The Criterion Collection is a joint venture between Janus Films and The Voyager Company that was begun in the late 1980s for the purpose of releasing authoritative home video versions of "classic and important contemporary films" on the laserdisc and DVD formats.
Criterion pioneered many innovations in the way movies are presented on video that have become standard today. One of these is letterboxing, in which widescreen movies are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratioss. Though at first resisted by consumers, due to the fact that letterboxing requires the image to be shrunk and bracketed top-to-bottom by black bars to accommodate a television's roughly square screen, it was soon embraced by movie enthusaists who were quick to recognize its benefits over the alternative, a film image severely cropped on the sides. The 1987 Criterion laserdisc of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was a seminal home video release in legitimizing letterboxing.
Criterion is also credited with creating the concept of the "special edition", in which a movie is presented with numerous bonus materials including trailers, directors' audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes documentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, and more. This concept was quickly embraced by almost all other home video companies, from the mainstream to small speciality labels like Elite Entertainment. Today, special edition DVD's, even for the most trivial of films, are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Criterion usually selects foreign films, established classics, and obscure critically-admired movies over mainstream Hollywood fare, though they have released the occasional mainstream blockbuster. Criterion is noted for spending a great deal of effort and money tracing the best source materials for classic films, and engaging in thorough restorations — another practice that has influenced other companies.
Though a laserdisc pioneer, Criterion entered the DVD market cautiously, not releasing their first titles on the new format until it had been on the market for approximately a year. Today, though they are no longer alone in the care and dedication with which they treat their films, nor in the elaborate content of their special editions, their name alone has become synonymous with quality, a brand of distinction not unlike Mercedes or Cadillac.
