What is The Criterion Collection? Wall-E becomes first Pixar film to join the coveted club

Pixar's critically acclaimed 2008 classic, WALL-E, has become the first-ever Pixar film to be inducted into the Criterion Collection, according to Variety. The special edition contains 3 disks and features a director-approved 4K UHD along with many other Blu-Ray Special Edition features, including a tour of the Pixar Living Archive with director Andrew Stanton, documentaries about the film's production, and more. Criterion has set the release date for November 22, 2022.

The Criterion Collection is a home-video distribution company that deals in restoring, licensing and distributing some of the most acclaimed classic and contemporary films from around the world. Read on to learn more about the Criterion Collection.

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The Criterion Collection: Mission, history and more details

The Criterion Collection is a renowned home-video distribution company ''dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements.'' The organization was founded in 1984 and caters to cinema enthusiasts and film scholars, among others.

The company was founded during a time when home videos started becoming increasingly popular. As technology became more advanced, the demand consequently increased. As people could now buy a film and watch it whenever they wanted to, many cinephiles were also curious about what went into the making of the film, and other stories pertaining to the movie — and that's where the Criterion Collection comes in.

Orson Welles' iconic drama Citizen Kane was the first-ever film released by the Criterion Collection in 1984. One of the most astonishing things about the Criterion Collection is their ability to restore old, classic and lost films — many of which were shot on silver nitrate that's hard to maintain over a period of time — and release them in Blu-Ray, DVD, or 4K Ultra HD editions. Over the years, the organization has remastered, restored, and distributed over 1000 films from around the world.

Their special editions have a number of interesting materials apart from the movie, including videos about the making of the film, documentaries, and more. In 2018, the company announced the launch of its own OTT platform, called The Criterion Channel, which primarily caters to cinephiles, offering a wide range of movies made by renowned directors from across the globe.

Another interesting aspect of the Criterion Collection is their choice of films. Criterion picks certain movies based on cinematic merits. According to their official website, they ''aim to reflect the breadth of filmed expression,'' and the requirement for a movie to be inducted into the collection is that it needs to be ''an exemplary film of its kind.''

Criterion also invites various filmmakers and actors into their closet and lets them pick movies of their choice. The actors/filmmakers agree to record their closet visits and in the videos, they pick some of their favorite films whilst also explaining the impact that each film has had on their lives.

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More details about Wall-E plot

WALL-E tells the story of a robot, all alone on a lonely, deserted earth, going about his task of cleaning up the garbage. His life changes forever after he surprisingly meets another robot. A brief synopsis of the movie, according to Pixar, reads:

''What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL-E discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE.''

The film was a huge commercial success and also received widespread critical acclaim, with many critics considering it to be one of the greatest animated movies of all time. The voicecast of the film includes Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, and Jeff Garlin, among others.