OnVideo.org -- Calendar of New Blu-ray Releases 2020


OnVideo logo
OnVideo logo



Join the
Sixties generation

dvd DVD Listings
dvd DVD Links
calendar
video resources
links


dujour
iway 500
winner

Good & Associates logo

Masthead created by Good & Associates

OnVideo's Guide to Blu-ray Debuts 2020


Get the latest DVD release information (free) every Tuesday morning. Subscribe here.


January 2020 | February 2020 | March 2020 | April | May | June
July | August | September | October | November | December


January 7
  • photo for

    Holiday

    (1938) Two years before stars Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and director George Cukor would collaborate on "The Philadelphia Story," they brought their timeless talents to this delectable slice of 1930s romantic-comedy perfection, the second film adaptation of a hit 1928 play by Philip Barry. Grant is at his charismatic best as the acrobatically inclined free spirit who, following a whirlwind engagement, literally tumbles into the lives of his fiancée's aristocratic family - setting up a clash of values with her staid father while firing the rebellious imagination of her brash, black-sheep sister (Hepburn). With a sparkling surface and an undercurrent of melancholy, Holiday is an enchanting ode to nonconformists and pie-in-the-sky dreamers everywhere, as well as a thoughtful reflection on what it truly means to live well. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: "Holiday" (1930), a previous adaptation of Philip Barry's play, directed by Edward H. Griffith; conversation between filmmaker and distributor Michael Schlesinger and film critic Michael Sragow; excerpts from an American Film Institute oral history with director George Cukor, recorded in 1970 and 71; costume gallery; an essay by critic Dana Stevens. (The Criterion Collection).


    January 14
  • photo for The Fugitive Kind

    The Fugitive Kind

    (1960) Four Oscar-winning actors - Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, and Maureen Stapleton - shine in this enthralling film, which also brings together the legendary talents of director Sidney Lumet and writer Tennessee Williams. A smoldering, snakeskin-jacketed Brando is Val Xavier, a drifter trying to go straight. He finds work and solace in a small-town southern variety store run by the married, sexually frustrated Lady Torrance (Magnani), who proves as much a temptation for Val as does local wild child Carol Cutrere (Woodward). Lumet captures the intense, fearless performances and Williams's hot-blooded story­telling and social critique with his customary restraint, resulting in a drama of uncommon sophistication and craft. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with high-definition digital restoration, approved by director Sidney Lumet, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: "Three Plays by Tennessee Williams," an hour-long 1958 television presentation of one-act plays, directed by Lumet and starring Ben Gazzara and Lee Grant, among others; program from 2010 discussing Williams's work in Hollywood and "The Fugitive Kind"; an essay by film critic David Thomson. (The Criterion Collection).


    January 21
  • photo for Le petit soldat

    Le petit soldat

    (1963 -- France) Before his convention-shattering debut, "Breathless," had even premiered, Jean-Luc Godard leapt into the making of his second feature, a thriller that would tackle the most controversial subject in France: the use of torture in the Algerian War. Despite his lack of political convictions, photojournalist Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor) is roped into a paramilitary group waging a shadow war in Geneva against the Algerian independence movement. Anna Karina (in her first collaboration with Godard, whose camera is visibly besotted with her) is beguiling as the mysterious woman with whom Forestier becomes infatuated. Banned for two and a half years by French censors for its depiction of brutal tactics on the part of the French government and the Algerian fighters alike, "Le petit soldat" finds the young Godard already retooling cinema as a vehicle for existential inquiry, political argument, and ephemeral portraiture -- in other words, as a medium for delivering "truth twenty-four times per second." Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with high-definition digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Interview with Godard from 1965, interview with actor Michel Subor from 1963, audio interview with Godard from 1961, an essay by critic Nicholas Elliott. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Sliding Doors [Collector’s Edition]

    Sliding Doors [Collector’s Edition]

    (1998) Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Zara Turner. Paltrow plays London publicist Helen, effortlessly sliding between parallel storylines that show what happens if she does or doesn’t catch a morning train back to her apartment. The two stories shift back and forth, overlap, then surprisingly converge. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with writer-director Peter Howitt; new “The Sliding Doors Moments” documentary that looks back at the making of the film with exclusive home movie footage and brand-new interviews with Howitt, Paltrow, Hannah, and more; new "A Stroll Through Sliding Doors London With Peter Howitt"; trailers. (Shout! Select).


    January 28
  • photo for All About My Mother

    All About My Mother

    (1999) This Oscar-winning melodrama, one of Pedro Almodóvar's most beloved films, provides a dizzying, moving exploration of the meaning of motherhood. In an instant, nurse Manuela (Cecilia Roth) loses the teenage son she raised on her own. Grief-stricken, she sets out to search for the boy's long-lost father in Barcelona, where she reawakens into a new maternal role, at the head of a surrogate family that includes a pregnant, HIV-positive nun (Penélope Cruz); an illustrious star of the stage (Marisa Paredes); and a transgender sex worker (Antonia San Juan). Beautifully performed and bursting with cinematic references, "All About My Mother" is a vibrant tribute to female fortitude, a one-of-a-kind family portrait, and a work of boundless compassion. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with new 2K digital restoration, supervised by executive producer Agustín Almodóvar and approved by director Pedro Almodóvar, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Documentary from 2012 on the making of the film, featuring interviews with Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar, actors Penélope Cruz, Marisa Paredes, Cecilia Roth, and Antonia San Juan, production manager Esther García; and author Didier Eribon; television program from 1999 featuring Almodóvar and his mother, Francisca Caballero, along with Cruz, San Juan, Paredes, and Roth; 48-minute post-screening Q&A in Madrid from 2019, featuring Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar, and Paredes; an essay by film scholar Emma Wilson, along with (Blu-ray only) an interview with Pedro Almodóvar and a tribute he wrote to his mother, both from 1999. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Body Parts

    (1991) Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Duncan, Kim Delaney. A tale of a medical experiment gone very wrong. Bill Chrushank is a criminal psychologist who loses his arm and nearly his life in a grisly car accident. A daring medical operation follows, in which a donor's arm is successfully grafted onto Bill's body. But after the operation, the arm starts to take on a violent life of its own, striking out against Bill's wife and children. Consumed by fears about his dangerous behavior, Bill is driven to learn the donor's identity – and makes a horrifying discovery that delivers him into a world of unimaginable terror. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with director Eric Red, new "I Dare You to Read the Script" interview with director Eric Red, new "Something Unstoppable" interview with actor Paul Ben-Victor, new "Molded for Cinema" interview with actor Peter Murnik, new :That One Hurt" interview with editor Anthony Redman, deleted gore footage, theatrical trailer, TV spots, still gallery. (Scream Factory).

  • photo for Fail Safe

    Fail Safe

    (1964) This unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the United States military's chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Working from a contemporary best seller, screenwriter Walter Bernstein and director Sidney Lumet wrench harrowing suspense from the doomsday fears of the Cold War era, making the most of a modest budget and limited sets to create an atmosphere of clammy claustrophobia and astronomically high stakes. Starring Henry Fonda as a coolheaded U.S. president and Walter Matthau as a trigger-happy political theorist, "Fail Safe" is a long-underappreciated alarm bell of a film, sounding an urgent warning about the deadly logic of mutually assured destruction. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2000 featuring Lumet, new interview with film critic J. Hoberman on 1960s nuclear paranoia and Cold War films, "Fail Safe Revisited," a short documentary from 2000 including interviews with Lumet, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and actor Dan O'Herlihy; an essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Gregory's Girl

    (1980) John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Allison Forster, Jake D'Arcy . Quirky comedy and sleeper hit from "Local Hero" director Bill Forsyth. Following an eight-game losing streak, a desperate (and sexist) Glasgow school soccer team coach reluctantly accepts hotshot female player Dorothy (Hepburn). Although demoted to goalie, teenage knucklehead Gregory (Sinclair), falls hard for his new teammate. Prodded by the advice of his smart-mouthed 10-year-old sister, Madeline, (Forster), he does make his move, but there are behind-the-scenes feminine conspiracies en route. Formats: Blu-ray, Digital. Extras: Audio commentary with director Bill Forsyth and film critic Mark Kermode, "Bill Forsyth on Gregory's Girl" interview, "Bill Forsyth: The Early Years" interview, "Gregory's Girl Memories With Clare Grogan" interview, new essay by film scholar Jonathan Murray, alternative U.S. and French dub versions. (Film Movement Clasics).

  • Let’s Scare Jessica to Death

    (1971) Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O'Connor. Jessica (Lampert) has been released from an institution after suffering a nervous breakdown and seeks the tranquility of a secluded home in Connecticut to help make her recovery complete. But instead of a restful recuperation with her husband and close friend in the New England countryside, Jessica soon finds herself falling into a swirling vortex of madness and the supernatural. Even more unsettling is that the entire region seems to be under the influence of a mysterious woman who has been living in the supposedly empty house. Jessica's fear and dread only intensify when she discovers that the "undead" girl, Emily, tragically drowned long ago, on her wedding day. Is she back to take vengeance? Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with director John Hancock and producer Bill Badalato, new "Art Saved My Life" composer Orville Stoeber, new "Scare Tactics: Reflections on a Seventies Horror Classic" with author/film historian Kim Newman, new "She Walks These Hills": the film’s locations then and now, theatrical trailer, TV spot, radio spot, still gallery. (Scream Fctory).

  • Very Bad Things

    (1998) Jon Favreau, Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern, Jeanne Tripplehorn. Kyle Fisher (Favreau) has one last night to celebrate life as a single man before marrying Laura (Diaz), so he sets out to Vegas with four of his best buddies. But their swanky, drug-and-alcohol-fueled bachelor party goes bust when their "stripper" cashes in her chips during a deranged sexual escapade. And hers is just the first of the bodies to pile up. The five friends decide to bury the evidence ... but fate has a way of not letting the truth stay buried for long. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with film critics Witney Seibold and William Bibbiani, hosts of the podcast Critically Acclaimed; new interview with actor Jeremy Piven; new interview with actor Daniel Stern; theatrical trailer; still gallery. (Shout Select).


    February 18
  • The Alastair Sim Blu-Ray Collector's Set

    Though he is perhaps best known for his role as Scrooge in the 1951 film adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," Scottish character actor Alastair Sim is one of the best-loved and most prolific actors in classic British comedy. Often appearing in multiple roles, he starred in more than 50 films beginning in 1935 and was both critically acclaimed and unfailingly popular, regularly topping the cinema-goers popularity polls. This specially-curated set includes "Hue and Cry" (1947), "Laughter in Paradise" (1951), "The Belles of St. Trinian's" (1954) and "School for Scoundrels" (1960). The very first Ealing comedy, "Hue and Cry," directed by Charles Crichton, follows teenager Joe Kirby, who fantasizes that he's on the track of criminals, only to discover that it has all come true! After discovering that his favorite comic is being used as a means of communication between a master criminal and his gang of thieves, Joe sets out to alert the writer, played by Sim, and turn the page on the crooks. In "Laughter in Paradise," directed by Mario Zampi, famed practical joker Henry Russell leaves 50,000 pounds to each of his four surviving relatives. But his will has one last joke - they each have to undertake a task completely out of character within a month. As each sets out on their objective they find that quite apart from the promised riches, they are unexpectedly getting a lot out of the challenge. All except caddish Simon Russell, that is. "The Belles of St. Trinian's," directed by Frank Launder (scriptwriter for "The Lady Vanishes" and "Night Train to Munich"), features one of Sim's most unforgettable performances. In an all-girls school, where the unruly students are more interested in men and mischief than homework and hockey, the arrival of Princess Fatima of Makyad and the return of recently expelled Arabella Fritton inspire even more chaos than usual. Featuring an all-star star line-up, the cast includes Sim playing dual roles as both headmistress Miss Millicent Fritton and her twin brother (and Arabella's father) Clarence Fritton. Finally, in "School For Scoundrels," directed by Robert Hamer ("Kind Hearts and Coronets"), Henry Palfrey (Ian Carmichael) tries hard to impress but always loses out to the rotter Delauney. Then he discovers the Lifeman college run by "Professor" Potter (Sim) and discovers the secrets of success. But has he the courage to put all his lessons into effect in this comedy based on the Stephen Potter "One Upmanship" and "Lifemanship" books." Formats: Blu-ray. (Film Movement).

  • photo for Antonio Gaudí

    Antonio Gaudí

    (1984 --Japan) Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. In "Antonio Gaudí," their artistry melds in a unique, enthralling cinematic experience. Less a documentary than a visual poem, Teshigahara's film takes viewers on a tour of Gaudí's truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film. With high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Interview with architect Arata Isozaki from 2008; "Gaudí, Catalunya, 1959," footage from director Hiroshi Teshigahara's first trip to Spain; "Visions of Space: Antoni Gaudí," an hour-long documentary from 2003 on the architect's life and work; BBC program on Gaudí by filmmaker Ken Russell; "Sculptures by Sofu-Vita," a 1963 short film by Teshigahara on the sculpture work of his father, Sofu Teshigahara; trailer; an essay by art historian Dore Ashton, a 1986 reminiscence by Hiroshi Teshigahara, and excerpts from a 1959 conversation between Hiroshi and Sofu Teshigahara on their trip to the West. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Teorema

    Teorema

    (1969 -- Italy) One of the iconoclastic Pier Paolo Pasolini's most radical provocations, "Teorema" finds the auteur moving beyond the poetic, proletarian earthiness that first won him renown and notoriety with a coolly cryptic exploration of bourgeois spiritual emptiness. Terence Stamp stars as the mysterious stranger -- perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil -- who, one by one, seduces the members of a wealthy Milanese family (including European cinema icons Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Laura Betti, and Anne Wiazemsky), precipitating an existential crisis in each of their lives. Unfolding nearly wordlessly in a procession of sacred and profane images, this tantalizing metaphysical riddle-blocked from exhibition by the Catholic Church for degeneracy-is at once a blistering Marxist treatise on sex, religion, and art and a primal scream into the void. New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack, featuring the voice of actor Terence Stamp and others; audio commentary from 2007 featuring Robert S. C. Gordon, author of "Pasolini: Forms of Subjectivity"; introduction by director Pier Paolo Pasolini from 1969; interview from 2007 with Stamp; new interview with John David Rhodes, author of "Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini's Rome"; an essay by film scholar James Quandt. (The Criterion Collection).


    February 25
  • Pet Sematary Two Collector’s Edition

    (1992) Edward Furlong, Anthony Edwards, Clancy Brown, Jared Rushton. Sometimes dead is better. But the shocking terror that plagued Ludlow, Maine, in "Pet Sematary" is still very much alive in this sequel to the 1989 hit film. After the death of his wife, veterinarian Chase Matthews and his 13-year-old son, Jeff, move to Ludlow to rebuild their lives. Antagonized by the neighborhood kids, Jeff befriends another outsider, Drew Gilbert, who lives in fear of his cruel stepfather, Gus. After Gus cold-bloodedly shoots Drew's beloved dog, the boys bury the body in the local Indian burial grounds – a place rumored to have the powers of resurrection. But when evil is awakened, the boys realize that sometimes you should just let dead dogs lie. New 4K scan of the original camera negative approved by director Mary Lambert. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with director Mary Lambert, new "Young and Brooding" interview with actor Edward Furlong, new "Playing Over the Top" interview with actor Clancy Brown, new "My First Film" interview with actor Jason McGuire, new "A Thousand Dollar Bet" interview with special makeup effects creator Steve Johnson, new "Orchestrated Grunge" interview with composer Mark Governor, theatrical trailer. (Scream Factory).

  • photo for Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman

    Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman

    A one-of-a-kind silver-screen illusionist, Czechoslovak filmmaker Karel Zeman devoted his career to transporting viewers to realms beyond their wildest imagining. The deft, breathtaking combinations of live-action and animation techniques that he pioneered in the postwar years earned him comparisons to legends such as Georges Méliès, and an array of followers that includes Jan Švankmajer, Terry Gilliam, and Wes Anderson. Presented here are three of Zeman's most enchanting fantasies -- a boys' adventure into the mists of prehistory, a Jules Verne-derived flight of fancy, and an exotic eighteenth-century tall tale -- all of them treasure chests of wondrous sights, tactile textures, and headlong yarn-spinning that helped put Czechoslovak cinema on the international map. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Paris is Burning

    Paris is Burning

    (1990) Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, "Paris Is Burning" offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women-including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza-Paris Is Burning brings it, celebrating the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community. "Paris Is Burning" was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Sundance Institute and Outfest UCLA Legacy Project. Preservation was funded by Sundance Institute, Outfest, and the Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation. New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Jennie Livingston, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New conversation between Livingston, ball community members Sol Pendavis and Freddie Pendavis, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris; over an hour of never-before-seen outtakes; audio commentary from 2005, featuring Livingston, ball community members Freddie Pendavis and Willi Ninja, and film editor Jonathan Oppenheim; episode of "The Joan Rivers Show" from 1991, featuring Livingston and ball community members Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Freddie Pendavis, and Willi Ninja; trailer. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 10
  • photo for Masked and Anonymous BLU-RAY DEBUT

    Masked and Anonymous BLU-RAY DEBUT

    (2003) The legendary Bob Dylan leads an incredible all-star cast in the dark and unusual musical tale. Dylan plays the enigmatic Jack Fate, a former traveling troubadour who is sprung from jail by his scheming manager to headline a highly sketchy and misguided benefit concert for a decaying America. Fate’s journey finds him crossing paths with a host of humanity, played by an ensemble cast that reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood, including Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Penélope Cruz, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Mickey Rourke, and many more. Featuring musical performances by Dylan himself, "Masked and Anonymous" is an uncommonly original film from Larry Charles, the director of "Borat." Extras: New interview with director Larry Charles, commentary by Charles, deleted scenes, "The Making of Masked And Anonymous," trailers. (Shout Select).

  • photo for Salesman Blu-Ray Debut

    Salesman BLU-RAY DEBUT

    (1969) This radically influential portrait of American dreams and disillusionment from Direct Cinema pioneers David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin captures, with indelible humanity, the worlds of four dogged door-to-door Bible salesmen as they travel from Boston to Florida on a seemingly futile quest to sell luxury editions of the Good Book to working-class Catholics. A vivid evocation of midcentury malaise that unfolds against a backdrop of cheap motels, smoky diners, and suburban living rooms, "Salesman" assumes poignant dimensions as it uncovers the way its subjects' fast-talking bravado masks frustration, disappointment, and despair. Revolutionizing the art of nonfiction storytelling with its nonjudgmental, observational style, this landmark documentary is one of the most penetrating films ever made about how deeply embedded consumerism is in America's sense of its own values. New, restored 4K digital transfer, undertaken by the Academy Film Archive, The Film Foundation, and the George Lucas Family Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2001 featuring directors Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin; new appreciation of the film by actor Bill Hader; "Globesman," a 2016 episode of the television series "Documentary Now!" that parodies the film, starring Hader and Fred Armisen; television interview from 1968 with directors David and Albert Maysles, conducted by critic Jack Kroll; audio excerpt from a 2000 episode of NPR's "Weekend Edition" profiling James Baker, one of the salesmen featured in the film; trailer; an essay by critic Michael Chaiken. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 17
  • photo for Bamboozled

    Bamboozled

    (2000) With this blisteringly funny, unapologetically confrontational satire, writer-director Spike Lee examined the past, present, and future of racism in American popular culture, issuing a daring provocation to creators and consumers alike. Under pressure to help revive his network's low ratings, television writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) hits on an explosively offensive idea: bringing back blackface for a "new-millennium minstrel show." The white network executives love it, and so do audiences, forcing Pierre and his collaborators to confront their public's insatiable appetite for dehumanizing stereotypes. Shot primarily on unvarnished digital video and boasting spot-on performances from Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Rapaport, Mos Def, and Paul Mooney, Bamboozled is a stinging indictment of mass entertainment at the turn of the twenty-first century that looks more damning with each passing year. New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Ellen Kuras and approved by director Spike Lee, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2001 featuring Lee; new conversation between Lee and film programmer and critic Ashley Clark; new interviews with choreographer and actor Savion Glover, actor Tommy Davidson, and costume designer Ruth E. Carter; "On Blackface and the Minstrel Show," a new interview program featuring film and media scholar Racquel Gates; "The Making of Bamboozled" (2001), a documentary featuring members of the cast and crew; deleted scenes, music videos for the Mau Maus' "Blak Iz Blak" and Gerald Levert's "Dream with No Love," and alternate parody commercials created for the film; poster gallery and trailer; an essay by Clark. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 24
  • photo for The Cranes Are Flying

    The Cranes Are Flying

    (1957 -- Russia) This landmark film by the virtuosic Mikhail Kalatozov was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the international cinema community alike. It tells the story of Veronica and Boris, a couple who are blissfully in love until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. With Boris at the front, Veronica must try to ward off spiritual numbness and defend herself from the increasingly forceful advances of her beau's draft-dodging cousin. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, "The Cranes Are Flying" is a superbly crafted drama with impassioned performances and viscerally emotional, gravity-defying cinematography by Kalatozov's regular collaborator Sergei Urusevsky. New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interview with scholar Ian Christie on why the film is a landmark of Soviet cinema; audio interview from 1961 with director Mikhail Kalatozov; "Hurricane Kalatozov," a documentary from 2009 on the Georgian director's complex relationship with the Soviet government; segment from a 2008 program about the film's cinematography, featuring original storyboards and an interview with actor Alexei Batalov; interview from 2001 with filmmaker Claude Lelouch on the film's French premiere at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival; an essay by critic Chris Fujiwara. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Leave Her to Heaven

    Leave Her to Heaven

    (1945) Novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) seems to have found the perfect woman in Ellen (Gene Tierney), a beautiful socialite who initiates a whirlwind romance and steers him into marriage before he can think twice. Yet the glassy surface of Ellen's devotion soon reveals monstrous depths, as Richard comes to realize that his wife is shockingly possessive and may be capable of destroying anyone who comes between them. A singular Hollywood masterpiece that draws freely from the women's picture and film noir alike, "Leave Her to Heaven" boasts elegant direction by melodrama specialist John M. Stahl, blazing Technicolor cinematography by Leon Shamroy, and a chilling performance by Tierney, whose Ellen is a femme fatale unlike any other: a woman whose love is as pure as it is poisonous. New 2K digital restoration by Twentieth Century Fox, the Academy Film Archive, and The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith, trailer, an essay by novelist Megan Abbott. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 31
  • photo for Show Boat

    Show Boat

    (1936) Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s immortal musical adaptation of Edna Ferber’s sprawling novel receives its most faithful and enduring cinematic adaptation under the elegant direction of James Whale. A rich portrait of changing American entertainment traditions and race relations, "Show Boat" spans four decades and three generations as it follows the fortunes of the stage-struck Magnolia (Irene Dunne), an aspiring actor whose journey takes her from her family’s humble floating playhouse in the 1880s South to the height of fame in the 1930s North. The cast of show-business legends includes Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Winninger, and the great Paul Robeson, whose iconic, soul-shaking rendition of “Ol’ Man River” is one of the crowning glories of the American stage and screen. New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 1989 featuring American-musical historian Miles Kreuger; new interview with James Whale biographer James Curtis; "Recognizing Race in Show Boat,” a new interview program featuring professor and author Shana L. Redmond; "Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist" (1979), an Academy Award-winning short documentary by Saul J. Turell, newly restored; two performances from the sound prologue of the 1929 film version of "Show Boat," plus 20 minutes of silent excerpts from the film, with audio commentary by Kreuger; two radio adaptations of Show Boat, featuring stage and screen cast members Allan Jones, Helen Morgan, and Charles Winninger; actor Orson Welles, and novelist Edna Ferber; an essay by critic Gary Giddins. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for The Prince of Tides

    The Prince of Tides

    (1991) For her acclaimed second feature as a director, Barbra Streisand crafted a sumptuous, emotionally wrenching adaptation of Pat Conroy’s best-selling novel -- which she also produced and starred in. Summoned to New York after his sister attempts suicide, Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte) must serve as her memory, reckoning with the traumas of their southern childhood so that her psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lowenstein (Streisand), can help her recover. But Tom’s sessions with Lowenstein will plunge him into the depths of his own long-repressed pain -- and reawaken the possibility of love within him. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Nolte’s soulful performance, "The Prince of Tides" is a life-affirming tale of healing and renewal from a triple-threat filmmaker with a keen and humane insight into her characters’ sorrows, joys, and yearnings. New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Barbra Streisand, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary featuring Streisand, recorded in 1991 and updated in 2019; making-of featurette from 1991; excerpt from a 2018 interview with Streisand, conducted by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez on El Rey Network’s "The Director’s Chair"; audition and rehearsal footage; deleted scenes and alternate takes; costume and makeup tests; alternate end credits with vocal performance by Streisand; behind-the-scenes footage; gag reel; production-stills gallery and other archival materials; interview with author Pat Conroy from a 1992 episode of "Cinema Showcase" with Jim Whaley; interview with Streisand from a 1992 episode of the British television show "Aspel & Company" with Michael Aspel; trailers; an essay by film historian Bruce Eder. (The Criterion Collection).


    April 14
  • photo for Destry Rides Again

    Destry Rides Again

    (1939) Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart ride high in this superb comedic western, both a boisterous spoof and a shining example of its genre. As the brawling, rough-and-tumble saloon singer Frenchy, Dietrich shed her exotic love-goddess image and launched a triumphant career comeback, while Stewart cemented his amiable everyman persona, in his first of many Westerns, with a charming turn as a gun-abhorring deputy sheriff who uses his wits to bring law and order to the frontier town of Bottleneck. A sparkling script, a supporting cast of virtuoso character actors, and rollicking musical numbers — delivered with unmatched bravado by the magnetic Dietrich — come together to create an irresistible, oft-imitated marvel of studio-era craftsmanship. 4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith; new interview with Donald Dewey, author of "James Stewart: A Biography"; illustrated audio excerpts from a 1973 oral-history interview with director George Marshall conducted by the American Film Institute; "Lux Radio Theatre" adaptation of the film from 1945, featuring actors James Stewart and Joan Blondell; an essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme. (The Criterion Collection).


    April 21
  • photo for The Cremator

    The Cremator

    (1969 -- Czechoslovakia) Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Juraj Herz’s terrifying, darkly comic vision of the horrors of totalitarian ideologies stars a supremely chilling Rudolf Hrušínský as the pathologically morbid Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague who believes fervently that death offers the only true relief from human suffering. When he is recruited by the Nazis, Kopfrkingl’s increasingly deranged worldview drives him to formulate his own shocking final solution. Blending the blackest of gallows humor with disorienting expressionistic flourishes — queasy point-of-view shots, distorting lenses, jarring quick cuts—the controversial, long-banned masterpiece ."The Cremator" is one of cinema’s most trenchant and disturbing portraits of the banality of evil. 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: High-definition digital transfer of "The Junk Shop," director Juraj Herz’s 1965 debut short film; short documentary from 2011 featuring Herz visiting filming locations and recalling the production of T"he Cremator"; new interview with film programmer Irena Kovarova about the style of the film; documentary from 2017 about composer Zdenek Liška featuring Herz, filmmakers Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers, and others; interview with actor Rudolf Hrušínský from 1993; trailer; an essay by film scholar Jonathan Owen. (The Criterion Collection).


    April 28
  • photo for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

    Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

    (1988) She's back! Elvira, Horrorland's hostess with the mostest, finally busts out on Blu-ray with this long-awaited, positively bursting-at-the-seams special edition of her big screen debut. Having just quit her job as a Los Angeles TV horror hostess, Elvira receives the unexpected news that she's set to inherit part of her great aunt Morgana's estate. Arriving in the small town of Fallwell, Massachusetts, to claim her inheritance, Elvira receives a less than enthusiastic reception from the conservative locals -- amongst them, her sinister uncle Vincent, who, unbeknownst to Elvira, is in fact an evil warlock secretly scheming to steal the old family spellbook for his own nefarious ends. Campy, quirky and stuffed to the brim with more double entendres than your average "Carry On" movie, this film helped solidify the horror hostess (played by Cassandra Peterson) as a major pop culture icon, here owning every inch of the screen with her quick wit, sass, and of course, cleaving-enhancing gown. New restoration from a 4K scan of original film elements, with original uncompressed stereo 2.0 audio. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Introduction to the film by director James Signorelli; 2017 audio commentary with Signorelli, hosted by Fangoria editor emeritus Tony Timpone; 2017 audio commentary with Patterson Lundquist, www.elviramistressofthedark.com webmaster and judge of US TV show "The Search for the Next Elvira"; archival audio commentary with Cassandra Peterson, Edie McClurg and writer John Paragon; "Too Macabre -- The Making of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark" newly-revised 2018 version of this feature-length documentary on the making of the film, including interviews with various cast and crew and rare never-before-seen archival material; "Recipe for Terror: The Creation of the Pot Monster" newly-revised 2018 version of this featurette on the concept and design of the pot monster, as well as the film’s other SFX; original storyboards; extensive image galleries; original US theatrical and teaser trailers; reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing by Kat Ellinger and Patterson Lundquist. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).

  • Just One of the Guys

    (1985) Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner, Billy Jacoby, Toni Hudson, William Zabka, Sherilyn Fenn. Terri (Hyser) blames sexism when her journalism teacher refuses to enter her article in a competition to win a summer internship at the local newspaper. With the help of her kid brother, Buddy (Jacoby), she masquerades as a guy at a rival school and enters the contest there. During her charade, “Terry the Boy” tangles with a vicious bully, Greg (Zabka), and fends off an amorous classmate, Sandy (Fenn). But when she falls for a handsome loner, Rick (Rohner), she must find a way to convince him that she’s not "just one of the guys". Extras: New reunion commentary featuring director Lisa Gottlieb and actors Arye Gross, Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner, Toni Hudson, John Apicella. (Sony).

  • photo for Me and You and Everyone We Know

    Me and You and Everyone We Know

    (2005) With this compassionate, startling comedy that could have come from no other artistic sensibility, the brilliant Miranda July reveals a world both familiar and strange — an original vision of creativity, sexuality, childhood, and loneliness through a series of braided vignettes around a pair of potential lovers: Richard, a newly single shoe salesman and father of two (John Hawkes), and Christine, a lonely video artist and “Eldercab” driver (July). While they take hesitant steps toward romance, Richard’s sons follow their own curiosity toward their first sexual experiences, online and in real life, venturing into uncharted territories in their attempts to connect with others. Playful and profoundly transgressive, "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is a poetic look at the tortuous routes we take to intimacy in an isolating world, and the moments of magic and redemption that unite us. High-definition digital master, approved by director Miranda July, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New documentary about July’s artistic beginnings and the development of her debut feature; "Open to the World," a new documentary by July about the 2017 interfaith charity shop and participatory artwork she created in collaboration with Artangel; "July Interviews July: Deauville, 2005," a discovery from July’s archives, newly edited; six scenes from the 2003 Sundance Directors Lab, where July workshopped the film, with commentary by July; "The Amateurist "(1998) and "Nest of Tens" (2000), short films by July; several films from July’s "Joanie 4 Jackie" project, and a documentary about the program; trailer; essays by artist Sara Magenheimer and novelist Lauren Groff. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Série Noir

    Série Noir

    (1979 -- France) Patrick Dewaere, Marie Trintignant, Myriam Boyer, Bernard Blier. A sleazy slice of noir, Alain Corneau's Palme D'Or-nominated, no holds-barred adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel "A Hell of a Woman" in a 2K digital restoration. While trying to track down a deadbeat customer, door-to-door salesman Franck Poupart (Dewaere) encounters Mona (Trintignant), a teenage sexpot living with her miserly aunt. After being dumped by his wife and thrown in jail by his boss, Franck agrees to help Mona kill her aunt and make off with her millions. Unfortunately, their scheme backfires, and Franck sees his luck take an even darker turn for the worse. Dewaere, the too-soon-gone premiere wild man of 70s French cinema, gives a live-wire, no-holds-barred performance, playing the entirely-amoral Thompson protagonist to the hilt, his increasingly frenzied star turn driving the film headlong towards derangement. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: "Série Noire, The Darkness of the Soul" featurette, interview with Alain Corneau and Marie Trintignant, new essay by film critic Nick Pinkerton. (Film Movement).


    May 5
  • photo for Six Moral Tales Blu-ray Debut

    Six Moral Tales Blu-ray Debut

    The multifaceted, deeply personal work of Eric Rohmer has had an effect on cinema unlike any other. One of the founding critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinéma, Rohmer began translating his written manifestos to film in the 1960s, standing apart from his New Wave contemporaries with his patented brand of gently existential, hyperarticulate character studies set against vivid seasonal landscapes. This near genre unto itself was established with the audacious and wildly influential series "Six Moral Tales." A succession of encounters between fragile men and the women who tempt them, "Six Moral Tales "unleashed on the film world a new voice, one that was at once sexy, philosophical, modern, daring, nonjudgmental, and liberating. Three-disc special edition with new 2K digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks. The films: "The Bakery Girl Of Monceau" (1963), "Suzanne's Career" (1963), "My Night at Maud's" (1969), "La Collectionneuse" (1967), "Claire's Knee" (1970) and "Love In The Afternoon" (1972). Extras: Conversation between director Eric Rohmer and filmmaker Barbet Schroeder from 2006; four short films by Rohmer: "Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak" (shot in 1951 and completed in 1961), "Véronique and Her Dunce" (1958), "Nadja in Paris"(1964) and "A Modern Coed" (1966) -- and one on which he advised, "The Curve" (1999); "On Pascal," a 1965 episode of the educational TV series En profil dans le texte directed by Rohmer, on the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, the subject of debate in "My Night at Maud's"; archival interviews with Rohmer, actors Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, film critic Jean Douchet and producer Pierre Cottrell; video afterword from 2006 by filmmaker and writer Neil LaBute; trailers; a booklet featuring essays by critics Geoff Andrew, Ginette Vincendeau, Phillip Lopate, Kent Jones, Molly Haskell, and Armond White; excerpts from cinematographer Nestor Almendros's 1980 autobiography; and Rohmer's landmark 1948 essay "For a Talking Cinema"; along with an English translation of Six Moral Tales, the book of stories by Rohmer on which the films are based. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Tea With the Dames

    (2018) What happens when four legends of British stage and screen get together? Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright are among the most celebrated actresses of our time, with scores of iconic performances, decades of wisdom, and innumerable Oscars, Tonys, Emmys and BAFTAs between them. They are also longtime friends who here invite you to join them for a weekend in the country as they catch up with one another, reminisce, and share their candid, delightfully irreverent thoughts on everything from art to aging to love to a life lived in the spotlight. (IFC Films).


    May19
  • photo for Dance, Girl, Dance

    Dance, Girl, Dance

    (1940) Dorothy Arzner, the sole woman to work as a director in the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and early 40s, brings a subversive feminist sensibility to this juicily entertaining backstage melodrama. A behind-the-footlights look at friendship, jealousy, and ambition in the ruthless world of show business, "Dance, Girl, Dance" follows the intertwining fates of two chorus girls: a starry-eyed dancer (Maureen O'Hara) who dreams of making it as a ballerina and the brassy gold digger (a scene-stealing Lucille Ball) who becomes her rival both on the stage and in love. The rare Hollywood film of the era to deal seriously with issues of female artistic struggle and self-actualization, Arzner's film is a rich, fascinating statement from an auteur decades ahead of her time. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc, with new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New introduction by critic B. Ruby Rich; new selected-scene commentary featuring film historian Cari Beauchamp; an essay by critic Sheila O'Malley. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Wildlife

    Wildlife

    (2018) The directorial debut of actor Paul Dano reveals a filmmaking talent of remarkable intelligence and restraint. Adapted by Dano and Zoe Kazan from the novel by Richard Ford, this meticulously crafted portrait of the American nuclear family in crisis charts the rift that forms within a 1960s Montana household when the father and breadwinner (Jake Gyllenhaal) abruptly departs to fight the forest fires raging nearby, leaving his restless wife (Carey Mulligan, in a performance of fearless emotional honesty) and teenage son (Ed Oxenbould) to pick up the pieces. A deeply human look at a woman's wayward journey toward self-fulfillment in the pre-women's-liberation era and a sensitively observed, child's-eye coming-of-age tale, Wildlife poignantly illuminates the complex ways in which families function, fall apart, and find their way. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc with, new director-approved 2K digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New interviews with director Paul Dano, screenwriter Zoe Kazan, actors Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, cinematographer Diego García, production designer Akin McKenzie, and costume designer Amanda Ford; new conversation on the film's post-production with Dano, editor Matthew Hannam, and composer David Lang; Film at Lincoln Center conversation from 2018 between Dano and novelist Richard Ford about the film's source material; an essay by critic Mark Harris. (The Criterion Collection).


    May 26
  • photo for Husbands

    Husbands

    (1970) The trailblazing independent auteur John Cassavetes pushes his raw, uncompromising emotional realism to its limit in this unflinching portrait of masculinity in crisis. Cassavetes joins Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk -- both of whom would become key collaborators of the director's -- playing a trio of middle-aged Long Island family men who, following the sudden death of their best friend, channel their grief into an epic, multiday bender that takes them from Manhattan to London in a desperate, debauched quest to feel alive. By turns painfully funny and woundingly perceptive, this self-described "comedy about life, death, and freedom" stands as perhaps the most fearless, harrowingly honest deconstruction of American manhood ever committed to film. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2009 featuring critic Marshall Fine; new interviews with producer Al Ruban and actor Jenny Runacre; new video essay featuring audio recordings of John Cassavetes in his own words exploring the actor-director's spirited approach to acting; "The Story of Husbands -- A Tribute to John Cassavetes" (2009), a half-hour program featuring Ruban, actor Ben Gazzara, and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper; episode of The Dick Cavett Show from 1970 featuring Cassavetes, Gazzara, and actor Peter Falk; trailer; an essay by filmmaker Andrew Bujalski. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Scorsese Shorts

    Scorsese Shorts

    This compilation of five early short films by Martin Scorsese offers a fascinating window onto his artistic development. Spanning the years from Scorsese's time at NYU in the mid-1960s to the late 70s, when he was emerging as one of the era's most electrifying talents, "Scorsese Shorts" centers on the intimate home movie "Italianamerican" (1974) -- a loving snapshot of the director's parents -- and "American Boy" (1978), a freewheeling portrait of a larger-than-life raconteur. Also included are "The Big Shave" (1967), a daringly visceral response to America's involvement in Vietnam, and the bracing student films "What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?" (1963) and "It's Not Just You, Murray!" (1964). Touching on many of Scorsese's key themes-Italian American identity, family, his beloved New York City-these are hilarious, candid, and illuminating works from the preeminent American filmmaker of our time. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc, with new, director-approved 4K digital restorations of all five films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks. Extras: New conversation between director Martin Scorsese and film critic Farran Smith Nehme; new discussion among filmmakers Ari Aster and Josh and Benny Safdie; more; an essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri and various materials from Scorsese's archive. (The Criterion Collection).


    June 2
  • photo for Tokyo Godfathers BLU-RAY DEBUT

    Tokyo Godfathers BLU-RAY DEBUT

    (2003 -- Japan) "Tokyo Godfathers" is a humanist masterpiece from the legendary director Satoshi Kon ("Paprika," Perfect Blue). Co-written by Keiko Nobumoto ("Cowboy Bebop") and featuring a whimsical score by Keiichi Suzuki, this beautiful tale of hope and redemption in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds makes its Blu-ray, restored and remastered from a 4K transfer. The release also marks the first time the film is available with an English dub in addition to the original Japanese audio track. In modern-day Tokyo, three homeless people’s lives are changed forever when they discover a baby girl at a garbage dump on Christmas Eve. As the New Year fast approaches, these three forgotten members of society band together to solve the mystery of the abandoned child and the fate of her parents. Along the way, encounters with seemingly unrelated events and people force them to confront their own haunted pasts, as they learn to face their future, together. Formats: Blu-ray/DVD combo. Extras: Interview with actress Shakina Nayfack; "The Process of Animation" featurette; "The Unexpected Tours" featurette; "Making of Tokyo Godfathers" featurette; film introduction by K.F. Watanabe, deputy director of Film for the Japan Society, New York City; "Ohayo," a short film by Satoshi Kon; art gallery; trailers. (GKIDS/Shout! Factory).


    June 9
  • photo for An Unmarried Woman

    An Unmarried Woman

    (1978) One woman’s journey of self-discovery brings about a warmly human cultural conversation about female liberation, in this wonderfully frank, funny chronicle of changing 1970s sexual politics by Paul Mazursky. When her husband of 16 years abruptly leaves her for a younger woman, Manhattan gallery worker Erica (a fantastic, Oscar-nominated Jill Clayburgh in her defining role) finds herself alone and adrift -- but also newly empowered to explore her needs and desires as she tests the waters of a new relationship with a charismatic artist (Alan Bates). Candidly addressing issues of sex, intimacy, loneliness, and divorce from an unabashedly feminist perspective, "An Unmarried Woman" makes the simple but radical assertion that a woman’s most important relationship is the one she has with herself. New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2005 featuring director Paul Mazursky and actor Jill Clayburgh; new interviews with actors Michael Murphy and Lisa Lucas; new interview with author Sam Wasson on Mazursky’s work; audio recording of Mazursky speaking at the American Film Institute in 1980; trailer; an essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién. (The Criterion Collection).


    June 23
  • photo for Tokyo Olympiad

    Tokyo Olympiad

    (1965 -- Japan) A spectacle of magnificent proportions and remarkable intimacy, Kon Ichikawa’s documentary remains one of the greatest films ever made about sports. Supervising a team of hundreds of technicians using more than a thousand cameras, Ichikawa captured the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo in glorious widescreen images, using cutting-edge telephoto lenses and exquisite slow motion to create lyrical, idiosyncratic poetry from the athletic drama surging all around him. Drawn equally to the psychology of losers and winners -- including legendary Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, who receives the film’s most exalted tribute -- Ichikawa captures the triumph, passion, and suffering of competition with a singular humanistic vision, and in doing so effects a transformative influence on the art of documentary filmmaking. New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2001 by film historian Peter Cowie; new introduction to the film by Cowie; eighty minutes of additional material from the Tokyo Games, with a new introduction by Cowie; archival interviews with director Kon Ichikawa; new documentary about Ichikawa featuring interviews with cameraman Masuo Yamaguchi, longtime Ichikawa collaborator Chizuko Osaka, and the director’s son Tatsumi Ichikawa; trailers; an essay by film scholar James Quandt. (The Criterion Collection).


    July 7
  • photo for The War of the Worlds

    The War of the Worlds

    (1953) A mysterious, meteorlike object has landed in a small California town. All clocks have stopped. A fleet of glowing green UFOs hovers menacingly over the entire globe. The Martian invasion of Earth has begun, and it seems that nothing -- neither military might nor the scientific know-how of nuclear physicist Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) -- can stop it. In the expert hands of genre specialists George Pal and Byron Haskin, H. G. Wells's end-of-civilization classic receives a chilling Cold War-era update, complete with hallucinatory Technicolor and visionary, Oscar-winning special effects. Emblazoned with iconographic images of 1950s science fiction, "The War of the Worlds" is both an influential triumph of visual imagination and a still-disquieting document of the wonder and terror of the atomic age. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray; new alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, created by sound designer Ben Burtt and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2005 featuring filmmaker Joe Dante, film historian Bob Burns, and author Bill Warren; "Movie Archaeologists," a new program on the visual and sound effects in the film featuring Burtt and film historian Craig Barron; "From the Archive," a new program about the film's restoration featuring Barron, Burtt, and Paramount Pictures archivist Andrea Kalas; audio interview with producer George Pal from 1970; "The Sky Is Falling," a 2005 documentary about the making of the film; The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" from 1938, directed and narrated by Orson Welles; radio program from 1940 featuring a discussion between Welles and H. G. Wells, author of the 1897 novel "The War of the Worlds," trailer; an essay by film critic J. Hoberman. (The Criterion Collection).


    July 14
  • The Kiss of the Vampire Collector’s Edition

    (1963) Clifford Evans, Noel Willman, Edward De Souza, Jennifer Daniel, Barry Warren. Highly sought-after Hammer Film cult classic, in a new 2K scan of the interpositive in two aspect ratios (1.85:1 and 1.66:1). Lost on the way to their honeymoon, a young couple stumbles upon a mysterious family of vampires and their unspeakably evil leader. When a wrong turn leaves newlyweds Marianne and Gerald Harcourt stranded in a remote Bavarian forest, they have no choice but to accept the hospitality of the hypnotic Dr. Ravna, distinguished lord of a nearby castle. Ravna uses his "children" to lure the newlyweds to his lair, and soon they are plunged into a nightmare of horror and deception from which there may be no escape. Their only hope is Professor Zimmer, who calls upon an ancient ritual in a desperate attempt to destroy the vampires and free Marianne from Ravna's power. Extras: New audio commentary with author/film historian Steve Haberman and filmmaker/film historian Constantine Nasr on the 1.66:1 version; new "The Men Who Made Hammer: Composer James Bernard"; new "The Men Who Made Hammer: Production Designer Bernard Robinson"; audio Commentary with actors Edward De Souza and Jennifer Daniels, moderated by Peter Irving on the 1.85:1 version; Theatrical Trailer; TV Spot; TV Version "Kiss of Evil" with optional audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson (in standard definition – 1.33.1); additional scenes added to the TV version "Kiss of Evil";" Kiss of Evil" TV trailer. (Scream Factory).

  • photo for The Lady Eve

    The Lady Eve

    (1941) Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck's conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda's nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts -- and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling wit with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film professor Marian Keane; introduction from 2001 by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; interview from 2020 with writer-director Preston Sturges's biographer and son Tom Sturges and friends; new video essay by film critic David Cairns; costume designs by Edith Head; Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1942 featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland; audio recording of "Up the Amazon," a song from an unproduced stage musical based on the film; an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a 1946 profile of Preston Sturges from LIFE magazine. (The Criterion Collection).

  • The Specials BLU-RAY DEBUT

    (2000) Rob Lowe, Thomas Hayden Church, Jamie Kennedy, Paget Brewster, Judy Greer, Jordan Ladd. They’re the sixth (okay, maybe the seventh) greatest superhero team in the entire world. At their modest suburban headquarters, The Strobe (Haden Church), The Weevil (Lowe), foul-mouthed Amok (Kennedy), Ms. Indestructible (Brewster), Deadly Girl (Greer), new member Nightbird (Ladd) and the rest all spend their time bickering, having extramarital affairs, and preparing for the grand unveiling of their own action figure line. But when a furious Strobe suddenly disbands the group, who will be there for the oddballs, rebels, outcasts and geeks? Before they save the world, can they save themselves? Brand new 2K scan and restoration from the film’s interpositive. Extras: Theatrical trailer; "Mojo’s Magic: The Specials Effects" featurette; 2000 audio commentary with director Craig Mazin, writer-actor James Gunn, producer Mark A.Altman and Visual effects supervisor Mojo; 2005 with writer-actor James Gunn and actress Paget Brewster; deleted scenes; wedding video; toy commercial; behind-the-scenes photos. (La-La Land Entertainment).


    July 21
  • photo for Taste of Cherry

    Taste of Cherry

    (1997) The first Iranian film to win the Palme d'Or, this austere, emotionally complex drama by the great Abbas Kiarostami follows the middle-aged Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) as he drives around the hilly outskirts of Tehran looking for someone who will agree to dispose of his body after he commits suicide, a taboo under Islam. Extended conversations with three passengers (a soldier, a seminarian, and a taxidermist) elicit different views of mortality and individual choice. Operating at once as a closely observed, realistic story and a fable populated by archetypal figures, "Taste of Cherry" challenges the viewer to consider what often goes unexamined in everyday life. Formats:Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: :"Project," Abbas Kiarostami's 39-minute 1997 sketch film for "Taste of Cherry," made with the director's son Bahman Kiarostami; new interview with Iranian film scholar Hamid Naficy; rare 1997 interview with Abbas Kiarostami, conducted by Iranian film scholar Jamsheed Akrami; trailer; an essay by critic A. S. Hamrah. (The Criterion Collection).


    July 28
  • Thir13en Ghosts Collector's Edition BLU-RAY DEBUT

    (2001) Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Rah Digg, F. Murray Abraham. Remake of the 1960 classic. When Cyrus Kriticos, a very rich collector of unique things dies, he leaves it all to his nephew and his family. All including his elegant steel-and-glass mansion, his fortune, and his malicious collection of ghosts that can be seen only through special goggles. Extras: New audio commentary with director Steve Beck; new "Haunted in Canada" interview with actress Shannon Elizabeth; new "The Voice of Reason" interview with actor Matthew Harrison; new "Sophomore Spookshow" interview with producer Gilbert Adler; new "The Juggernaut Speaks" interview with actor John DeSantis; new "The Hammer Speaks" interview with actor Herbert Duncanson; "Thir13en Ghosts Revealed"; "Ghost Files: A Haunted Houseful of Poltergeist Profiles"; original electronic press kit featuring interviews with the cast and crew and behind-the-scenes footage; audio commentary with director Steve Beck, production designer Sean Hargreaves and special makeup effects artist Howard Berger; theatrical trailer; TV spots. (Scream Factory).


    August 4
  • photo for The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

    The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

    (1975 -- Germany) When a young woman spends the night with an alleged terrorist, her quiet, ordered life falls into ruins. "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" portrays an anxious era in West Germany amid a crumbling postwar political consensus. Katharina, though apparently innocent, suddenly becomes a suspect, falling prey to a vicious smear campaign by the police and a ruthless tabloid journalist that tests the limits of her dignity and her sanity. Crafting one of the most accessible and direct works of 1970s political filmmaking, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta deliver a powerful adaptation of Heinrich Böll's novel, a stinging commentary on state power, individual freedom, and media manipulation that is as relevant today as when it was released. New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Volker Schlöndorff and producer Eberhard Junkersdorf, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Interview from 2002 with directors Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta; interview from 2002 with director of photography Jost Vacano; excerpts from a 1977 documentary on author Heinrich Böll; trailer; an essay by film critic Amy Taubin. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Shanghai Triad

    Shanghai Triad

    (1995 -- China) Wang Xiaoxiao, Gong Li, Li Baotian. Hired to be a servant to pampered nightclub singer and mob moll Xiao Jinbao, naive teenager Shuisheng is thrust into the glamorous and deadly demimonde of Shanghai's crime syndicates in the 1930s. Over the course of seven days, Shuisheng observes mounting tensions as triad boss Tang begins to suspect traitors amongst his ranks and rivals for Xiao Jinbao's affections. Director Zhang Yimou's inventive take on the gangster film is assured and attention-grabbing. New digital restoration and first time on Blu-ray. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, Digital. Extras: "Trouble in Shanghai" video essay by author Grady Hendrix; booklet with new essay by film critic and lecturer John Berra. (Film Movement Classics).


    August 11
  • Michael

    (1996) John Travolta, William Hurt, Andie MacDowell, Robert Pastorelli, Bob Hoskins. Two tabloid reporters checking out a report of the Archangel Michael living with an old woman find that it's true. But that's not the only surprise. He's a party animal who knows his way around a dance floor, smokes, drinks and has an eye for the ladies. (Warner Archive).


    August 18
  • Clara's Heart

    (1988) Neil Patrick Harris, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Ontkean, Kathleen Quinlan. A Jamaican woman becomes the housekeeper for a rich Baltimore family and bonds with a disillusioned teenage boy. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for The Comfort of Strangers

    The Comfort of Strangers

    (1990) Adapting the acclaimed novel by Ian McEwan, playwright and screenwriter Harold Pinter lends his trademark unnerving dialogue and air of creeping menace to this spellbinding study of power, control, and the frighteningly thin line between pleasure and pain. Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson are the prey, a beautiful British couple working on their relationship while on holiday in Venice; Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren are the hunters who draw them into the sinister web of their opulent, old-world palazzo. What plays out is an unsettling, sadomasochistic seduction imbued with an atmosphere of sumptuous dread by the elegantly gliding tracking shots of cinematographer Dante Spinotti, lush score by Angelo Badalamenti, and carefully controlled direction of Paul Schrader, who choreographs a mesmerizing pas de quatre of sustained erotic and emotional tension. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Dante Spinotti, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interviews with Spinotti, director Paul Schrader, actor Christopher Walken, and editor Bill Pankow; interviews from 1981 and 2001 with novelist Ian McEwan and actor Natasha Richardson; trailers; an essay by critic Maitland McDonagh. (The Criterion Collection).


    August 25
  • Pat and Mike

    (1952) Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, Charles (Bronson) Buchinski. The sun will sneak by a rooster before sports promoter Mike Conovan (Tracy) lets opportunity pass him by. So the first time he sees genteel Pat Pemberton (Hepburn) swing a five-iron, he decides to ink her to a pro contract. “Not much meat on her ,” Mike later says, “but what’s there is cherce.” For this chercest of romantic comedies, George Cukor directs, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin provide the Oscar-nominated screenplay. (Warner Archive).

  • Without Love

    (1945) Every rental is rented, every sublet is let in crowded wartime Washington, D.C. So Jamie Rowan does her part for the wartime lodging crunch by sharing her home with military inventor Pat Jamieson. There are a few conditions, however. First, for appearances, they must get married. Second, there’s plenty of room for each other ... but no room for love. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn team for the third time. (Warner Archive).


    September 8
  • photo for Brute Force

    Brute Force

    (1947) As hard-hitting as its title, "Brute Force" was one of Jules Dassin’s first forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama with a scathing critique of the punitive American incarceration system at its heart. Burt Lancaster is the timeworn Joe Collins, who, along with his fellow inmates, lives under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey (a riveting Hume Cronyn). Only Collins’s dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey’s chains? Matter-of-fact and ferocious, "Brute Force" builds to an explosive climax that shows the lengths men will go to when fighting for their freedom, and asks the question of who society’s real brutes are. With new 4K digital restoration by TLEFilms FIlm Restoration & Preservation Services, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2007 featuring film-noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini; interview from 2007 with Paul Mason, editor of "Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture"' program from 2017 on "Brute Force’s" array of acting styles featuring film scholar David Bordwell; trailer; an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson, a 1947 profile of producer Mark Hellinger, and rare correspondence between Hellinger and Production Code administrator Joseph Breen over the film’s content. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for The Naked City

    The Naked City

    (1948) “There are eight million stories in the Naked City,” as the narrator immortally states at the close of this breathtakingly vivid film —- and this is one of them. Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin and newspaperman-cum-producer Mark Hellinger’s dazzling police procedural was shot entirely on location in New York. Influenced as much by Italian neorealism as it is by American crime fiction, this double Academy Award winner remains a benchmark for naturalism in noir, living and breathing in the promises and perils of the Big Apple, from its lowest depths to its highest skyscrapers. With new 4K digital restoration by TLEFilms FIlm Restoration & Preservation Services, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 1996 featuring screenwriter Malvin Wald; interview from 2006 with film scholar Dana Polan; interview from 2006 with author James Sanders ("Celluloid Skyline") on the film’s New York locations; footage of director Jules Dassin from a 2004 appearance at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; stills gallery; an essay by author and critic Luc Sante and production notes from producer Mark Hellinger to Dassin. (The Criterion Collection).


    September 15
  • Little Monsters

    (1989) Fred Savage, Howie Mandel, Daniel Stern, Margaret Whitton. Family friendly comedy about a sixth-grader (Savage) who’s recently moved to a new town and made friends with Maurice (Mandel) — the monster who lives under Brian's bed. Maurice introduces Brian to the world of monsters, where junk food rules, adults aren’t allowed, and the fun and games never end. But when Brian's brother is kidnapped, it’s time for Brian to get serious and fight the monsters on their own turf. Extras: New audio commentary with Jarret Gahan, editor-in-chief of CultofMonster.com; new Isolated score selections and audio interview with composer David Newman; new “Call Him Maurice” interview with actor Howie Mandel; new “Beneath the Bed” interview with producer Andrew Licht ; new “Monsters Big & Small” – An Interview with Special Makeup Effects Creator Robert Short; new vintage interviews with actors Fred Savage, Ben Savage, special makeup effects creator Robert Short, and director Richard Alan Greenberg; behind-the-scenes footage; “Making Maurice” – vintage footage of Howie Mandel’s makeup transformation; vintage EPK & VHS promo; theatrical trailer; still gallery. (Vestron Video Collector’s Series/Lionsgate).

  • Shivers

    (1975) Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Barbara Steele. A cult favorite, this is acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg’s feature-length debut. When the residents of a luxury apartment complex outside Montreal are infiltrated by parasites and transformed into violent, sex-crazed maniacs, it’s up to Dr. Roger St. Luc to contain the outbreak from spreading to the city at large. Formats: Blu-ray, Digital. Extras: New audio commentary with writer-director David Cronenberg and co-producer Don Carmody; new“Mind Over Matter” interview with Cronenberg ; new “Good Night Nurse” interview with actress Lynn Lowry; new “Outside and Within” interview with special make-up effects creator Joe Blasco; new “Celebrating Cinépix” interview with Greg Dunning; archival 1998 David Cronenberg interview; still gallery with optional archival audio interview with executive producer John Dunning; theatrical trailers; TV spot; radio spots. (Vestron Video Collector’s Series/Lionsgate).


    September 29
  • photo for The Elephant Man

    The Elephant Man

    (1980) With this poignant second feature, David Lynch brought his atmospheric visual and sonic palette to a notorious true story set in Victorian England. When the London surgeon Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) meets the freak-show performer John Merrick (John Hurt), who has severe skeletal and soft tissue deformities, he assumes that he must be intellectually disabled as well. As the two men spend more time together, though, Merrick reveals the intelligence, gentle nature, and profound sense of dignity that lie beneath his shocking appearance, and he and Treves develop a friendship. Shot in gorgeous black and white and boasting a stellar supporting cast that includes Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, and Wendy Hiller, "The Elephant Man" was nominated for eight Academy Awards, cementing Lynch’s reputation as one of American cinema’s most visionary talents. With new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Director David Lynch and critic Kristine McKenna reading from "Room to Dream," a 2018 book they co-authored; archival interviews with Lynch, actor John Hurt, producers Mel Brooks and Jonathan Sanger, director of photography Freddie Francis, stills photographer Frank Connor, and makeup artist Christopher Tucker; audio recording from 1981 of an interview and Q&A with Lynch at the American Film Institute; "The Terrible Elephant Man Revealed," a 2001 documentary about the film; trailer and radio spots; a booklet featuring excerpts from an interview with Lynch from the 2005 edition of filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley’s book "Lynch on Lynch," and an 1886 letter to the editor of the London Times concerning Joseph Merrick, the “elephant man,” by Francis Culling Carr Gomm, chairman of the London Hospital at the time. (The Criterion Collection).


    October 6
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous

    (1999) The Sarah Rose American Teen Princess Pageant is a beauty contest to die for. And that’s exactly what the contestants in Mount Rose, Minnesota, are doing. Ever since the vivacious-but-vicious former beauty queen Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley) started pushing her charm-challenged daughter, Rebecca (Denise Richards), to win at all costs, the competition has been dropping like flies. Between exploding tractors and deadly hunting accidents, it’s a wonder the top challenger, poor Amber (Kirsten Dunst), has the courage to keep her tap shoes on. But after Amber’s mother (Ellen Barkin) is injured in a suspicious trailer-park-beauty-shop bombing, Amber is determined to fight to the finish – and the battle between the good and the bad is about to get ugly. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for Pierrot le fou

    Pierrot le fou

    (1965 -- France) Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeois world behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: the 10th feature in six years by genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of anticonsumerist satire, au courant politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, "Pierrot le fou" is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Interview with actor Anna Karina from 2007; a “Pierrot Primer," a video essay from 2007 written and narrated by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin; "Godard, l’amour, la poésie," a 50-minute French documentary from 2007, directed by Luc Lagier, about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina; excerpts of interviews from 1965 with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo; trailer; an essay by critic Richard Brody, along with (Blu-ray only) a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard. (The Criterion Collection).


    October 13
  • photo for CLAUDINE

    Claudine

    (1974) Diahann Carroll is radiant in an unforgettable, Oscar-nominated performance as Claudine, a strong-willed single mother, raising six kids in Harlem, whose budding relationship with a gregarious garbage collector (an equally fantastic James Earl Jones) is stressed by the difficulty of getting by in an oppressive system. As directed by the formerly blacklisted leftist filmmaker John Berry, this romantic comedy with a social conscience deftly balances warm humor with a serious look at the myriad issues -- from cycles of poverty to the indignities of the welfare system -- that shape its characters’ realities. The result is an empathetic chronicle of both black working-class struggle and black joy, a bittersweet, bighearted celebration of family and community set to a sunny soul soundtrack composed by Curtis Mayfield and performed by Gladys Knight & the Pips. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2003 featuring actors Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, filmmaker George Tillman Jr. and Dan Pine, son of screenwriters Lester Pine and Tina Pine; new conversation on the film between filmmaker Robert Townsend and programmer Ashley Clark; illustrated audio excerpts from a 1974 AFI Harold Lloyd Master Seminar featuring Carroll; an essay by critic Danielle A. Jackson. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Reversal of Fortune

    (1990) Did European aristocrat Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons) try to murder his wife, Sunny (Glenn Close), at their luxurious Newport mansion in 1980? Tabloids of the day had their opinions. “You have one thing in your favor,” defense attorney Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) told von Bulow. “Everybody hates you.” Directed by Barbet Schroeder ("Single White Female") and based on Dershowitz’s book, "Reversal of Fortune" is the acclaimed filmization of events that had all of America talking. Extras: Feature commentary by director Barbet Schroeder and screenwriter Nicholas Kazan. trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Sergeant York

    (1941) Torn between religious pacifism and patriotism, Alvin York of Tennessee went on to become World War I's most acclaimed hero. As the simple backwoods farm boy who captured 132 German soldiers during the Battle of Argonne, Gary Cooper (handpicked by York) also won acclaim and his first Best Actor Academy Award. Released in 1941 when the United States was on the brink of another war, this stirring adventure inspired thousands of enlisting men. Nominated for a total of 11 Oscars including Best Picture, a winner for Best Film Editing and movingly directed by Howard Hawks, it tells of a religious man's moral crisis, heroics and subsequent return to the rural life he loved while refusing to capitalize on the adulation heaped upon him. 1080p master from 4K scan of best surviving nitrate elements. Extras: Commentary by film historian Jeanine Basinger; making-of featurette "Sergeant York: Of God and Country"; classic cartoon "Porky's Preview"; vintage short "Lions for Sale"; theatrical re-issue trailer. (Warner Archive).


    October 20
  • photo for THE GUNFIGHTER

    The Gunfighter

    (1950) A key forerunner of the new breed of dark, brooding westerns that would cast a shadow over America’s frontier folklore, this subversive psychological saga sounds a death knell for the myth of the outlaw hero. In one of his most morally complex roles, Gregory Peck stars as Jimmy Ringo, an infamous gunslinger looking to hang up his holsters and start a new life, but whose reputation draws him inexorably into a cycle of violence and revenge from which he cannot escape. Directed with taut efficiency by the versatile studio-era craftsman Henry King, and shot in striking deep-focus style by master cinematographer Arthur C. Miller, "The Gunfighter" forgoes rough-and-tumble action in favor of an elegiac exploration of guilt and regret that speaks to the anxious soul of postwar America. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New interview about director Henry King and the film with filmmaker, writer, and archivist Gina Telaroli; new video essay on editor Barbara McLean by film historian and author J. E. Smyth; audio excerpts of interviews with King and McLean from 1970 and ’71; an essay by film critic K. Austin Collins. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for THE HIT

    The Hit

    (1984) Terence Stamp is Willie, a gangster’s henchman turned “supergrass” (informer) trying to live in peaceful hiding in a remote Spanish village. Sun-dappled bliss turns to nerve-racking suspense, however, when two hit men -- played by a soulless John Hurt and a youthful, loose-cannon Tim Roth -- come calling to bring Willie back for execution. This stylish early gem from Stephen Frears boasts terrific hard-boiled performances from a roster of England’s best actors, music by Eric Clapton and virtuoso flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía, and ravishing photography of its desolate Spanish locations -- a splendid backdrop for a rather sordid story. Formats: Blu-ray, with high-definition digital restoration, approved by director of photography Mike Molloy, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2009 featuring director Stephen Frears, actors John Hurt and Tim Roth, screenwriter Peter Prince, and editor Mick Audsley; interview from 1988 with actor Terence Stamp from the television show "Parkinson One-to-One"; trailer; an essay by film critic Graham Fuller. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Sunrise at Campobello

    (1960) He led America’s battles against the Depression and the Axis powers – and won. But first Franklin Delano Roosevelt fought a personal battle against polio that would either destroy him – or arm him for greatness. This powerful film of Dore Schary’s long-running play is an intimate, admiring profile in courage. Ralph Bellamy reprises his dynamic Tony-winning stage portrayal of the future president, and Greer Garson is his devoted, warbly-voiced wife, Eleanor. Both were uncannily true in their roles, and acclaim followed: Garson earned Golden Globe and National Board of Review Best Actress awards, as well as one of the movie’s four Oscar nominations. (Warner Archive).


    October 27
  • The Opposite Sex

    (1956) “I’ve waited a whole year to grow claws like these. Jungle Red!” One of film’s greatest lines belongs to a wronged wife who wins back her man with the aid of an aggressive shade of nail polish. First a hit play, then an all-star 1939 (and later, 2008) movie, "The Women" resurfaces here as a musical, complete with an all-star cast, lines dipped in acid wit, big production numbers and fabulous ‘50s couture in scintillating CinemaScope. June Allyson portrays the betrayed woman. Joan Collins is the siren who steals her husband. And Dolores Gray, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Agnes Moorehead, Charlotte Greenwood and Joan Blondell are assorted gal pals (true-blue and envy-green) who convince their demure friend to paint her claws – then use them. (Warner Archive).

  • Waterloo Bridge

    (1940) Myra and Roy meet and fall in love on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid. Their love will be one of the war’s unspoken casualties. Heartbroken after Roy is reportedly killed in action, Myra turns to prostitution to make her way. The report, however, is false. Roy later returns from a POW camp, eager to begin life anew with his beloved. But Myra’s shattered spirit may no longer hold any room for happiness. Vivien Leigh plays Myra, at once winning and breaking viewers’ hearts in this exquisite melodrama. In a compassionate performance that was his all-time favorite, Robert Taylor is gallant Roy. Under Mervyn LeRoy’s astute direction, they make "Waterloo Bridge" a meeting place for lovers. 1080p master from 4K scan of best surviving nitrate elements. Extras: Screen Director’s Playhouse radio program with Norma Shearer and Mervyn LeRoy (audio only), trailer, (Warner Archive).


    November 10
  • photo for Girlfriends

    Girlfriends

    (1978) When her best friend and roommate abruptly moves out to get married, Susan (Melanie Mayron), trying to become a gallery artist while making ends meet as a bar mitzvah photographer on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, finds herself adrift in both life and love. Could a new job be the answer? What about a fling with a married, older rabbi (Eli Wallach)? A wonder of American independent filmmaking whose remarkably authentic vision of female relationships has become a touchstone for makers of an entire subgenre of films and television shows about young women trying to make it in the big city, this 1970s New York time capsule from Claudia Weill captures the complexities and contradictions of women’s lives and relationships with wry humor and refreshing frankness. New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Claudia Weill and director of photography Fred Murphy, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interview with Weill; new interview with Weill and actors Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, and Bob Balaban; new interview with screenwriter Vicki Polon; new interview with Weill and writer and director Joey Soloway; "Joyce at 34," a 1972 short film by Weill and Joyce Chopra; "Commuters," a 1973 short film by Weill; trailer; essays by critic Molly Haskell and scholar Carol Gilligan. (The Criterion Collection).


    November 17
  • photo for Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

    Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

    (1999) Jim Jarmusch combines his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take on the hit-man thriller. In one of his defining roles, Forest Whitaker brings a commanding serenity to his portrayal of a Zen contract killer working for a bumbling mob outfit, a modern man who adheres steadfastly to the ideals of the Japanese warrior code even as chaos and violence spiral around him. Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Müller, a mesmerizing score by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, and a host of colorful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero. New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: Alternate isolated stereo music track; new Q&A with Jarmusch, in which he responds to questions sent in by fans; new conversation between actors Forest Whitaker and Isaach De Bankolé, moderated by film scholar Michael B. Gillespie; new interview with casting director Ellen Lewis; new interview with Shifu Shi Yan Ming, founder of the USA Shaolin Temple; new video essay on RZA’s original score for the film; "The Odyssey: A Journey into the Life of a Samurai," a 2000 program on the making of the film; deleted scenes and outtakes; archival interviews; trailer; an essay by critic Greg Tate and quotations from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, by the early-eighteenth-century monk Yamamoto Tsunetomo. (The Criterion Collection).


    November 24
  • photo for

    Essential Fellini

    One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane. He began his career working in the slice-of-life poetry of neorealism, and though he soon spun off on his own freewheeling creative axis, he never lost that grounding, evoking his dreams, memories, and obsessions in increasingly grand productions teeming with carnivalesque imagery and flights of phantasmagoric surrealism while maintaining an earthy, embodied connection to humanity. Bringing together 14 of the director’s greatest spectacles, all beautifully restored, this centenary box set is a monument to an artist who conjured a cinematic universe all his own: a vision of the world as a three-ring circus in which his innermost infatuations, fears, and fantasies take center stage. The fifteen Blu-ray special edition collector’s set features "Variety Lights" (1950), "The White Sheik" (1952), I vitelloni" (1953), "La strada" (1954), "Il bidone" (1955), "Nights of Cabiria" (1957), "La dolce vita" (1960), "8 1/2" (1963), "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965), "Fellini Satyricon" (1969), "Roma" (1972), "Amarcord" (1973), "And the Ship Sails On" (1983) and "Intervista" (1987). Extras: New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for all films; new digital restorations of the short film "Toby Dammit" (1968) and the television film "Fellini: A Director’s Notebook" (1969), with uncompressed monaural soundtracks; feature documentaries "Fellini: I’m a Born Liar" (2002) and "Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember" (1997), the latter presented in its 193-minute version; two-hour, four-part 1960 interview with Fellini by filmmaker André Delvaux for Belgian television; four behind-the-scenes documentaries: "Reporter’s Diary: Zoom on Fellini” (1965), "Ciao, Federico!" (1969), "The Secret Diary of Amarcord” (1974), and "Fellini racconta: On the Set of And the Ship Sails On” (1983); "Fellini racconta: Passegiatte nella memoria," a 2000 documentary featuring interviews with a late-in-life Fellini; "Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile," a 2004 documentary about Fellini’s wife and frequent collaborator; "Once Upon a Time: La dolce vita,” a French television documentary about the film; audio commentaries on six of the films; program from 2003 on Fellini's 1980s television advertising work; archival interviews with Fellini stars and collaborators, including Mastroianni, Sandr a Milo, Anouk Aimée, and Magali Noël; archival audio interviews by film critic Gideon Bachmann with Fellini, Mastroianni, and Fellini's friends and family; video essays; trailers. In deluxe packaging, including two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of content: notes on the films by scholar David Forgacs, essays by filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Kogonada, and Carol Morley; film critics Bilge Ebiri and Stephanie Zacharek; and novelist Colm Tóibín, and dozens of images spotlighting Don Young’s renowned collection of Fellini memorabilia. $199.96. (The Criterion Collection).


    December 1
  • photo for Crash

    Crash

    (1996) For this icily erotic fusion of flesh and machine, David Cronenberg adapted J. G. Ballard’s future-shock novel of the 1970s into one of the most singular and provocative films of the 1990s. A traffic collision involving a disaffected commercial producer, James (James Spader), and an enigmatic doctor, Helen (Holly Hunter), brings them, along with James’s wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger, in a sublimely detached performance), together in a crucible of blood and broken glass -- and it’s not long before they are all initiated into a kinky, death-obsessed underworld of sadomasochistic car-crash fetishists for whom twisted metal and scar tissue are the ultimate turn-ons. Controversial from the moment it premiered at Cannes -- where it won a Special Jury Prize “for originality, for daring, and for audacity” -- "Crash" has since taken its place as a key text of late-20th-century cinema, a disturbingly seductive treatise on the relationships between humanity and technology, sex and violence, that is as unsettling as it is mesmerizing. With new 4K digital restoration supervised by director of photography Peter Suschitzky, and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, both approved by director David Cronenberg. Extras: Audio commentary from 1997 featuring Cronenberg; press conference from the 1996 Cannes Film Festival featuring Cronenberg, Suschitzky, author J. G. Ballard, producers Robert Lantos and Jeremy Thomas, and actors Rosanna Arquette, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, James Spader, and Deborah Kara Unger; Q&A from 1996 with Cronenberg and Ballard at the National Film Theatre in London; behind-the-scenes footage and press interviews from 1996; trailers; an essay by film critic Jessica Kiang. (The Criterion Collection).

    photo for The Curse Of Frankenstein BLU-RAY DEBUT

  • The Curse of Frankenstein

    (1957) The first, and perhaps the best of the long-running series of horror films from the house of Hammer. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee star in this landmark interpretation based on the famous Mary Shelley story. Baron Victor Frankenstein becomes friends with one of his teachers, Paul Krempe. At first, both men are fascinated by the potential of their re-animating experiments. Eventually, though, Krempe refuses to help with Frankenstein's human experiments. However, he is drawn back into the plot when Frankenstein's creature kills a member of the house staff. A deluxe 2 Disc Special Edition, featuring two theatrical aspect ratio presentations, meticulously remastered and restored in 4k scans from preservation separations, as well as bonus disc with the restoration presented in "open-matte" format, as was seen for years on television. Extras: New feature commentary by screenwriter/film historian Steve Haberman and filmmaker/film historian Constantine Nasr; new featurettes: "The Resurrection Men: Hammer, Frankenstein and the Rebirth of the Horror Film," "Hideous Progeny: The Curse of Frankenstein and the English Gothic Tradition," "Torrents of Light: The Art of Jack Asher," "Diabolus in Musica: James Bernard and the Sound of Hammer Horror"; original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Holiday Affair

    (1949) RKO's resident "bad boy" Robert Mitchum surprised audiences with his softer side in this classic Yule-themed romantic comedy. Mitchum portrays Steve Mason, a department-store clerk who loses his job, yet buys an electric train set for a child he scarcely knows. It must be Christmastime. Mitchum and Janet Leigh are warmly matched in a seasonal favorite scripted by Isobel Lennart (later to adapt Mitchum's "The Sundowners") and directed by Hope/Crosby "road movies" veteran Don Hartman. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Lux Radio Theater broadcast (12/18/50) with Robert Mitchum and Laraine Day, original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Popeye

    (1980) 40th Anniversary of director Robert Altman’s vision of the famous cartoon character, starring Robin Williams. Looking for the father (Ray Walston) who deserted him as a baby, a sailor named Popeye (Williams) journeys to the port town of Sweethaven. Popeye befriends an assortment of eccentrics and falls in love with Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), who already has a suitor, the bully Bluto (Paul L. Smith). Popeye also discovers an abandoned baby, Swee'Pea, whom he raises as his own. But when the spurned Bluto kidnaps Olive and the child, Popeye takes action, with the help of his magic spinach. Legendary producer Robert Evans and screenwriter Jules Feiffer worked for nearly three years to get "Popeye" into production. The film combined the talents of director Altman, composer and lyricist Harry Nilsson, numerous filmmaking artisans, and an outstanding cast of actors, mimes, athletes and street performers to bring the world of the beloved character to life. Formats: Blu-ray, Digital. Extras: "Return to Sweethaven: A Look Back with Robin and the Altmans," "The Popeye Company Players," "Popeye’s" premiere, "The Sailor Man Medleys," theatrical trailer. (Paramount).


    December 8
  • Mister Roberts

    (1955) The USS Reluctant carries cargo along World War II's forgotten Pacific seaways. Beyond the horizon, the real war passes its stir-crazy crew by. "Mister Roberts," directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, is the classic story of men fighting to survive – not war's dangers, but its indignities. Henry Fonda's reprise of his Tony-winning Broadway role returned him to movies after seven years away. Jack Lemmon won his first Academy Award as hapless, lecherous Ensign Pulver. James Cagney's petty, scrappy Captain makes a fierce adversary. In his final film, William Powell makes world-weary Doc a sage for the ages. "Mister Roberts" has moments of unforgettable humor. But sadness tempers the comedy. No shot is fired. No blood is spilled. Yet "Mister Roberts" endures as one of our most truthful war sagas. New 2020 1080p HD Remaster from 4K Scan of Original Negative. Extras: Commentary by Jack Lemmon, original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for Mouchette

    Mouchette

    (1967) Robert Bresson plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with "Mouchette," one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film. With a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace and respite from her circumstances in the nature of the French countryside and daily routine. Bresson deploys his trademark minimalist style to heartbreaking effect in this essential work of French filmmaking, a hugely empathetic drama that elevates its trapped protagonist into one of the cinema’s most memorable tragic figures. With new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2006 by film scholar, critic, and festival programmer Tony Rayns; "Au hasard Bresson," a 1967 documentary by Theodor Kotulla, featuring director Robert Bresson on the set of "Mouchette"; segment of a 1967 episode of the French television series "Cinéma," featuring on-set interviews with Bresson and actors Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert; original theatrical trailer, cut by Jean-Luc Godard; an essay by critic and poet Robert Polito. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes by William Greaves

    Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes by William Greaves

    In his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One" (1968), the pioneering William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them to try to figure out what kind of movie they’re making. A couple enacts a breakup scenario over and over, a documentary crew films a crew filming the crew, locals wander casually into the frame: the project defies easy description. Yet this wildly innovative sixties counterculture landmark remains one of the most tightly focused and insightful movies ever made about making movies, expanded thirty-five years later by its unconventional follow-up, "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2½" (2005). The “sequel” sees "Take One" actors Audrey Henningham and Shannon Baker reunited in a more personal, metatheatrical exploration of the effects of the passage of time on technology, the artistic process, and relationships -- real and fabricated. With high-definition digital transfers of both films with uncompressed monaural soundtracks. Extras: "Discovering William Greaves," a 2006 documentary on Greaves’s career, featuring Greaves, his wife and co-producer Louise Archambault, actor Ruby Dee, filmmaker St. Clair Bourne, and film scholar Scott MacDonald; interview from 2006 with actor Steve Buscemi; trailer; an essay by critic Amy Taubin and production notes by Greaves for "Take One." (The Criterion Collection).


    December 15
  • The Harvey Girls

    (1946) Judy Garland headlines this joyous slice of Americana celebrating the "Harvey House" restaurants that brought extra helpings of civilization to the Old West. Famed M-G-M musical producer Arthur Freed brought together an impressive cast of talents for this box-office hit which features a delightful original score by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Johnny Mercer, who earned an Oscar for their On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe as the Best Song of 1946. Garland once again shares the screen with her "Oz" co-star Ray Bolger, clowns with Virginia O'Brien, falls in love with leading man John Hodiak, and faces off against wicked saloon gal Angela Lansbury in one of the most entertaining and enduring musical classics to come from Metro's golden age, now fully restored to its original Technicolor luster for its Blu-ray debut. New 2020 1080p HD restoration from 4K scan of the original nitrate Technicolor negatives. Extras: Feature-length audio commentary by director George Sidney; three deleted musical sequences: "March of the Doagies," "March of the Doagies" (reprise), "My Intuition"; scoring stage sessions (audio only) featuring pre-recordings made for the film including the unused "Hayride," "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" remixed in stereo; original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for Vigilante

    Vigilante

    (1982) Robert Forster, Fred Williamson, Richard Bright, Rutanya Alda, Carol Lynley, Woody Strode, Joe Spinell, Willie Colón. New York City factory worker Eddie Marino (Forster) is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. But when a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, Eddie goes berserk and vows revenge, enforcing his own kind of law, with swift and violent home-made justice. In a new restoration, scanned in 4K 16-bit from the original 35mm camera negative, with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Formats: 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo. Extras: Audio commentary #1 with co-producer/director William Lustig and co-producer Andrew Garroni; Audio Commentary #2 with Lustig and stars Robert Forster, Fred Williamson and Frank Pesce; new audio commentary #3 with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson; new "Blue Collar Death Wish" interviews with writer Richard Vetere, star Rutanya Alda, associate producer/first A.D./actor Randy Jurgensen, and others; new "Urban Western" interview with composer Jay Chattaway; theatrical trailers; TV spots; radio spot; promotional reel; poster and still galleries; collectible booklet with new essay by Michael Gingold. (Blue Underground).

    photo for Young Man With a Horn BLU-RAY DEBUT

  • Young Man With a Horn

    (1950) With a secondhand trumpet and the loving guidance of a brilliant bluesman, a lonely boy grows into manhood as a superb musician whose talent carries him from honky-tonks to posh supper clubs. But his desperate search for an elusive high note – trapped in his mind but impossible to play – starts him on a boozy downward slide. Charged with dynamic performances by Kirk Douglas (the title role), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael, and pitch-perfect direction by Michael Curtiz, the film is a feast of hot, cool, moody jazz. Legendary Harry James dubbed Douglas' hornwork. Day brings another fine instrument – her voice – to four standards. Movie and music lovers will be glad to meet this Man. New 2020 1080p HD remaster from 4K scan of original nitrate elements. Extras: Lux Radio Theater broadcast (3/3/52) with Kirk Douglas and Jo Stafford; vintage WB cartoons: "Hillblly Hare," "Homeless Hare" and "Hurdy Gurdy Hare"; original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).


    December 22
  • It Happened On 5th Avenue

    (1947) As he does every winter, hobo Aloysius T. McKeever (Victor Moore) moves into a mansion on New York City's 5th Avenue while its owners are away for the winter and invites all his hobo friends in from the cold. But this Christmas, Mary O'Connor (Ann Harding) comes home unexpectedly after a quarrel with her boyfriend to find her house occupied by jovial street dwellers. To make matters even worse, her father (Charles Ruggles) disguises himself as a hobo to get an invitation to stay in his own home -- and keeps his identity secret in this perennial Christmas favorite about rediscovering family and the joy of being together. Don DeFore and Gale Storm co-star as the young love interests in this first release from Allied Artists Productions. New 2020 1080p HD remaster from 4K scan of best surviving nitrate elements. Extras: Lux Radio Theater Broadcast (5/19/1947). (Warner Archive).

    photo for The Shop Around the Corner BLU-RAY DEBUT

  • The Shop Around the Corner

    (1940) Ernst Lubitsch adds his unique style of directorial aplomb to this timeless love story that marked the third of Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart's four film appearances together. A 1936 play by Nikolaus Laszlo called "Perfumerie" was the basis for this timeless love story set in a Budapest shop. With a witty screenplay adaptation by Samson Raphaelson, Stewart and Sullavan play bickering gift-shop workers Alfred and Klara, unaware that they have fallen in love with each other as secret pen pals who only know their respective correspondents as "Dear Friend." The charm of the stars ably supported by a sterling supporting cast headed by Frank Morgan make this timeless classic one to enjoy over and over again. The story was later filmed as "In The Good Old Summertime" with Judy Garland and Van Johnson in 1949, and as "You've Got Mail" in 1998. It was also the basis of the 1963 Broadway musical favorite "She Loves Me." Ranked #28 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Passions." Beautiful 1080p HD remaster from protection film elements made right from the original nitrate negative. Extras: Vintage MGM promotional film: "The Miracle Of Sound"; Screen Guild Theater radio broadcast (9/29/40) with Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan; Lux Radio Theater broadcast (6/23/41) with Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche. (Warner Archive).


    2019 Blu-ray Debuts

    2021 Blu-ray Debuts



    go back to top



    rule


    | Contents/Site Map | Home | Resources | Reviews | Links |


    E-mail: mail@onvideo.org
    © 1996 -- 2020 OnVideo. All rights December 22, 2020