Just in time for Oscar season, Amazon Studios is bringing three of its award contenders to the Criterion Collection, the first time the studio’s had a movie make it to the collection since 2018.
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IndieWire reports that Darius Marder‘s “Sound of Metal,” Regina King‘s “One Night in Miami,” and Garrett Bradley‘s “Time” will join the prestigious Criterion Collection. “Sound of Metal” is slated to get its Criterion release in 2022, while the latter two will bow later this year. This marks the first time Amazon Original movies join Criterion since the 2018 Polish drama “Cold War” received the same treatment.
While it may seem odd for some that streaming titles would get the Criterion treatment, first let me remind you that Michael Bay‘s “Armageddon” is part of the collection. Additionally, this is not an unprecedented move, since Criterion has already teamed up with Amazon’s streaming rival, Netflix, to release some of its recent award contenders on the collection, including Martin Scorsese‘s “The Irishman,” Noah Baumbach‘s “Marriage Story,” and Alfonso Cuaron‘s “Roma.”
Releasing these streaming originals as part of the Criterion Collection is not inherently a bad thing. For one, it secures a physical release for films that might otherwise just disappear if Netflix was ever to shut down, and also add bonus content that streaming platforms still somehow refuse to add to their releases for no reason. But, perhaps more importantly to the streaming platforms, the Criterion release serves to legitimize streaming services as proper movie studios making proper award-worthy movies, and the fact that these releases are announced in the middle of awards season is probably not a coincidence.