe Courte, Agnès Varda, through Le bonheur, Agnès Varda, through Jacquot de Nantes, Agnès Varda, through Uncle Yanco, Agnès Varda, through Black Panthers, Agnès Varda, through Lions Love (. . . and Lies), Agnès Varda, through Mur Murs, Agnès Varda, through Documenteur, Agnès Varda, through One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, Agnès Varda, through Daguerréotypes, Agnès Varda, through The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès Varda, through Varda by Agnès, Agnès Varda, through The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, through One Hundred and One Nights, Agnès Varda, through The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later, Agnès Varda, through Jane B. par Agnès V., Agnès Varda, through Kung-Fu Master!, Agnès Varda, through Faces Places, Agnès Varda, through Les créatures, Agnès Varda, through Agnès de ci de là Varda, Barry Jenkins, through The Underground Railroad, Cauleen Smith, through Drylongso, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, through Rosetta, Jim Jarmusch, through Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, JR, through Faces Places and Luc Dardenne, through Rosetta, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.