When Criterion announced a mobile version of its internet-famous film closet would make a stop in Austin, Stella Wimberly couldn’t miss it. She flew from college in Boston back to her hometown of Dallas and then drove down to Austin and waited in line for hours for the chance to step inside the renovated van packed with wall-to-wall movies.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Wimberly said. “I just felt like I had to come to this.”
The Criterion Collection, a home-video distribution company that also runs a streaming service, holds an exclusive collection of more than 1,500 titles considered to be the greatest in film history, from Citizen Kane to Parasite. For more than a decade, actors, filmmakers, writers and other creatives have visited Criterion's closet in its New York office to talk about films that have been meaningful to them as part of the Criterion Closet Picks video series. Videos featuring Bong Joon-Ho, Paul Dano, and Ethan and Maya Hawke have racked up over 1 million views each.
For Criterion’s 40th anniversary last year, the company transformed an 18-foot delivery van into the mobile Criterion Closet to bring that same experience to movie fans. The van is a nearly exact replica of the original closet, according to Criterion's announcement. After two stops in New York last year, the mobile closet parked across the street from the Paramount Theatre for the first weekend of South by Southwest.
“It’s all about connection," Criterion's president, Peter Becker, said. "Most of what we do is enjoyed by people in their homes, and we never really get to see people and catch up with them and meet the people who love Criterion."
Visitors had three minutes in the closet to explore titles and film their own "Closet Picks" video. They each got a Polaroid in the closet, a tote bag and the opportunity to buy up to three films for a 40% discount.
“Not everything’s going to be on streaming forever,” said Neha Aziz, a filmmaker and artistic director for the Austin Asian American Film Festival. “If there’s movies that are so special to me that I want to watch, I just love physical media.”
The mobile closet was supposed to open at 3 p.m. Friday, but with crowds forming by midday, the line shut down by 1:30 and the closet opened its doors soon after. Aziz said she hopes to get invited to do a closet visit in New York one day as a filmmaker, but this was the next best thing.
“Some of the things I was thinking about was the Wong Kar-wai box set Memories of Murder. Maybe Paris, Texas,” Aziz said of her possible picks. “But who knows? Something might strike my fancy when I go in there.”
Grant Katz, a philosophy student at UT Austin, got to Congress Avenue at 10 a.m. and was one of the first in line. He first encountered the Criterion Collection during the pandemic, when he decided to start watching movies more seriously in his spare time. He chose to get The Royal Tenenbaums and All That Jazz from the closet.
“I wish I had hours in there,” he said. “I just want to talk in there forever, but I couldn’t do it, so I had to think of things very fast. It was very overwhelming.”
Becker said the mobile closet will likely become a permanent part of Criterion, as the company looks for ways to continue connecting with the film community.
“If you come out and see who’s in line, it’s just the most amazingly eclectic array of human beings of all ages and all kinds of different interests and backgrounds,” Becker said. “People have gone a long way to be here and it’s just incredibly heartening and touching.”
