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Open Culture (Official)

@openculture@toot.community

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The official/real Open Culture account on Mastodon. Digital Culture. Hall Monitor.

28238 Followers

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50 Posts

Joined November 05, 2022

Website:

https://openculture.com/

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https://openculture.com/rss

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@openculture.bsky.social

Daily Email:

https://www.openculture.com/dailyemail

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 1d ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America: Unable to Know “What’s True,” We Will Slide, “Without Noticing, Back into Superstition & Darkness” (1995) https://www.openculture.com/2025/02/carl-sagan-predicts-the-decline-of-america-unable-to-know-whats-true.html

Open Culture

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America: Unable to Know “What’s True,” We Will Slide, “Without Noticing, Back into Superstition & Darkness” (1995)

Image by Kenneth Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons There have been many theories of how human history works. Some, like German thinker G.W.F.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 4w ago

Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See

You wouldn't want to share it or anything :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLDE9LrGpNk

Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See

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Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 1w ago

Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization with “Purposeful Stupidity” (1944) https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manual.html

Open Culture

Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization with “Purposeful Stupidity” (1944)

I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term of dread for the many government and corporate agencies that have an inordinate amount of power over our permanent records, and that seem as inscrutable and chillingly absurd as the labyrinth the character K navigates in Kafka’s last allegorical novel.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

Watch 194 Films by Georges Méliès, the Filmmaker Who “Invented Everything” (All in Chronological Order)

https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/watch-194-films-by-georges-melies-the-filmmaker-who-invented-everything-all-in-chronological-order.html

Open Culture

Watch 194 Films by Georges Méliès, the Filmmaker Who “Invented Everything” (All in Chronological Order)

Georges Méliès directed, produced, edited, and starred in over 500 films between 1896 and 1913, most of them brimming with special effects the filmmaker himself invented. Before Méliès, such things as split screens, dissolves, and double exposures did not exist.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

Umberto Eco’s Personal Library Opens to the Public: More Than 32,000 Books, Exactly as He Left Them https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/umberto-ecos-personal-library-opens-to-the-public.html

Open Culture

Umberto Eco’s Personal Library Opens to the Public: More Than 32,000 Books, Exactly as He Left Them

William Weaver could add an extension onto his Tuscan villa, which he called the 'Eco Chamber.' The Biblioteca Eco, or Eco Library, whose ribbon-cutting earlier this month you can see in the Italian news clip just above, may not be as wittily named, but it's a much more ambitious project.

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Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 4w ago

Breathtakingly-Detailed Tibetan Book Printed 40 Years Before the Gutenberg Bible

https://www.openculture.com/2020/05/breathtakingly-detailed-tibetan-book-printed-40-years-before-the-gutenberg-bible.html

Open Culture

Breathtakingly-Detailed Tibetan Book Printed 40 Years Before the Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible went to press in the year 1454. We now see it as the first piece of mass media, printed as it was with the then-cutting-edge technology of metal movable type. But in the history of aesthetic achievements in book-printing, the Gutenberg Bible wasn't without its precedents.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2w ago

How to Memorize an Entire Chapter from “Moby Dick”: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/how-to-memorize-an-entire-chapter-from-moby-dick.html

Open Culture

How to Memorize an Entire Chapter from “Moby Dick”: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I mentally revisit the various homes of my childhood, wandering from room to room, turning on lights and peering in closets until I conk out. Turns out these imaginary tours are also handy mnemonic tools, as Vox’s Dean Peterson explains above.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

"The tragedy of the Internet is that it has promoted the village idiot to the level of bearer of truth” --Umberto Eco

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Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

How Reading Changes the Way Your Brain Works

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/how-reading-changes-the-way-your-brain-works.html

Open Culture

How Reading Changes the Way Your Brain Works

Reading is unnatural. This will hardly come as a surprise to any child trying to put off his homework for just one more hour of watching other kids play Minecraft.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 1mo ago

Download Hundreds of Issues of Jugend, Germany’s Pioneering Art Nouveau Magazine (1896–1940)

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/download-hundreds-of-issues-of-jugend-germanys-pioneering-art-nouveau-magazine.html

Open Culture

Download Hundreds of Issues of Jugend, Germany’s Pioneering Art Nouveau Magazine (1896–1940)

It’s an ungainly word for English speakers, which is maybe why we do not hear it often: Gleichschaltung. Yet the concept remains central for a clear view of what happened to Germany in the 1930s.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing: An Animated Lesson from David Dunning (of the Famous “Dunning-Kruger Effect”)

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/why-incompetent-people-think-theyre-amazing-an-animated-lesson-from-david-dunning.html

Open Culture

Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing: An Animated Lesson from David Dunning (of the Famous “Dunning-Kruger Effect”)

The business world has long had special jargon for the Kafkaesque incompetence bedeviling the ranks of upper management. There is “the Peter principle,” first described in a satirical book of the same name in 1968.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

Twin Peaks Actually Explained: A 4‑Hour Video Essay Demystifies It All

https://www.openculture.com/2024/10/twin-peaks-actually-explained.html

Open Culture

Twin Peaks Actually Explained: A 4‑Hour Video Essay Demystifies It All

I don’t know about you, but my YouTube algorithms can act like a nagging friend, suggesting a video for days until I finally give in. Such was the case with this video essay with the tantalizing title: “Twin Peaks ACTUALLY EXPLAINED (No, Really)”.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

Frederick Douglass’s Fiery 1852 Speech, “The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro,” Read by James Earl Jones https://www.openculture.com/2023/07/frederick-douglasss-fiery-1852-speech-the-meaning-of-july-4th-for-the-negro-read-by-james-earl-jones.html

Open Culture

Frederick Douglass’s Fiery 1852 Speech, “The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro,” Read by James Earl Jones

Every year on this day, Frederick Douglass’s fiery, uncompromising 1852 speech, “The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro,” gets a new hearing, and takes on added resonance in the context of contemporary politics.

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Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

Watch Footage from the Psychology Experiment That Shocked the World: Milgram’s Obedience Study (1961)

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/watch-footage-from-milgrams-obedience-study.html

Open Culture

Watch Footage from the Psychology Experiment That Shocked the World: Milgram’s Obedience Study (1961)

For decades following World War II, the world was left wondering how the atrocities of the Holocaust could have been perpetrated in the midst of—and, most horrifically, by—a modern and civilized society. How did people come to engage in a willing and systematic extermination of their neighbors?

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

The Genius Logic of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet: How It Was Created & How It Works https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/the-genius-logic-of-the-nato-phonetic-alphabet-how-it-was-created-how-it-works.html

Open Culture

The Genius Logic of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet: How It Was Created & How It Works

Most of us can rattle off the first few words-that-stand-for-letters of the NATO phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, and Charlie no doubt come right to mind, and depending on how many war movies you've seen, so may Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot. But how many of us would recognize Kilo, Mike, and Sierra?

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Original Colors Still In It https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/3000-year-old-painters-palette-from-ancient-egypt.html

Open Culture

A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Original Colors Still In It

It’s a good bet that your first box of crayons or watercolors was a simple affair of six or so colors... just like the palette belonging to Amenemopet, vizier to Pharaoh Amenhotep III (c.1391 - c.1354 BC), a pleasure-loving patron of the arts whose rule coincided with a period of great prosperity.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

An In-Depth, Immersive Journey Through the Bayeux Tapestry

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/an-in-depth-immersive-journey-through-the-bayeux-tapestry.html

Open Culture

An In-Depth, Immersive Journey Through the Bayeux Tapestry

With the Bayeux Tapestry now on display at the British Museum, Deep Down History presents a deep dive into the embroidery's full story:

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 4w ago

“Evil Mickey Mouse” Invades Japan in a 1934 Japanese Anime Propaganda Film

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/evil-mickey-mouse-japanese-anime-propaganda-film.html

Open Culture

“Evil Mickey Mouse” Invades Japan in a 1934 Japanese Anime Propaganda Film

Before the Japanese fell completely, one hundred percent in love with anything and everything Disney (I mean, seriously, they love it), Mickey Mouse represented something completely different: Pure American imperialist evil.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 1mo ago

Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in 25,000-Year-Old Teeth

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/scientists-discover-the-earliest-evidence-of-drug-use-in-25000-year-old-teeth.html

Open Culture

Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in 25,000-Year-Old Teeth

Image by Fakhri 'Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in Really Old Teeth' may sound like odd headline language, at least by the traditional standards of the New York Times. But then, the teeth in question are, indeed, really old.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

RE: https://toot.community/@openculture/117277384333953827

The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"--Donald Trump

toot.community

Open Culture (Official) (@openculture@toot.community)

Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing: An Animated Lesson from David Dunning (of the Famous “Dunning-Kruger Effect”) https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/why-incompetent-people-think-theyre-amazing-an-animated-lesson-from-david-dunning.html

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

How the Silk Road Actually Worked (and What Could Go Terribly Wrong On It)

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/how-the-silk-road-actually-worked-and-what-could-go-terribly-wrong-on-it.html

Open Culture

How the Silk Road Actually Worked (and What Could Go Terribly Wrong On It)

You don't have to spend a long time reading up on the Silk Road before you see the term itself ('Silk Road') called a misnomer.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

When Two Filmmakers Make the Same Movie — and One of Them Is Werner Herzog

https://www.openculture.com/2026/01/when-two-filmmakers-make-the-same-movie-and-one-of-them-is-werner-herzog.html

Open Culture

When Two Filmmakers Make the Same Movie — and One of Them Is Werner Herzog

In 1991, the French husband-and-wife volcanologist-filmmaker team Maurice and Katia Krafft were killed by the flow of ash from the eruption of Mount Unzen in Nagasaki. Inexplicably, Werner Herzog didn't get around to making a film about them for more than 30 years.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language https://www.openculture.com/2024/07/tsundoku-should-enter-the-english-language-now.html

Open Culture

“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language

There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time impossible to fully translate. Yiddish has the word shlimazl, which basically means a perpetually unlucky person. German has the word Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly means a face that is badly in need of a fist.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

The Radical Ideas of Plato’s Republic: An In-Depth Introduction

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/the-radical-ideas-of-platos-republic-an-in-depth-introduction.html

Open Culture

The Radical Ideas of Plato’s Republic: An In-Depth Introduction

We no longer live in a time when college freshmen get shocked by much of the reading material assigned to them.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Salvador Dalí & Walt Disney’s Short Animated Film, Destino, Set to the Music of Pink Floyd https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/salvador-dali-walt-disneys-short-animated-film-destino-set-music-pink-floyd.html

Open Culture

Salvador Dalí & Walt Disney’s Short Animated Film, Destino, Set to the Music of Pink Floyd

Dalí long gone and Disney gone longer still, it came out. The delayed arrival of Destino had to do with money trouble at the Walt Disney Studios not long after the project began, and it seems that few laid eyes on its unfinished materials again until Disney's nephew Roy E.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3w ago

How the Silk Road Actually Worked (and What Could Go Terribly Wrong On It)

https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/how-the-silk-road-actually-worked-and-what-could-go-terribly-wrong-on-it.html

Open Culture

How the Silk Road Actually Worked (and What Could Go Terribly Wrong On It)

You don't have to spend a long time reading up on the Silk Road before you see the term itself ('Silk Road') called a misnomer.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

A Free Online Archive Lets You Explore 5.8 Million Works of Art Spanning 5,000 Years of History https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/a-free-online-archive-lets-you-explore-5-8-million-works-of-art-spanning-5000-years-of-history.html

Open Culture

A Free Online Archive Lets You Explore 5.8 Million Works of Art Spanning 5,000 Years of History

Though it's traditionally meant 'last in a progression or series,' as Merriam-Webster puts it, the word ultimate has been more often used in recent decades to mean 'the best or most extreme of its kind.' The name of a recently launched digital archive performs a rare inversion, labeling as last a creation marked not by finality but extremity.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Watch David Bowie & Annie Lennox in Rehearsal, Singing “Under Pressure,” with Queen (1992) https://www.openculture.com/2026/08/david-bowie-annie-lennox-singing-under-pressure-with-queen.html

Open Culture

Watch David Bowie & Annie Lennox in Rehearsal, Singing “Under Pressure,” with Queen (1992)

It's common to feel like we know our artists, writers, musicians, actors… we want so badly to touch their lives in some way, as their lives touch ours.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization with “Purposeful Stupidity” (1944) The Trump administration has clearly studied it. https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manual.html

Open Culture

Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization with “Purposeful Stupidity” (1944)

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

How Ancient Greek Warships Worked: The Engineering of the Trireme Explained in 3D Animation https://www.openculture.com/2026/08/how-ancient-greek-warships-worked-the-engineering-of-the-trireme-explained-in-3d-animation.html

Open Culture

How Ancient Greek Warships Worked: The Engineering of the Trireme Explained in 3D Animation

Recall, if you will, the first time you read Book 2 of Homer's Iliad.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

The Monty Python Philosophy Soccer Match: The Ancient Greeks Versus the Germans https://www.openculture.com/2026/03/monty-python-philosophy-soccer-match.html

Open Culture

The Monty Python Philosophy Soccer Match: The Ancient Greeks Versus the Germans

Today, we're revisiting a classic Monty Python skit. The scene is the 1972 Munich Olympics. The event is a football/soccer match, pitting German philosophers against Greek philosophers. On the one side, the Germans -- Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, Marx and, um, Franz Beckenbauer.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

The Hobo Code: An Introduction to the Hieroglyphic Language of Early 1900s Train-Hoppers https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/hobo-code-introduction-hieroglyphic-language-early-1900s-train-hoppers.html

Open Culture

The Hobo Code: An Introduction to the Hieroglyphic Language of Early 1900s Train-Hoppers

Many of us now use the word hobo to refer to any homeless individual, but back in the America of the late 19th and early 20th century, to be a hobo meant something more.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

The Greek Mythology Family Tree: A Visual Guide Shows How Zeus, Athena, and the Ancient Gods Are Related https://www.openculture.com/2026/01/the-greek-mythology-family-tree.html

openculture.com

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

The Isolator: A 1925 Helmet Designed to Eliminate Distractions & Increase Productivity (Created by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback) https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/the-isolator-a-1925-helmet-designed-to-eliminate-distractions.html

Open Culture

The Isolator: A 1925 Helmet Designed to Eliminate Distractions & Increase Productivity (Created by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback)

The anti-distraction device is the modern mousetrap: build a better one, and the world will beat a path to your door.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2w ago

Listen to 4+ Hours of Jazz & Classical Music from Haruki Murakami’s Novels https://www.openculture.com/2026/09/listen-to-4-hours-of-jazz-classical-music-from-haruki-murakamis-novels.html

Open Culture

Listen to 4+ Hours of Jazz & Classical Music from Haruki Murakami’s Novels

Before he became a novelist, Haruki Murakami ran a jazz bar in Tokyo, and music has filled his novels ever since. For your listening pleasure, NTS Radio has created two playlists of the jazz and classical music referenced in his fiction.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

One of the Greatest Dances Sequences Ever Captured on Film Gets Restored in Color by AI: Watch the Classic Scene from Stormy Weather https://www.openculture.com/2020/12/one-of-the-greatest-dances-sequences-ever-captured-on-film-gets-restored-in-color-by-ai-watch-the-classic-scene-from-stormy-weather.html

Open Culture

One of the Greatest Dances Sequences Ever Captured on Film Gets Restored in Color by AI: Watch the Classic Scene from Stormy Weather

It really is a wonder, knowing what we know about the history of racism and discrimination in Hollywood and America in general, that the musical Stormy Weather even got made in 1943.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Hear the Earliest Recorded Customer Complaint Letter: From Ancient Sumeria 1750 BC https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/hear-the-earliest-recorded-customer-complaint-letter-from-ancient-sumeria-1750-bc.html

Open Culture

Hear the Earliest Recorded Customer Complaint Letter: From Ancient Sumeria 1750 BC

Three-thousand, seven-hundred, and seventy-one years ago, in the city of Dilmun, near Ur in Mesopotamia, there was a merchant named Ea-nasir. His business was in selling metal ingots that he purchased in the Persian Gulf. Was he a good merchant? Not according to one of his customers, Nanni.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

What Miles Davis Taught Herbie Hancock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mistakes, Just Chances to Improvise https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/what-miles-davis-taught-herbie-hancock-in-music-as-in-life-there-are-no-mistakes.html

Open Culture

What Miles Davis Taught Herbie Hancock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mistakes, Just Chances to Improvise

One of my favorite Brian Eno quotes, or rather one that became an Oblique Strategy, is “Honor Your Mistake as a Hidden Intention.” (Or to be pedantic, the original version was “Honor Thy Error...”).

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 1mo ago

Rare-Book Sales Are Booming. They’re Getting Sliced Up and Fed to AI. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ais-need-for-content-has-put-rare-book-dealers-in-a-bind-1ac5a053?st=qGCvWo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

wsj.com

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Hear What Homer’s Odyssey Sounded Like When Sung in the Original Ancient Greek https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/homers-odyssey-sung-in-ancient-greek.html

Open Culture

Hear What Homer’s Odyssey Sounded Like When Sung in the Original Ancient Greek

Image via Wikimedia Commons It’s been a humanist truism for some time to say that Shakespeare speaks to every age, transcending his time and place through the sheer force of his universal genius.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”: Why It’s a Great Painting in 15 Minutes https://www.openculture.com/2021/07/vincent-van-goghs-the-starry-night-why-its-a-great-painting-in-15-minutes.html

Open Culture

Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”: Why It’s a Great Painting in 15 Minutes

I had always wanted to see Van Gogh’s 'The Starry Night' in person and many years ago I got a chance when I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Albert Camus’ Touching Thank You Letter to His Elementary School Teacher https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/benedict-cumberbatch-reads-albert-camus-touching-thank-you-letter.html

Open Culture

Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Albert Camus’ Touching Thank You Letter to His Elementary School Teacher

It’s never too late to thank the teacher who changed your life. Oprah Winfrey fell to pieces when she was reunited on air with Mrs.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

Meet the Syntopicon: The Ambitious Index That Tried to Organize All of Western Thought (1952) https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/meet-the-syntopicon-the-ambitious-index-that-tried-to-organize-all-of-western-thought-1952.html

Open Culture

Meet the Syntopicon: The Ambitious Index That Tried to Organize All of Western Thought (1952)

Mortimer J.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

The Thai Beef Noodle Soup That Has Been Continuously Simmering for 52 Years https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/the-thai-beef-noodle-soup-that-has-been-continuously-simmering-for-52-years.html

Open Culture

The Thai Beef Noodle Soup That Has Been Continuously Simmering for 52 Years

As Bangkok rises into the ranks of the world's great culinary destination cities, its restaurant scene caters to ever more well-heeled travelers. There, you can now visit establishments with not just one, and not just two, but three Michelin stars.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Christopher Nolan Picks 15 Favorite Films from the Criterion Closet https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/christopher-nolan-picks-15-favorite-films-from-the-criterion-closet.html

Open Culture

Christopher Nolan Picks 15 Favorite Films from the Criterion Closet

Maybe you've already seen Christopher Nolan's new cinematic interpretation of the Odyssey more than once; maybe you don't know whether you'll ever get around to it at all. Either way, you've got to admit that the man makes films in a way very few living directors do.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Where Did Europe’s Countries—and the United Kingdom—Get Their Names? https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/where-did-europes-countries-and-the-united-kingdom-get-their-names.html

Open Culture

Where Did Europe’s Countries—and the United Kingdom—Get Their Names?

The typical student traveling on a Eurail pass will stop in such lands as Österreich, Italia, Česko and Schweiz — also known as Suisse, Svizzera, and Svizra.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

Alfred Hitchcock Wanted Frank Lloyd Wright to Design the North by Northwest House: An Architect Just Built It for $45 Million https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/alfred-hitchcock-wanted-frank-lloyd-wright-to-design-the-north-by-northwest-house.html

Open Culture

Alfred Hitchcock Wanted Frank Lloyd Wright to Design the North by Northwest House: An Architect Just Built It for $45 Million

Villains who live in opulent, remote modernist houses may have been a cliché since the last century, but given Hollywood's addiction to the tried and true, they do still turn up now and again. Unsurprisingly, few filmmakers have managed to use them anywhere near as memorably as Alfred Hitchcock did.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

When David Bowie & Brian Eno Made a Twin Peaks-Inspired Album, Outside (1995) https://www.openculture.com/2022/06/when-david-bowie-brian-eno-made-a-twin-peaks-inspired-album-outside-1995.html

Open Culture

When David Bowie & Brian Eno Made a Twin Peaks-Inspired Album, Outside (1995)

By any measure, David Bowie was a superstar. He first rose to fame in the nineteen-seventies, a process galvanized by his creation and assumption of the rocker-from-Mars persona Ziggy Stardust.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 3mo ago

The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: Watch an Animated Retelling of the Norman Conquest https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/the-bayeux-tapestry-explained-watch-an-animated-retelling-of-the-norman-conquest.html

Open Culture

The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: Watch an Animated Retelling of the Norman Conquest

Every time the World Cup comes around, or at least since England first and last won it 60 years ago, there's talk of whether it'll be brought 'back home.' The idea being, of course, that football (or soccer, as it's called in a couple of the countries hosting this year's matches) was made in England.

Open Culture (Official) @openculture@toot.community

· 2mo ago

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sympathy for the Devil”: Scenes from Jean-Luc Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One https://www.openculture.com/2013/11/godard-films-rolling-stones-writing-sympathy-for-the-devil.html

Open Culture

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sympathy for the Devil”: Scenes from Jean-Luc Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One

Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 film 'One Plus One' won't be remembered as his best. But it did contain a gem. The Rolling Stones writing and recording their hit, 'Sympathy for the Devil.'