Criterion takes its viral closet on the road. When that van shows up, so does a scene

Los Angeles Times

28-04-2025

The Criterion faithful are very happy — standing out in the rain on a cold Saturday morning, hundreds of them, waiting in a line that stretches several blocks. Three fans, Daniel Solis, Marco Castaneda and Kian Mohammadlou, have just been informed that they've made the cut: They are the very last people today who will be allowed into the Criterion Mobile Closet, a shiny white delivery van decked out in the home video label's recognizable logo, which was parked in Eagle Rock this weekend in front of Vidiots.
'I'm pretty excited,' Solis, 33, says. 'It's a long wait, but it's a relief that we made it.'
'Last night he told me to wake up as early as possible and just show up,' says Castaneda, 33, a friend of Solis' since they were in seventh grade.
'This will be my first time buying any Criterion DVDs,' adds Mohammadlou, 24, who came by himself. 'Obviously, I've seen them at stores, but this pop-up event, I was like: This could be a cool way to start that collection.'
They arrived in the morning at around 9:30. (The lineup started at 5 a.m.) Because of the rain, Criterion employees allowed guests to begin filing into the van early, at about 9:45, around the same time they officially closed the line to more people. 'This is the earliest we ever closed the line,' Nur El Shami, Criterion's chief marketing officer, tells me at the top of the day. 'It's never a great feeling to send people away.'
Despite the stinging rain and unpredictable winds, the friendly, laid-back crowd — a diverse bunch mostly made up of millennials and zoomers — seem perfectly content to wait their turn. It may take hours, but they're all jazzed to spend three minutes selecting up to three movies for purchase (at 40% off) from the company's catalog of more than 1,000 titles inside that van, which has been decorated to resemble the legendary closet housed at Criterion's New York office.
Perhaps no storage room is more hallowed in cinema than the 67-square-foot space known as the Criterion Closet. That tiny office closet is huge on social media thanks to Criterion's 'Closet Picks' videos, which launched in 2010, featuring famous actors, directors and musicians entering the space, picking movies to take home and explaining why those films mean so much to them. The videos, which now number more than 260, have become appointment viewing for movie lovers, who relish watching their favorite artists rhapsodize about cinema in unrehearsed, genuine ways. Many Criterion junkies have imagined what it would be like to hang out in that closet — to be enveloped in that cozy cocoon of great movies. For them, the Mobile Closet is the next best thing.
'For the 40th anniversary, we've been talking about, 'What could we do that truly engages all the people that love film?' ' El Shami explains about the Mobile Closet's origins. 'Somebody said, almost as a joke, 'What if we put the Closet in a truck?' We were like, 'You know what? Maybe that's exactly what we should do.' '
The Mobile Closet debuted at last year's New York Film Festival, with Criterion offering guests a first-come, first-served chance to buy the company's carefully curated, beautifully packaged movies. (The celebrities who do 'Closet Picks' get theirs for free.) A downpour intervened then as well, but over the festival's two weekends, the Mobile Closet was a hit, inspiring the company to do a stop in Brooklyn at St. Ann's Warehouse and then travel halfway across the country to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. (It will return to L.A. June 6 to 7, parked at the Aero Theatre during the American Cinematheque's popular Bleak Week festival.)
For all of the Closet's viral success, Criterion's executives seem to abhor talking about it as a marketing tool. El Shami, only hired a few months ago, insists, 'Criterion is not a very brand-forward or marketing-forward company.'
Still, Criterion has taken care to ensure the Mobile Closet feels special. The company's New York staff have flown out for the weekend, wearing Criterion hats and handing out complimentary branded tote bags. And Criterion President Peter Becker walks up and down the line saying hello to everyone, even when it's raining. Wearing a clear poncho, he couldn't be bubblier as he answers questions and generally holds court. But he doesn't like using the word 'marketing' without putting it in finger-quotes.
'About 10 years ago, there was this phrase that we were using,' Becker tells me. 'We wanted to be a hub in film culture, a space that was welcoming for people around movies. We did a bunch of things, but they turned out to be a lot of work and maybe less visible.'
What eventually proved successful was something fast, cheap and unplanned that the company had begun, tentatively, back in 2010: In September of that year, director Guillermo del Toro stopped by the office. The company always had a policy of inviting guests to grab whatever movies they wanted out of the Closet, but this time, according to Becker, their social-media person suggested they take a picture of Del Toro in the Closet and post it online. That gave Becker an idea as he reached for his iPhone. 'I think he might let us film him making his selections,' he recalls saying. 'I think people might like to see that.'
Becker's instincts paid off. 'He's a natural showman and a very generous person,' he says of Del Toro. 'And he was enthusiastic, too. I don't think there's any cuts in that video. I think it's just three minutes, like a pop song. He invented the form.'
Del Toro's giddy gobbling up of world cinema (actually only two minutes) set the template for what was to come. 'Little by little, people started to ask to do it, which was fun,' says Becker. 'It took on a life of its own.'
Over the next 15 years, the videos evolved. The company installed better lighting so they wouldn't look so dark. Instead of shooting on an iPhone, the camera got upgraded to a Canon C70. And the presentation became more uniform, the original handheld approach replaced with a static head-on shot of the subject at the center of the frame, the Closet's glorious crammed-to-bursting shelves surrounding the person on both sides and behind.
'That happened around five years ago — it started as almost a pandemic precaution,' says Valeria Rotella, one of the two 'Closet Picks' series producers, along with Hillary Weston, about the decision to put the camera on a mount. 'It gave people more space in terms of moving around. It also gives them a sense that they're able to browse, they're able to take in things at their own rhythm and to almost be in dialogue with themselves as much as they're in dialogue with us.'
Meditative revelries from celebrities like Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri helped make film fandom cool — not to mention contagious. Even before Criterion started filming these visits, Becker suspected these unpretentious salutes to cinephilia (and physical media) would make an impression.
'It was really common, if somebody came into the office, for us to spend 45 minutes hanging out in the Closet just talking about movies,' he recalls. 'Something catches their eye and they say, 'I remember seeing that in such-and-such place with such-and-such person at such-and-such time, and this was moving for me in that way.' It was intimate. There was a feeling of real connection.'
When I ask the people in line what they love about 'Closet Picks,' the word 'enthusiasm' comes up frequently. And that enthusiasm is palpable as guests prepare to enter the Mobile Closet. The rear van door, where they enter, is left closed during these quick sprees, maintaining the intimacy of 'Closet Picks,' and it's fun to watch the next people who are about to enter the closet. Some know exactly what they're going to pick. Some have two movies in mind, letting inspiration take over inside the Closet for the third movie.
'I'm thinking politically today,' says Elisabeth McKeon, 31, who was planning on grabbing 'The Great Dictator,' 'A Face in the Crowd' and Todd Haynes' 'Safe.' 'Every weekend, I've basically been going to a protest,' McKeon explains, 'so this is the first time that I'm doing something not like that. I was like, 'Well, if I am going to be here, the least I can do is pick a movie that is just a marker of this year and this time.' '
No matter how many times I watched it, the transformation in fans' faces after their Mobile Closet visit is striking. Any anxiety about what films to select melts away. They often emerge from the experience beaming, not quite believing what they just went through. Sometimes they're visibly moved.
'I imagined it would be overwhelming but also it was exhilarating,' says Daniel Tronco Velasquez, 23, who was born in Peru and grew up with films as a constant childhood companion. 'Every single movie in there has a story that resonates with anyone. Just being in the presence of all those films, it's amazing.'
It really is. Early in the day, I had my own three-minute odyssey. No matter how many 'Closet Picks' you know by heart, no matter how convinced you are that you wouldn't let the collection's sheer scope inundate you, it's a humbling experience to be around so many stellar titles: Do you go for a Bruce Lee box set? Do you grab one of the brand-new releases, like Charles Burnett's recently restored 'Killer of Sheep,' before it's available to the general public? You feel the clock ticking in your head, you know you have to make decisions quickly. I went in with two films I knew I wanted — Krzysztof Kieślowski's luminous, hard-to-find-on-streaming 'Dekalog' and Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'After Life' — and then felt a wave of panic. Like a lot of people in line, I went with my heart, grabbing 'Wall-E,' a film that means everything to my wife and me.
Per Criterion, the most popular titles purchased on Saturday were 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,' 'Anora,' Richard Linklater's 'The Before Trilogy,' 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'The Virgin Suicides.' The van was supposed to close at 8 p.m., but Criterion extended the run for an additional hour. Then on Sunday, the turnout was already so massive by 9:15 a.m. that the company had to close the line, breaking Saturday's record.
The big crowds and cool vibes are certainly encouraging for Becker, but he insists that the popularity of 'Closet Picks' is hard to quantify.
'As a company, we have always fundamentally subscribed to the proposition that the product is the marketing — that the film is the point, that the brand is carried into the marketplace by the films,' he says. 'The slow accumulation of trust over decades is the way that we're going to build an audience.'
He remembers Winona Ryder's 'Closet Picks,' recorded in June 2024 but posted in late August, shortly after Gena Rowlands' death.
'If Winona Rider makes you want to go see 'A Woman Under the Influence,' which is a Criterion disc release that's also on the Criterion Channel — but it's also on iTunes and on Amazon — however you go seek out that film, great,' he says. 'That's just generating energy around an important film and performer.'
In other words, Criterion is happy to lead you to the Closet, but what you choose is up to you. Inside, you're the expert, you're the connoisseur, you're the one reconnecting with why movies are so crucial to you. That kind of safe space is precious, and reason enough to brave the elements and a seemingly endless line.
'I go to Comic-Con,' says Rebecca Safier, 43, who does background and stand-in work as an actor. 'I haven't been in Hall H in 15 years, but I have my own fan things that I care about. It's been a while since I've stood in a line this long, though.'