At this point, it feels like pretty much every living filmmaker and actor has visited the Criterion Closet to pick out some of their favorite classic movies released by the label. We’re talking everyone from Ayo Edebiri to Zoë Kravitz, Willem Dafoe to Bong Joon Ho. But what about fictional characters? What would, say, Star Wars’ Han Solo, respond to the most if he had the chance to sit down with the entire Criterion library?
While the smuggler with a heart of gold unfortunately can’t speak for himself on this topic, here are the five titles we think he would pick.
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
Ultimately, the best movie to introduce Han Solo to the concept of “movies” in the first place would probably be Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. After all, given the fact that it was one of the key influences on 1977’s Star Wars, he would recognize a lot of his own life in the 1958 samurai movie’s plot, characters, and themes.
This includes the movie featuring direct analogues to Han Solo’s love interest Princess Leia (Misa Uehara’s Princess Yuki), as well as the droids C-3PO (Minoru Chiaki’s Tahei) and R2-D2 (Kamatari Fujiwara’s Matashichi).
However, Han Solo would probably also like The Hidden Fortress on its own merits as well. It combines a sweeping historical drama (it’s set in feudal Japan) with engaging character dynamics (a general and a princess must hide their identities from the peasants that they have hired to escort them) and populist thrills (it connected with audiences to the point that it became Kurosawa’s highest-grossing movie ever at the time, until its record was beaten by 1961’s Yojimbo).
Captain Blood (1935)
‘Captain Blood’ (1935)Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Once Han Solo gets his head wrapped around the whole “movie” thing, the next Criterion title that would catch his eye is 1935’s Captain Blood, from Casablanca director Michael Curtiz. The pilot of the Millennium Falcon would probably relate very much to the swashbuckling tale, which is adapted from the 1922 Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name and follows the moral Dr. Peter Blood (Errol Flynn), who is convicted of treason for healing a rebel’s wounds and is forced to become a slave in the Caribbean, only to escape and become a notorious pirate.
As we learn in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, Han knows exactly what it’s like to be a victim of a system that seems to be built entirely against you, and he would probably relate both to the main character’s journey and the complicated feelings that stir up within him during his eventual romance with his kindhearted former mistress, Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland).
Although Han Solo would probably also respond well to other swashbuckling movies starring Errol Flynn, such as 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood and 1940’s The Sea Hawk, neither title is part of the Criterion Collection. Regardless, Captain Blood is the movie that cemented Flynn as a major adventure movie star, leading to him landing lead roles in those other titles. In addition to the fact that it’s the most important title of Flynn’s early career, it’s also the movie that perhaps best captures the film serial sensibility that also fueled Star Wars.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
This classic sci-fi movie, which was directed by Byron Haskin (1953’s War of the Worlds), does exactly what it says on the tin: reinterpreting the story of the iconic Daniel Defoe novel Robinson Crusoe but setting it on Mars rather than a desert island.
In addition to being one of the few Criterion releases to fully explore space travel (while there are quite a few sci-fi movies in the collection, they are mostly titles like The Blob, Stalker, Fiend Without a Face, and Godzilla that take place on Earth), Robinson Crusoe on Mars captures something profoundly impactful about the loneliness of space, which is something that would probably cause Solo to reflect deeply on his years before the events of the original Star Wars.
Breathless (1960)
Just like Captain Blood, Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave classic Breathless blends romance in with the story of a lawless protagonist. However, it couldn’t be more different in the way it goes about executing its story.
Honestly, it would probably challenge Han Solo quite a bit to sit through Breathless. It follows a lowly, petty criminal named Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who models himself after the larger-than-life bad boys of the silver screen (a canon that Han Solo himself would eventually join). However, Michel’s crimes erode his relationship with his lover, Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), and eventually lead to his death.
The movie, which is focused more on dialogue and philosophy than action and mayhem, would probably provoke strong feelings from the smuggler, forcing him to confront the relationship between his rebellious nature and the strong moral underpinnings of his psyche that he often tries to resist. However, because of this he would probably be moved by the experience. The best films are the ones that lead to deeper discussions, and the conversation he would have with Leia after sitting down to watch this together would be an all-timer.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
It might seem strange that one of Han Solo’s favorite Criterion movies would be Wes Anderson’s stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation Fantastic Mr. Fox, but there’s no denying that the character is a bit of a softie underneath it all.
Anyway, there’s almost no character in any Criterion movie who would resonate more with a charming rogue like Han Solo than a crafty thief and schemer voiced by George Clooney, one of the most charismatic Hollywood actors in history. Also, the movie is another example of a Breathless-style piece about how a character’s baser instincts gets him in trouble (in this case, his need to steal lands him in hot water with local farmers), with the added bonus of the fact that his skills and craftiness are also what get him out of trouble.
Plus, the fuzzy, handmade designs of the anthropomorphic animal characters would remind him of his longtime companion and co-pilot, the Wookiee Chewbacca.
You can read plenty more about the Criterion Closet on No Film School, including breakdowns of the picks made by real people, including Robert De Niro, Sara Dosa, and the Safdie brothers.
