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OnVideo's Guide to Blu-ray Debuts 2021


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January 2021 | February 2021 | March 2021 | April 2021 | May 2021 | June 2021 |
July 2021 | August 2021 | September 2021 | October 2021 | November 2021 | December 2021


January 5
  • Captain Newman, M.D.

    (1963) From David Miller, the director of "Sudden Fear," "Midnight Lace," "Lonely Are the Brave" and" Executive Action," comes this realistic look at life and love inside a stateside military hospital's psychiatric ward during World War II, starring screen great Gregory Peck. This classic comedy-drama follows the affable Captain Newman (Peck) as he uses both humor and compassion to reach patients whose wartime injuries plague their minds instead of their bodies. Co-starring Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Eddie Albert, Robert Duvall, Dick Sargent and Bobby Darin, this critically acclaimed film is just what the doctor ordered. Captain Newman, M.D. was nominated for three Oscars: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Darin), Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Richard L. Breen, Phoebe Ephron, Henry Ephron) and Best Sound (Waldon O. Watson). Extras: new audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan, theatrical trailer. (Kino Lorber Studio Classics).

  • Three Films By Luis Buñuel

    More than four decades after he took a razorblade to an eyeball and shocked the world with "Un chien andalou," arch-iconoclast Luis Buñuel capped his astonishing career with three final provocations -- "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," "The Phantom of Liberty" and "That Obscure Object of Desire" -- in which his renegade, free-associating surrealism reached its audacious, self-detonating endgame. Working with such key collaborators as screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière and his own frequent on-screen alter ego Fernando Rey, Buñuel laced his scathing attacks on religion, class pretension, and moral hypocrisy with savage violence to create a trio of subversive, brutally funny masterpieces that explore the absurd randomness of existence. Among the director's most radical works as well as some of his greatest photo for Three Films By Luis Buñuelinternational triumphs, these films cemented his legacy as cinema's most incendiary revolutionary. THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972): Buñuel's deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to a dinner that is continually delayed, their attempts to eat thwarted by vaudevillian events both actual and imagined, including terrorist attacks, military maneuvers, and ghostly apparitions. Stringing together a discontinuous, digressive series of absurdist set pieces, Buñuel and his screenwriting partner Jean-Claude Carrière send a cast of European-film greats -- including Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Delphine Seyrig, and Jean-Pierre Cassel -- through a maze of desire deferred, frustrated, and interrupted. THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY (1974): Buñuel's vision of the inherent absurdity of human social rituals reaches its taboo-annihilating extreme in what may be his most morally subversive and formally audacious work. Zigzagging across time and space, from the Napoleonic era to the present day, "The Phantom of Liberty" unfolds as a picaresque, its main character traveling between tableaux in a series of Dadaist non sequiturs. Unbound by the laws of narrative logic, Buñuel lets his surrealist's id run riot in an exuberant revolt against bourgeois rationality that seems telegraphed directly from his unconscious to the screen. THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977): Buñuel's final film brings full circle the director's lifelong preoccupation with the darker side of desire. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey plays Mathieu, an urbane widower, tortured by his lust for the elusive Conchita. With subversive flair, Buñuel uses two different actors in the latter role -- Carole Bouquet, a sophisticated French beauty, and Ángela Molina, a Spanish coquette. Drawn from the surrealist favorite Pierre Louÿs's classic erotic novel "La femme et le pantin (The Woman and the Puppet," 1898), "That Obscure Object of Desire" is a dizzying game of sexual politics punctuated by a terror that harks back to Buñuel's avant-garde beginnings. Formats: Blu-ray, with new high-definition digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks. Extras: "The Castaway of Providence Street," a 1971 homage to Luis Buñuel made by his longtime friends and fellow filmmakers Arturo Ripstein and Rafael Castanedo; "Speaking of Buñuel," a documentary from 2000 on Buñuel's life and work; "Once Upon a Time: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," a 2011 television program about the making of the film; interviews from 2000 with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière on "The Phantom of Liberty" and "That Obscure Object of Desire"; archival interviews on all three films featuring Carrière, actors Stéphane Audran, Muni, Michel Piccoli, and Fernando Rey, and other key collaborators; documentary from 1985 about producer Serge Silberman, who worked with Buñuel on five of his final seven films; "Analysis of The Phantom of Liberty" from 2017 by film scholar Peter William Evans; "Lady Doubles," a 2017 documentary featuring actors Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina, who share the role of Conchita in "That Obscure Object of Desire"; "Portrait of an Impatient Filmmaker, Luis Buñuel," a 2012 short documentary featuring director of photography Edmond Richard and assistant director Pierre Lary; excerpts from Jacques de Baroncelli's 1929 silent film "La femme et le pantin," an adaptation of Pierre Louÿs's 1898 novel of the same name, on which "That Obscure Object of Desire" is also based; alternate English-dubbed soundtrack for "That Obscure Object of Desire"; trailers; essays by critic Adrian Martin and novelist and critic Gary Indiana, along with interviews with Buñuel by critics José de la Colina and Tomás Pérez Turrent. (The Criterion Collection).


    January 26
  • photo for The Court Jester 65th Anniversary Edition BLU-RAY DEBUT

    The Court Jester 65th Anniversary Edition

    (1956) The outrageous comedy was originally shot in Paramount's trademark "VistaVision" widescreen format, capturing a grander scope of information on the film negative. For this new restoration, the original negative was scanned at 6K and one of the "separation masters" was also scanned and recombined with the negative scans to address color fading in the negative. The result is an incredibly vibrant picture that faithfully captures the colors and textures of Edith Head's sensational costumes and Hal Pariera's sparkling art direction. Danny Kaye earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor - Comedy or Musical for his leading role in this comic farce, which was added to the National Film Registry in 2004 and included on the AFI's list of the 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time. The limited-edition Paramount Presents Blu-ray is presented in collectible packaging that includes a foldout image of the film's theatrical poster, and an interior spread with key movie moments. Danny Kaye is the kind-hearted entertainer Hawkins who disguises himself as the legendary king of court jesters, Giacomo, to help a Robin-Hood-like The Fox unseat an evil ruler who has overthrown the rightful King. Hawkins infiltrates the usurper's court, headed up by an evil villain (Basil Rathbone), but when a sorceress hypnotizes him, royal chaos ensues. Alternating identities at the snap of a finger, between swordplay and wordplay, Kaye's comic genius shines through. The stellar supporting cast includes Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, Mildred Natwick, Cecil Parker, and John Carradine. Formats: Blu-ray, Digital copy. Extras: "Filmmaker Focus" with film historian Leonard Maltin, theatrical trailer. (Paramount Presents).


    February 9
  • Elizabethtown

    (2005) Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel. The limited-edition Paramount Presents Blu-ray Disc includes the film newly remastered from a 4K transfer supervised by Cameron Crowe. The disc is presented in collectible packaging that includes a foldout image of the film's theatrical poster, and an interior spread with key movie moments. A heartfelt romance set against a fantastic rock 'n' roll soundtrack. Hot-shot designer Drew Baylor's (Bloom) life becomes completely unraveled when he loses his father and his job on one fateful day. En route to Elizabethtown to visit his family, Drew meets Claire (Dunst). She's beautiful, unstoppably positive, and just the gal to guide Drew on his journey back home and to teach him what it means to live and love along the way. Extras: New "Filmmaker Focus" with Crowe, never-before-seen deleted scenes, an alternate ending with an introduction by Crowe, deleted and extended scenes with an introduction by Crowe, "On the Road to Elizabethtown," "The Music of Elizabethtown," "Meet the Crew" featurette, "Training Wheels" featurette, photo gallery, more. (Paramount Presents).

    photo for The Parallax View

  • The Parallax View

    (1974) Perhaps no director tapped into the pervasive sense of dread and mistrust that defined the 1970s more effectively than Alan J. Pakula, who, in the second installment of his celebrated Paranoia Trilogy (after "Klute," 1971 and before "All the President's Men, 1976), offers a chilling vision of America in the wake of the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. and about to be shocked by Watergate. Three years after witnessing the murder of a leading senator atop Seattle's Space Needle, reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) begins digging into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the killing - and stumbles into a labyrinthine conspiracy far more sinister than he could have imagined. "The Parallax View's" coolly stylized, shadow-etched compositions by acclaimed cinematographer Gordon Willis give visual expression to a mood that begins as an anxious whisper and ends as a scream into the void. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New introduction by filmmaker Alex Cox; interviews with director Alan J. Pakula from 1974 and 1995; new program on cinematographer Gordon Willis featuring an interview with Willis from 2004; new interview with Jon Boorstin, assistant to Pakula on "The Parallax View"; an essay by critic Nathan Heller and a 1974 interview with Pakula. (The Criterion Collection).


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    March 16
  • photo for Céline and Julie Go Boating

    Céline and Julie Go Boating

    (1974) Whiling away a summer in Paris, director Jacques Rivette, working in close collaboration with his stars and co-conspirators Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier, set out to rewrite the rules of cinema in the spirit of pure play-moviemaking as an anything-goes romp through the labyrinths of imagination. The result is one of the most exuberantly inventive and utterly enchanting films of the French New Wave, in which Julie (Labourier), a daydreaming librarian, meets Céline (Berto), an enigmatic magician, and together they become the heroines of a time-warping adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder-mystery melodrama. Incorporating allusions to everything from Lewis Carroll to Louis Feuillade, "Céline and Julie Go Boating" is both one of the all-time-great hangout comedies and a totally unique, enveloping cinematic dream space that delights in the endless pleasures and possibilities of stories. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2017 featuring critic Adrian Martin; "Jacques Rivette: Le veilleur," a 1994 two-part feature documentary by Claire Denis, featuring an extensive interview with Rivette by film critic Serge Daney; new interviews with actor Bulle Ogier and producer and actor Barbet Schroeder; new conversation between critic Pacôme Thiellement and Hélène Frappat, author of "Jacques Rivette, secret compris"; archival interviews with Rivette, Ogier, and actors Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, and Marie-France Pisier; an essay by critic Beatrice Loayza and a 1974 piece by Berto. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 23
  • photo for World of Wong Kar Wai

    World of Wong Kar Wai

    With his lush and sensual visuals, pitch-perfect soundtracks, and soulful romanticism, Wong Kar Wai has established himself as one of the defining auteurs of contemporary cinema. Joined by such key collaborators as cinematographer Christopher Doyle; editor and production and costume designer William Chang Suk Ping; and actors Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Wong (or WKW, as he is often known) has written and directed films that have enraptured audiences and critics worldwide and inspired countless other filmmakers with their poetic moods and music, narrative and stylistic daring, and potent themes of alienation and memory. Whether they're tragically romantic, soaked in blood, or quirkily comedic, the seven films collected here are an invitation into the unique and wistful world of a deeply influential artist. Seven Blu-ray Special Edition Collector's Set features new 4K digital restorations of "As Tears Go By" (1998) and "Days of Being Wild" (1990) with uncompressed monaural soundtracks, and 4K digital restorations of "Chungking Express" (1994), "Fallen Angels" (1995), "Happy Together" (1997), "In the Mood for Love" (2000) and "2046" (2004), approved by director Wong Kar Wai, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. Extras: New program in which Wong answers questions submitted, at the invitation of the director, by authors André Aciman and Jonathan Lethem, filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Rian Johnson, Lisa Joy, and Chloé Zhao, cinematographers Philippe Le Sourd and Bradford Young, and filmmakers and founders/creative directors of Rodarte Kate and Laura Mulleavy; alternate version of "Days of Being Wild" featuring different edits of the film's prologue and final scenes, on home video for the first time; "Hua yang de nian hua," a 2000 short film by Wong; extended version of "The Hand," a 2004 short film by Wong, available in the U.S. for the first time; interview and "cinema lesson" with Wong from the 2001 Cannes Film Festival; three making-of documentaries, featuring interviews with Wong, actors Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Chang Chen, Faye Wong, and Ziyi Zhang, and others; episode of the television series "Moving Pictures" from 1996 featuring Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle; interviews from 2002 and 2005 with Doyle; excerpts from a 1994 British Film Institute audio interview with Cheung on her work in "Days of Being Wild"; program from 2012 on "In the Mood for Love's" soundtrack; press conference for "In the Mood for Love" from the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival; deleted scenes, alternate endings, behind-the-scenes footage, a promo reel, music videos, and trailers; deluxe packaging, including a perfect-bound, French-fold book featuring lavish photography, an essay by critic John Powers, a director's note, and six collectible art prints. Read more on each film here. (The Criterion Collection).


    March 30
  • photo for Defending Your Life

    Defending Your Life

    (1991) Is there love after death? Acerbic everyman Albert Brooks finds a perfect balance between satirical bite and romantic-comedy charm as the writer, director, and star of this wonderfully warm and imaginative existential fantasy. After he dies suddenly, the hapless advertising executive Daniel Miller (Brooks) finds himself in Judgment City, a gleaming way station where the newly deceased must prove they lived a life of sufficient courage to advance in their journey through the universe. As the self-doubting Daniel struggles to make his case, a budding relationship with the uninhibited Julia (Meryl Streep) offers him a chance to finally feel alive. Buoyed by a brilliant supporting cast that includes Rip Torn, Lee Grant, and Buck Henry, "Defending Your Life" is a rare feat of personal, philosophical filmmaking that happens to also be divinely entertaining. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Albert Brooks, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New conversation between Brooks and filmmaker Robert Weide; new interview on the afterlife with theologian and critic Donna Bowman; new program featuring excerpts from 1991 interviews with Brooks and actors Lee Grant and Rip Torn; trailer; an essay by filmmaker Ari Aster. (The Criterion Collection).

  • The Greatest Show On Earth

    (1952) Cecil B. DeMille's Academy Award-winning film captures the thrills, chills and exhilaration of the circus. Featuring three intertwining plotlines filled with romance and rivalry, the film includes spectacular action sequences, including a show-stopping train wreck, and boasts a sensational cast, including Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame, and James Stewart. Newly restored from a 4K scan of the original negative, in collectible packaging with a foldout image of the film's theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments. Extras: New Filmmaker Focus with film historian Leonard Maltin, exploring the making of the film and its reception; Digital copy of the film. (Paramount).

  • photo for Secrets & Lies

    Secrets & Lies

    (1996) Writer-director Mike Leigh reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy in his ongoing contemplation of unembellished humanity with this resonant exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships to those we love. When Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her birth mother, she doesn't expect that it will lead her to Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a desperately lonely white factory worker whose tentative embrace of her long-lost daughter sends shock waves through the rest of her already fragile family. Born from a painstaking process of rehearsal and improvisation with a powerhouse ensemble cast, "Secrets & Lies" is a Palme d'Or-winning tour de force of sustained tension and catharsis that lays bare the emotional fault lines running beneath the surface of everyday lives. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Mike Leigh and director of photography Dick Pope, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New conversation with Leigh and composer Gary Yershon; new interview with actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste; audio interview with Leigh from 1996 conducted by film critic Michel Ciment; trailer. (The Criterion Collection).


    April 6
  • photo for Death Has Blue Eyes

    Death Has Blue Eyes

    (1976 -- Greece) A gripping paranormal action thriller with shades of giallo from the director of the cult classic video nasty "Island of Death" (1976). When local gigolo Chess (Chris Nomikos) greets his vacationing friend Bob Kovalski (Peter Winter) at Athens airport, the pair embark on a string of scams and erotic dalliances that eventually lead them into contact with an elegant wealthy woman, Geraldine Steinwetz (Jessica Dublin), and her glamorous daughter Christine (Maria Aliferi). Geraldine blackmails the two cheeky bachelor boys into acting as bodyguards for Christine, whom it transpires has telepathic abilities and has had her eye on them for some time. After fleeing from a series of assassination attempts, it soon becomes clear that Geraldine herself might not be quite whom she seems, as the two young men find themselves caught up in a political conspiracy of international dimensions. In his debut feature, maverick filmmaker Nico Mastorakis presents us with a generous meze of non-stop car, bike and helicopter chases, a bevy of beautiful girls with guns, sensational softcore sex scenes, psychic thrills and Cold War political intrigue set against the picturesque landscapes of 70s Greece, all presented for the very first time in a new HD master in both widescreen and full-frame versions, from the original camera negative approved by the director. Two versions of the film: the widescreen 1.85:1 version and the full-frame 1.33:1 version. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New interview featurette with Nico Mastorakis; new interview with actress Maria Aliferi; "Dancing with Death" tracks from the original soundtrack; original theatrical trailers; image gallery; reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Julian Grainger. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).


    April 13
  • Broadway Melody of 1940

    (1940) The job - a career breakthrough - is supposed to go to hoofer Johnny Brett, but a mix-up in names gives it to his partner. Another example of Broadway hopes dashed? Not when Johnny is played by Fred Astaire. Sparkling Cole Porter songs, clever comedy and dance legends Astaire and Eleanor Powell make the final" Broadway Melody" (co-starring George Murphy) a film to remember. Powell's nautical "All Ashore" routine (a/k/a I Am the Captain"), Astaire's blissful "I've Got My Eyes on You" and Fred & Eleanor's elaborate routine to Cole Porter's classic "I Concentrate On You" are more than enough to please any fan. But they're just a warm-up for the leads to tap one finale number into immortality: "Begin the Beguine," introduced by Frank Sinatra in "That's Entertainment!" with, "You can wait around and hope, but you'll never see the likes of this again." Extras: Making-of featurette: "Begin the Beguine" (hosted by Ann Miller); "Our Gang Comedies: The Big Premiere"; MGM Cartoon: "The Milky Way." (Warner Archive).

  • Doctor X

    (1932) Is there a (mad) doctor in the house? "Yes!" shrieks Doctor X, filmed in rare two-strip Technicolor. An eminent scientist aims to solve a murder spree by re-creating the crimes in a lab filled with all the dials, gizmos, bubbling beakers and crackling electrostatic charges essential to the genre. Lionel Atwill is Doctor Xavier, pre-King Kong scream queen Fay Wray is a distressed damsel and Lee Tracy snaps newshound patter, all under the direction of renowned Michael Curtiz. The new two-color Technicolor master was restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive and The Film Foundation in association with Warner Bros. Entertainment, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Foundation. Also includes the separately filmed B&W version (which has been restored from its original nitrate camera negative) originally intended for small U.S. markets and international distribution, and which has been out of distribution for over 30 years. Extras: "DOCTOR X": UCLA Before & After Restoration featurette; new documentary: "Monsters and Mayhem: The Horror Films of Michael Curtiz"; new feature commentary by author/film historian Alan K. Rode; archival feature commentary by Scott MacQueen, head of preservation, UCLA Film and Television Archive. (Warner Archive).

  • Green Dolphin Street

    (1947) The Academy Award winner about star-crossed love that spans the years - and the globe. After her triumph as the lunchroom temptress in the crime classic "The Postman Always Rings Twice," Lana Turner expanded her range with "Green Dolphin Street." Set in 19th century Europe and New Zealand, this sweeping romance tells the story of two beautiful sisters, one headstrong (Turner) and one gentle (Donna Reed), and of the man (Richard Hart) who marries one even though he loves the other. The film's riptides of emotion are matched by breathtaking physical tumult: a fierce Maori uprising plus a catastrophic earthquake and tidal wave that earned the film a 1947 Oscar for special effects. With its dramatic story and spectacular visuals, "Green Dolphin Street" drew huge audiences for epic moviemaking, being one of the top-ten box office hits of the year. (Warner Archives).

  • photo for History Is Made at Night

    History Is Made At Night

    (1937) Suffused with intoxicating romanticism, "History Is Made at Night" is a sublime paean to love from Frank Borzage, classic Hollywood's supreme poet of carnal and spiritual desire. On the run through Europe from her wealthy, cruelly possessive husband, an American (Jean Arthur) is thrown together by fate with a suave stranger (Charles Boyer) -- and soon the two are bound in a consuming, seemingly impossible affair that stretches across continents and brings them to the very edge of catastrophe. Lent a palpable erotic charge by the chemistry between its leads, this delirious vision of lovers beset by the world passes through a dizzying array of tonal shifts -- from melodrama to romantic comedy to noir to disaster thriller -- smoothly guided by Borzage's unwavering allegiance to the power of love. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New conversation between author Hervé Dumont ("Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic") and film historian Peter Cowie; interview from 2019 with critic Farran Smith Nehme about director Frank Borzage's obsession with romantic love; audio excerpts of a 1958 interview with Borzage from the collection of the George Eastman Museum; radio adaptation of the film from 1940, broadcast by The Screen Guild Theater and starring Charles Boyer; new program about the restoration; an essay by critic Dan Callahan. (The Criterion Collection).


    April 20
  • photo for Annie Get Your Gun

    Annie Get Your Gun

    (1950) Betty Hutton (as Annie Oakley) and Howard Keel (as Frank Butler) star in this sharpshootin' funfest based on the 1,147-performance Broadway smash boasting Irving Berlin's beloved score, including "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," "I Got the Sun in the Morning" and the anthemic "There's No Business Like Show Business." As produced by Arthur Freed, directed by George Sidney, and seen and heard in this new remastered HD presentation, this lavish, spirited production showcases songs and performances with bull's-eye precision, earning an Oscar for adaptation scoring. The story is a brawling boy-meets-girl-meets-buckshot rivalry. But love finally triumphs when Annie proves that, yes, you can get a man with a gun! Extras: Susan Lucci retrospective and intro piece (from 2000 DVD release); outtakes: "Let's Go West Again" - Betty Hutton, "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly" - Judy Garland, "I'm an Indian, Too" - Judy Garland, "Colonel Buffalo Bill" with Howard Keel and Frank Morgan; stereo audio pre-recording session tracks including "There's No Business Like Show Business" featuring Judy Garland; theatrical re-issue trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for The Furies BLU-RAY DEBUT

    The Furies

    (1950) Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston are at their fierce finest in this crackling western melodrama by master Hollywood craftsman Anthony Mann. In 1870s New Mexico Territory, megalomaniacal widowed ranch owner T. C. Jeffords (Huston, in his final role) butts heads with his firebrand of a daughter, Vance (Stanwyck), over her dowry, choice of husband, and, finally, ownership of the land itself. Sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama, The Furies is an often-overlooked treasure of American filmmaking, boasting Oscar-nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson, Wendell Corey, and Gilbert Roland. With high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film historian Jim Kitses; new program featuring critic Imogen Sara Smith; "The Movies: Action Speaks Louder Than Words," a 1967 television interview with director Anthony Mann; rare on-camera interview with actor Walter Huston, made for the movie-theater series "Intimate Interviews" in 1931; interview from 2008 with Nina Mann, the director's daughter; trailer; an essay by critic Robin Wood and a 1957 "Cahiers du cinéma" interview with Mann, as well as a new printing of the 1948 novel by Niven Busch on which the film is based. (The Criterion Collection).

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    Switchblde Sisters

    (1975) From Jack Hill, legendary director of "Spider Baby," "Coffy," "Foxy Brown," and "The Swinging Cheerleaders" comes another iconic cult classic. Lace (Robbie Lee), the leader of inner city girl gang The Dagger Debs, meets her match when new girl Maggie (Joanne Nail) moves into the neighborhood. Mistrust and conflict turn to friendship as the girls end up in Juvenile Detention together at the mercy of abusive guards. Meanwhile, The Dagger Debs' male counterparts, The Silver Daggers, have to contend with the arrival of a new gang, led by the villainous Crabs (Chase Newhart). But when the girls get back on the streets, a planned retaliation strike in tandem with The Silver Daggers backfires and puts Lace in hospital. Maggie assumes control, teaming up with Muff (Marlene Clark) and her gang of African-American militants from across town to declare all out war. But there's a traitor in their midst. Filled with sharp, clever dialogue and tongue in cheek humor, this Shakespeare-influenced girl gang/women in prison/action movie medley is a stone cold grindhouse classic. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary by historians/critics Samm Deighan & Kat Ellinger; "We Are The Jezebels," an archival documentary featuring director Jack Hill, producer John Prizer, casting director Geno Havans, production designer B.B. Neel, stunt coordinator Bob Minor, and stars Joanne Nail, Asher Brauner, and Chase Newhart; "Gangland: The Locations of Switchblade Sisters," an archival documentary in which Hill and filmmaker Elijah Drenner revisit the shooting locations; Hill and Joanne Nail at the Grindhouse Film Festival, a 2007 archival interview with the director and actor; interview with Hill, Robbie Lee, Nail, an archival 1990's interview with the director and stars in conversation with Johnny Legend; galleries of behind the scenes stills, international posters, video covers, and lobby cards; theatrical trailers; reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Heather Drain. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).


    April 27
  • Another Thin Man

    (1939) Dum-Dum, Wacky, Creeps, Fingers: They're just a few of the hoodlums in the world of amateur sleuths and professional bon vivants Nick and Nora Charles. And now there's a new hood: parenthood. A birthday - make that boithday - party that some of da boys hold for infant Nick Jr. is part of the fun in this third film in the witty series. The case begins when the Charles family arrives for a weekend with a Long Island industrialist who fears someone wants to kill him. Sure enough, his fears come true. Nick (William Powell) is among the suspects. Asta scrams with what may be the murder weapon. And Nora (Myrna Loy) has her own ideas about the case and sneaks off to a nightclub to ferret out a clue. "Madam, how long have you been leading this double life?" Nick asks. "Just since we've been married," she replies. Extras: MGM musical short: "Love on Tap"; classic MGM cartoon: "The Bookworm." (Warner Archive).

  • Each Dawn I Die

    (1939) Framed for manslaughter after he breaks a story about city corruption, reporter Frank Ross is sure he'll prove his innocence and walk out of prison a free man. But that's not how the system works at Rocky Point Penitentiary. There, cellblock guards are vicious, the jute-mill labor is endless, and the powers Ross fought on the outside conspire to keep him in. Frank's hope is turned to hopelessness. And he's starting to crack. Two of the screen's famed tough guys star in this prison movie that casts a reform-minded eye on the brutalizing effects of life in the slammer. James Cagney as Ross, the embittered, stir-crazy fall guy and George Raft (Cagney's friend since their vaudeville days) portrays racketeer Hood Stacey, who may hold the key to springing Ross. Extras: Warner Night at the Movies including 1939 Short Subjects Gallery: vintage newsreel, WB Technicolor short: "A Day at Santa Anita", WB cartoon: "Detouring America"; retrospective featurette: "Stool Pigeons and Pine Overcoats: The Language of Gangster Films"; feature commentary by film historian Haden Guest; "Breakdowns of 1939: Studio Blooper Reel"; WB cartoon: "Each Dawn I Crow"; radio show w/George Raft & Franchot Tone; trailer for "Wings of the Navy" and original theatrical trailer for "Each Dawn I Die." (Warner Archive).

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    Irma Vep

    (1996 -- France) The live-wire international breakthrough of Olivier Assayas stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action-movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade's classic silent crime serial "Les vampires." What she finds is a behind-the-scenes tangle of barely controlled chaos as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director (a cannily cast Jean-Pierre Léaud) drives himself to the brink to realize his vision. Blending blasts of silent cinema, martial-arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Luna into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Assayas composes a witty critique of the nineties French film industry and the eternal tension between art and commercial entertainment. With New 2K digital restoration from the original camera negative, approved by director Olivier Assayas, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New interview with Assayas; "On the Set of Irma Vep," a behind-the-scenes featurette; interview from 2003 with Assayas and critic Charles Tesson; interview from 2003 with actors Maggie Cheung and Nathalie Richard; "Musidora, the Tenth Muse" (2013), a documentary on the actor who originated the role of "Irma Vep"; "Les vampires: Hypnotic Eyes" (1916), the sixth episode in Louis Feuillade's silent-film serial; "Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung," a 1997 short film by Assayas; black-and-white rushes for the film; an essay by critic Aliza Ma. (The Criterion Collection).

  • photo for Masculin féminin BLU-RAY DEBUT

    Masculin féminin

    (1966 -- France) With "Masculin féminin," the ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard introduces the world to "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola," through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and one another. French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud stars as Paul, an idealistic would-be intellectual struggling to forge a relationship with the adorable pop star Madeleine (real-life yé-yé girl Chantal Goya). Through their tempestuous affair, Godard fashions a candid and wildly funny free-form examination of youth culture in pulsating 1960s Paris, mixing satire and tragedy as only Godard can. With new 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Willy Kurant, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Interview from 1966 with actor Chantal Goya; interviews from 2004 and 2005 with Goya, Kurant, and Jean-Luc Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin; discussion of the film from 2004 between film critics Freddy Buache and Dominique Païni; footage from Swedish television of Godard directing the "film within the film" scene; trailers; an essay by film critic Adrian Martin and a reprint of a report from the set by French journalist Philippe Labro. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Quick Change

    (1990) The star of "Caddyshack," "Ghostbusters" and "Groundhog Day" headlines and co-directs this Big Apple heist-and-pursuit caper. Bill Murray plays Grimm, a frazzled urbanite who disguises himself as a clown - and sets out to rob a bank. Geena Davis and Randy Quaid play accomplices in Grimm's daring scheme and Jason Robards is the blustery cop caught up in Grimm's "Clown Day Afternoon." Swiping a million bucks is a snap compared to getting out of town. Grimm and cohorts commandeer a car, a cab, a bus, a baggage tram and a plane (and encounter future stars Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub in supporting roles) to make what becomes a less-than-merry escape. (Warner Archive).

  • Wanted for Murder/ Cast a Dark Shadow

    Death and seduction are the themes of these newly-restored thrillers from the golden age of British noir. "In Cast a Dark Shadow" (1955), Dirk Bogarde stars as “Teddy” Bare, a smooth-talking cad who maintains a life of leisure by preying on a series of lonely, wealthy women. But the headstrong sister (Kay Walsh) of one of his late wives is determined to bring Teddy’s killing streak to an end. In "Wanted for Murder" (1946), the polished exterior of a refined gentleman (Eric Portman) conceals the heart of a strangler. A young record shop clerk (Dulcie Gray) holds the key to his capture, which puts her at the head of the queue to become his next victim. Formats: Blu-ray. (Cohen Film Collection).


    May 11
  • Horizons West

    (1952) From Budd Boetticher, the outstanding director of "Red Ball Express," "Wings of the Hawk," and "Ride Lonesome," comes this classic Western starring screen legends Robert Ryan and Rock Hudson. Post-Civil War Texas hosts a classic tale of brother against brother. After returning from the war, Dan Hammond (Ryan) sees his high hopes fall apart under the pressure of gambling debts. He turns to a life of crime, pitting him against his younger brother Neil (Hudson), the new local marshal. The stupendous cast also includes Julie Adam, Raymond Burr, John McIntire, James Arness, Dennis Weaver and Judith Braun. Extras: New audio commentary by film historian Toby Roan, theatrical trailer. (Kino Lorner Studio Classics).

  • King Kong (1976)

    (1976) The sweeping 70s remake of the classic tale comes home in a two-disc collector’s edition set including both the theatrical cut with a new restored theatrical stereo track and an extended TV broadcast cut with a new 2k scan of the additional TV footage from the internegative. The Petrox company’s search for new oil reserves on a strange island unleashes a terror unseen by civilized man -- King Kong. The timeless story of a “beauty” (Jessica Lange) and a “beast” comes to the screen in this ambitious production from Dino De Laurentiis. Charles Grodin is the scheming oil company shark out to exploit the giant beast to his fullest. And Jeff Bridges is the desperate hero, Jack Prescott, who attempts to wrest the beautiful heroine from King Kong’s grasp. New York City trembles with each echoing footstep of the towering ape set loose in the streets. Extras: Disc 1: New audio commentary with film historian Ray Morton (author of "King Kong – The History of a Movie Icon"); new audio interview with special makeup effects wizard Rick Baker; new "Something’s Haywire" interview with actor Jack O’Halloran; new "On the Top of the World" interview with assistant director David McGiffert and production manager Brian Frankish; new "Maybe in Their Wildest Dreams" interview with sculptor Jack Varner; new "There’s a Fog Bank Out There" interview with second unit director William Kronick; new "From Space to Apes" interview with photographic effects assistant Barry Nolan; new "When the Monkey Dies, Everybody Cries" interview with production assistants Jeffrey Chernov and Scott Thaler; theatrical trailer TV spots; radio spots; still galleries; posters; lobby cards; behind-the-scenes photos. Disc 2: Extended TV broadcast cut; new 2K scan of the additional TV footage from the internegative; King Kong panel discussion from the Aero Theater (2016). (Scream Factory).

  • They Won't Believe

    (1947) Robert Young stars in this absorbing film noir melodrama. The original RKO publicity tells the story: “When a man goes to the devil he usually takes a woman with him...this man took THREE!” Young plays a dirty rotten scoundrel who sponges off his wealthy wife (Rita Johnson), seduces and abandons another woman (Jane Greer) and runs off with a third (Susan Hayward). Returning home, Young plots to murder his wife and get away with her money, but a series of ironic plot twists leaves him battling for his life. The role of faithless cad was a startling change of pace for Young, and he pulls it off brilliantly. Irving Pichel directed Jonathan Latimer’s uncompromising script. 1080p HD Master sourced from 4k scan of Nitrate Preservation elements of original 95 minute release version. (Warner Archive).


    May 18
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    It Happened Tomorrow

    (1944 Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie, Edgar Kennedy. What would happen if someone could get tomorrow’s newspaper headlines today? This charming period comedy tells the story of a reporter (Powell) who wishes he could scoop his colleagues by knowing about events before they occur. When a mysterious old man gives him the news a day in advance, his life is turned upside down. Racing to prevent a headline predicting his own death, he gets mixed up with a beautiful fortune teller (Darnell) and her overprotective uncle (Oakie). "It Happened Tomorrow" was acclaimed French director René Clair’s ("Beauty of the Devil") follow up to his equally enchanting "I Married a Witch," both made during his exile in Hollywood during World War II. Clair’s famous whimsical style is evident in this cautionary tale; be careful -- what you wish for might come true. This sparkling black and white film was restored from a 4K scan. (Cohen Film Collection).

  • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse

    (1948) New York adman Jim Blandings is ready to say goodbye to his cramped city apartment and build, from the ground up, a Connecticut home with room enough for his growing family and dreams. All it will cost him is his time and money…and perhaps his job, marriage, happiness and what’s left of his sanity. Goodbye, Manhattan. Hello, comedy. As Jim, Cary Grant is a flustered poster boy for homeowner anxiety in this gleeful laughfest. Myrna Loy, her voice and line phrasing like musical chimes, plays Jim’s ever-patient wife. Louise Beavers is the sunny housemaid whose enthusiasm for Wham Ham saves Jim’s career bacon. And Melvyn Douglas is the perhaps-too-friendly family friend. “Drop in and see us sometime,” Jim says. Invitation accepted! 1080p HD Master sourced from 4k scan of original nitrate camera negative. (Warner Archive).

  • The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex

    (1939) Bette Davis and Errol Flynn made "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" fascinatingly public, striking sparks in this lavish Technicolor tale of the ill-fated love between the aging Elizabeth I and the dashing Earl of Essex. Thoroughly unglamorous here -- eyes and hairline shaved, face painted chalky white -- double Academy Award winner Davis exudes such intelligence, energy and ardor that her romance with the decades-younger Essex (Flynn at the peak of his remarkable good looks and athletic verve) is completely believable. Based on Maxwell Anderson’s play "Elizabeth the Queen" and directed by Michael Curtiz, this nominee for five Oscars takes liberties with historical accuracy, but none with dramatic impact. Long may these tempestuous, titled lovers reign! 1080p HD Master sourced from 4k scan of original Technicolor negatives. Extras: Featurette "Elizabeth and Essex: Battle Royale." (Warner Archive).


    May 25
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    Explorers [Collector's Edition]

    (1985) River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, Jason Presson. The visionary dreams of three curious and adventuresome young boys become an exciting reality in this action-fantasy from director Joe Dante ("Gremlins"), who combines keen humor, warmth and fantasy with unexpected twists. In their makeshift laboratory, the boys use an amazing discovery and their ingenuity to build their own spaceship and launch themselves on a fantastic interplanetary journey. Includes the home video and theatrical cuts of the film. Extras: New "A Science Fiction Fairy Tale: The Story Of Explorers" Featuring new interviews with director Joe Dante, screenwriter Eric Luke, star Ethan Hawke, more; new deleted scenes with optional commentary by Joe Dante; NEW Interviews With Cinematographer John Hora and editor Tina Hirsch; theatrical trailer. (Shout! Select).

  • The Tender Trap

    (1955) Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds star as a pair of romantic opposites in this romance classic. Fun-loving, free-spirited Manhattan talent agent and playboy Charlie Reader (Sinatra) is happy playing the field when he becomes the target of the far more formidable Julie Gillis (Reynolds) who is on a one-woman mission of matrimony. She has her life mapped out in details that fall just shy of where the wedding portrait will hang and the number of goldfish swimming in the bowl. Julie even knows she’ll be married next March 12. She just doesn’t know to whom. But it’s a cinch he’ll have blue eyes. 16x9 Letterbox. 1080p HD Master sourced from 4k scan of original camera negative. Extras: "Frank in the Fifties" featurette; excerpt from The MGM Parade (Ep. 7) featuring Debbie Reynolds; excerpt from The MGM Parade (Ep. 8) featuring Debbie Reynolds; theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).




    June 1
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    Mommie Dearest

    (1981) Based on Christina Crawford’s controversial best-selling tell-all novel, "Mommmie Dearest" features a powerhouse performance by Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford, struggling for her career while battling the inner demons of her private life. While the public Crawford was a strong-willed, glamorous object of admiration, behind the scenes is a private Crawford -- the woman desperate to be a single mother and trying to survive in a devastating industry that swallows careers thoughtlessly. Newly restored from a 4K film transfer, "Mommie Dearest" is presented in a limited-edition Blu-ray Disc with collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of the film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments and access to a Digital copy of the film. Extras: New commentary by American drag queen Hedda Lettuce; new "Filmmaker Focus" with biographer Justin Bozung on director Frank Perry; commentary by filmmaker John Waters; "The Revival of Joan"; "Life With Joan"; "Joan Lives On"; photo gallery; original theatrical trailer. (Paramount Presents).


    June 8
  • Center Stage

    (1991 -- Hong Kong) Maggie Cheung embodies tragic silent screen siren Ruan Lingyu, known as the "Greta Garbo of China," in this unconventional biopic by Hong Kong New Wave master Stanley Kwan. Praised for her moving and emotive onscreen presence, Ruan’s private life, which was frequent fodder for the vicious Shanghai tabloids, began to mirror the melodramas which brought her fame, culminating in her suicide at age 24. Kwan and Cheung paint a kaleidoscopic yet intimate portrait of the ill-fated actress, deftly blending lush period drama, archival footage, and metatextual documentary sequences of Cheung reflecting on Ruan’s lasting legacy. Digitally restored in 4K from the original negative. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. Extras: New introduction by Stanley Kwan, interview with Stanley Kwan, interview with Hong Kong cinema expert Paul Fonoroff (Blu-ray only), 16-page booklet with a new essay by Aliza Ma, head of programming at Metrograph. (Film Movement Classics).

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    The Human Condition

    (1959-61) This mammoth humanist drama by Masaki Kobayashi is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. Originally filmed and released in three installments of two parts each, the nine-and-a-half-hour "The Human Condition," adapted from Junpei Gomikawa's six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji -- played by the Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai -- from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet prisoner of war. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals to be an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of Japan's wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi's riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best. Formats: Three-disc Blu-ray set, with high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural (Parts 1-4) and 4.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio (Parts 5 and 6) soundtracks. Extras: Excerpt from a 1993 Directors Guild of Japan interview with director Masaki Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda; interview from 2009 with actor Tatsuya Nakadai; "Appreciation of Kobayashi and The Human Condition" from 2009 featuring Shinoda; trailers; an essay by critic Philip Kemp. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Le Magnifique – aka The Man from Acapulco

    (1981 -- France) Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jacqueline Bisset, Vittorio Caprioli, Hans Meyer, Monique Tarbes, Jean Lefebvre. Screen greats Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jacqueline Bisset star in the uproarious spy comedy. Belmondo plays Francois, a reclusive novelist whose wild imagination gets the best of him in this delightful blend of fantasy and adventure. Becoming the lead character from his own book, the dashing spy-hero Bob Saint-Clair, Francois is hysterically thrown into the middle of his latest espionage case, “How to Destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret Agent.” Only with the help of Francois’ beautiful and enticing neighbor (Bisset aptly filling the role of his seductive assistant, Tatiana) can the author save the world from his editor, who has been transformed into dastardly secret agent Karloff. Together, the duo gets caught in a whirlwind of chases, betrayals, confrontations and mutual attraction. Long before Austin Powers, this cleverly written French comedy outrageously portrays the spy game like it’s never been seen before. Co-written and directed by Philippe de Broca ("That Man from Rio") and beautifully shot by René Mathelin. Extras: New audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson; theatrical trailer. (KL Studio Classics).


    June 15
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    Last Train From Gun Hill

    (1959) A gripping Western from director John Sturges -- one of the greatest filmmakers of the genre -- "Last Train From Gun Hill" follows U.S. Marshal Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas) on the trail of his wife’s killer. Adding a dark twist to the tale, the suspect's father is Morgan's longtime friend, cattle baron Craig Beldon (Anthony Quinn). Morgan is determined to capture the killer and take him away by the 9:00 train, against all odds. Remastered from a 6K film transfer of the original VistaVision negative for exceptional picture quality. The limited-edition Blu-ray Disc includes a new "Filmmaker Focus" with film historian Leonard Maltin, access to a digital copy of the film, as well as original theatrical trailers for "Last Train from Gun Hill," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," "The Furies," and "The Black Orchid." The Blu-ray comes in collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of the film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments. (Paramount Presents).

  • photo for Streetwise/Tiny: The Life Of Erin Blackwell

    Streetwise/Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell

    (1984/2016) In 1983, director Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall set out to tell the stories of homeless and runaway teenagers living on the margins in Seattle. "Streetwise" follows an unforgettable group of kids who survive by hustling, panhandling, and dumpster diving. Its most haunting and enduring figure is iron-willed 14-year-old Erin Blackwell, a.k.a. Tiny; the project's follow-up, "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell," completed 30 years later, draws on the filmmakers' long relationship with their subject, now a mother of 10. Blackwell reflects with Mark on the journey they've experienced together, from Blackwell's battles with addiction to her regrets to her dreams for her children, even as she sees them repeat her own struggles. Taken together, the two films create a devastatingly frank, empathetic portrait of lost youth growing up far too soon in a world that has failed them, and of a family trying to break free of the cycle of trauma -- as well as a summation of the life's work of Mark, an irreplaceable artistic voice. With new, restored high-definition digital transfers of both films, supervised by director Martin Bell, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack for the "Streetwise" Blu-ray and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack for the "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell." Extras: New audio commentary on "Streetwise" featuring Bell; new interview with Bell about photographer Mary Ellen Mark; new interview with Streetwise editor Nancy Baker; four short films by Bell; trailer; an essay by historian Andrew Hedden; journalist Cheryl McCall's 1983 Life magazine article about teenagers living on the street in Seattle; and reflections on Blackwell written by Mark in 2015. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Ziegfeld Follies

    (1945) Following in the footsteps of dearly departed showman extraordinaire Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Ziegfeld Follies is a who’s who of Golden Age Hollywood talent. This all-star revue is heaven to fans of musicals. Fred Astaire dazzles in four numbers, with Gene Kelly joining him in their first-ever screen pairing. Red Skelton reprises his funny Guzzler’s Gin skit. Esther Williams swims, Lena Horne sings, and Judy Garland spoofs snobbery. There’s Verdi opera and Fanny Brice vaudeville. Patter and pantomime. What a show! (Warner Archive).


    June 22
  • Chain Lightning

    (1950) Matt Brennan (Humphrey Bogart) plans to show the potential of the JA-3, an experimental jet – by flying it from Nome over the North Pole and into the Pentagon’s lap in Washington, D.C. The JA-3 has never been tested at this range and can’t provide enough pressurization at 80,000 feet. But Brennan has modifications in mind…and no shortage of courage. Eleanor Parker, as a former World War II flame, fuels the romance in this adventure that tapped into the era’s fascination with jet aviation. (Warner Archive).

  • It Happened at the World’s Fair

    (1963) Fun, music and Elvis all happen in this romp boasting one of the best backdrops of any Elvis Presley movie: the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The King plays pilot-for-hire Mike, whose hope of starting his own flying business is grounded by the gambling of his copilot Danny (Gary Lockwood). The two hitch to Seattle, where Mike finds romance, Danny finds easy marks and both find problems prior to a “Happy Ending.” Keep an eye out for Kurt Russell as the child who wallops Mike in the shins. (Warner Archive).

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    The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs

    There has never been a filmmaker like Marlon Riggs (1957–1994): An unapologetic gay Black man who defied a culture of silence and shame to speak his truth with resounding joy and conviction. An early adopter of video technology who had a profound understanding of the power of words and images to effect change, Riggs employed a bold mix of documentary, performance, poetry, music, and experimental techniques in order to confront issues that most of Reagan-era America refused to acknowledge, from the devastating legacy of racist stereotypes to the impact of the AIDS crisis on his own queer African American community to the very definition of what it is to be Black. Bringing together Riggs’s complete works—including his controversy-inciting queer landmark "Tongues Untied" and "Black Is ... Black Ain’t," his deeply personal career summation -- "The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs" traces the artistic and political evolution of a transformative filmmaker whose work is both an electrifying call for liberation and an invaluable historical document. The films: "Ethnic Notions" (1986), "Tongues Untied" (1989), "Affirmations" (1990), "Anthem" (1991), "Color Adjustment" (1992), "Non, je ne regrette rien (No Regret)" (1993), "Black Is ... Black Ain’t" (1995). With new high-definition digital masters of all seven films, with uncompressed stereo soundtracks. Extras: Four new programs featuring editor Christiane Badgley, performers Brian Freeman, Reginald T. Jackson, and Bill T. Jones, filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans, poet Jericho Brown, film and media scholar Racquel Gates, and sociologist Herman Gray; "Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues" (1981), Riggs’s graduate thesis film; "Introduction to Riggs," recorded in 2020 and featuring filmmakers Vivian Kleiman and Shikeith, and Ashley Clark, curatorial director of the Criterion Collection; "I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs" (1996), a documentary by Karen Everett that features interviews with Riggs, Kleiman, filmmaker Isaac Julien, African American studies scholar Barbara Christian, several of Riggs’s longtime friends and collaborators, and members of his family; an essay by film critic K. Austin Collins. (The Criterion Collection).

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    Visions of Eight

    (1973) In Munich in 1972, eight renowned filmmakers each brought their singular artistry to the spectacle of the Olympic Games -- the joy and pain of competition, the kinetic thrill of bodies in motion -- for an aesthetically adventurous sports film unlike any other. Made to document the Olympic Summer Games -- an event that was ultimately overshadowed by the tragedy of a terrorist attack -- "Visions of Eight" features contributions from Miloš Forman, Kon Ichikawa, Claude Lelouch, Juri Ozerov, Arthur Penn, Michael Pfleghar, John Schlesinger, and Mai Zetterling, each given carte blanche to create a short focusing on any aspect of the Games that captured his or her imagination. The resulting films -- ranging from the arresting abstraction of Penn’s pure cinema study of pole-vaulters to the playful irreverence of Forman’s musical take on the decathlon to Schlesinger’s haunting portrait of the single-minded solitude of a marathon runner -- are triumphs of personal, poetic vision applied to one of the pinnacles of human achievement. With new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New audio commentary by podcasters Amanda Dobbins, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan of the website the Ringer; new documentary featuring director Claude Lelouch, supervising editor Robert K. Lambert, Ousmane Sembène biographer Samba Gadjigo, Munich Olympic Games historian David Clay Large, producer David L. Wolper’s son, Mark Wolper, and director Arthur Penn’s son Matthew Penn, which also includes behind-the-scenes footage from the film and material from Sembène’s uncompleted short film; "On Location with Visions of Eight,” a short promotional film; trailer; a 1973 article by author George Plimpton, excerpts from David L. Wolper’s 2003 memoir, and a new reflection on the film by novelist Sam Lipsyte. (The Criterion Collection).


    June 29
  • Madame Curie

    (1943) In an era when women were allowed to be ornaments, mothers or drudges, young Marie Sklodowska of Poland dreamed of something more. She defied convention to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne and – with Pierre Curie, the professor who became her husband – to make one of the greatest breakthroughs in 20th-century science. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon reunite portray the courageous couple who won the 1903 Nobel Prize for their discovery of radium. (Warner Archive).

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    Pariah

    (2011) The path to living as one’s authentic self is paved with trials and tribulations in this revelatory, assured feature debut by Dee Rees -- the all-too-rare coming-of-age tale to honestly represent the experiences of queer Black women. Grounded in the fine-grained specificity and deft characterizations of Rees’s script and built around a beautifully layered performance from Adepero Oduye, "Pariah" follows Brooklyn teenager Alike, who is dealing with the emotional minefields of both first love and heartache and the disapproval of her family as she navigates the expression of her gender and sexual identities within a system that does not make space for them. Achieving an aching intimacy with its subject through the expressive cinematography of Bradford Young, this deeply felt portrait finds strength in vulnerability and liberation in letting go. With 2K digital transfer, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New conversation between director Dee Rees and filmmaker and scholar Michelle Parkerson; new cast reunion featuring Rees, Adepero Oduye, Pernell Walker, Kim Wayans, Charles Parnell, and Aasha Davis, moderated by scholar Jacqueline Stewart; new program on the making of the film, featuring Rees, cinematographer Bradford Young, production designer Inbal Weinberg, producer Nekisa Cooper, and editor Mako Kamitsuna, moderated by Stewart; new interview with film scholar Kara Keeling, author of "Queer Times, Black Futures"; an essay by critic Cassie da Costa. (The Criterion Collection).

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    Pickup On South Street

    (1953) Petty crook Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) has his eyes fixed on the big score. When the cocky three-time convict picks the pocketbook of unsuspecting Candy (Jean Peters), he finds a more spectacular haul than he could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. information. Tailed by manipulative Feds and the unwitting courier’s Communist puppeteers, Skip and Candy find themselves in a precarious gambit that pits greed against redemption, right against Red, and passion against self-preservation. With its dazzling cast and writer-director Samuel Fuller’s signature hard-boiled repartee and raw energy, "Pickup on South Street" is a true film noir classic by one of America’s most passionate cinematic craftspeople. With new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith, author of "In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City"; interview from 1989 with director Samuel Fuller, conducted by film critic Richard Schickel; "Cinéma cinémas: Fuller," a 1982 French television program in which the director discusses the making of the film; trailers; an essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién and a chapter from Fuller’s posthumously published 2002 autobiography, "A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking." (The Criterion Collection).


    July 6
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    Bringing Up Baby

    (1938) Screwball sparks fly when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn let loose in one of the fastest and funniest films ever made -- a high-wire act of invention that took American screen comedy to new heights of absurdity. Hoping to procure a million-dollar endowment from a wealthy society matron for his museum, a hapless paleontologist (Grant) finds himself entangled with a dizzy heiress (Hepburn) as the manic misadventures pile up -- a missing dinosaur bone, a leopard on the loose, and plenty of gender-bending mayhem among them. "Bringing Up Baby’s" sophisticated dialogue, spontaneous performances, and giddy innuendo come together in a whirlwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2005 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; new video essay on actor Cary Grant by author Scott Eyman; new interview about cinematographer Russell Metty with cinematographer John Bailey; new interview with film scholar Craig Barron on special-effects pioneer Linwood Dunn; new selected-scene commentary about costume designer Howard Greer with costume historian Shelly Foote; "Howard Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life," a 1977 documentary by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg featuring the director’s last filmed interview; audio interview from 1969 with Grant; audio excerpts from a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich; trailer; an essay by critic Sheila O’Malley. (The Criterion Collection).

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    Mirror

    (1975 -- France) A subtly ravishing passage through the halls of time and memory, this sublime reflection on 20th-century Russian history by Andrei Tarkovsky is as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema. In a richly textured collage of varying film stocks and newsreel footage, the recollections of a dying poet flash before our eyes, his dreams mingling with scenes of childhood, wartime, and marriage, all imbued with the mystical power of a trance. Largely dismissed by Soviet critics on its release because of its elusive narrative structure, "Mirror" has since taken its place as one of the director’s most renowned and influential works, a stunning personal statement from an artist transmitting his innermost thoughts and feelings directly from psyche to screen. Wwith new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: "Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer," a 2019 documentary about the director by his son Andrei A. Tarkovsky; "The Dream in the Mirror," a new documentary by Louise Milne and Seán Martin; new interview with composer Eduard Artemyev; "Islands: Georgy Rerberg," a 2007 documentary about the cinematographer; archival interviews with Tarkovsky and screenwriter Alexander Misharin; an essay by critic Carmen Gray and, for the Blu-ray, the 1968 film proposal and literary script by Tarkovsky and Misharin that they ultimately developed into "Mirror." (The Criterion Collection).


    July 13
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    Deep Cover

    (1992) Film noir hits the mean streets of 1990s Los Angeles in this stylish and subversive underworld odyssey from veteran actor-director Bill Duke. Laurence Fishburne stars as Russell Stevens/John Hull, a police officer who goes undercover as the partner of a dangerously ambitious cocaine trafficker (Jeff Goldblum) in order to infiltrate and bring down a powerful Latin American drug ring operating in LA. But the further Stevens descends into this ruthless world of money, violence, and power, the more disillusioned he becomes -- and the harder to make out the line between right and wrong, crime and justice. Steeped in shadowy, neon-soaked atmosphere and featuring Dr. Dre’s debut solo single, this unsung gem of the nineties’ Black cinema explosion delivers a riveting character study and sleek action thrills alongside a furious moral indictment of America and the devastating failures of the war on drugs. With new 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New interview with director Bill Duke; new conversation between film scholars Racquel J. Gates and Michael B. Gillespie about "Deep Cover’s" place within both the Black film boom of the early 1990s and the noir genre; new conversation between scholar Claudrena N. Harold and professor, DJ, and podcaster Oliver Wang about the film’s title track and its importance to the history of hip-hop; panel discussion from 2018 featuring Duke and Fishburne and moderated by film critic Elvis Mitchell; trailer; an essay by Gillespie. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Objective Burma!

    (1945) An American platoon parachutes into Burma to take out a strategic Japanese outpost. Starring Errol Flynn and directed by Raoul Walsh. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for Working Girls BLU-RAY DEBUT

    Working Girls

    (1986) Sex work is portrayed with radical nonjudgment in Lizzie Borden’s immersive, richly detailed look at the rhythms and rituals of society’s most stigmatized profession. Inspired by the experiences of the sex workers Borden met while making her underground feminist landmark "Born in Flames," "Working Girls" reveals the textures of a day in the life of Molly (Louise Smith), a photographer working part-time in a Manhattan brothel, as she juggles a steady stream of clients, balances nurturing relationships with her co-workers with the demands of an ambitious madam, and above all fights to maintain her sense of self in a business in which the line between the personal and the professional is all too easily blurred. In viewing prostitution through the lens of labor, Borden boldly desensationalizes the subject, offering an empathetic, humanizing, often humorous depiction of women for whom this work is just another day at the office. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Lizzie Borden, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2007 featuring Borden, director of photography Judy Irola, and actor Amanda Goodwin; new conversation between Borden and filmmaker Bette Gordon; new conversation with actors Louise Smith and Amanda Goodwin, producer Andi Gladstone, and first assistant director Vicky Funari; new conversation with sex workers Antonia Crane, Daphne Nguyen, Selena the Stripper, and Jo Weldon; an essay by author So Mayer and excerpts from a 1987 interview with Borden by film critic Scott MacDonald.(The Criterion Collection).


    July 20
  • I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes

    (1948) An out of work husband-and-wife dance team soon find themselves in more dire straits when the husband is wrongly accused of murder, while his wife sets out to prove his innocence. Based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich. Stars Don Castle, Elyse Knox, Regis Toomey. (Warner Archive).

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    La piscine

    (1969 -- France) The bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this languorously alluring exercise in slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Ten years after their breakup, one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose blissed-out summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin) —- unleashing a gathering tidal wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, "La piscine" dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: "The Swimming Pool: First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film; "Fifty Years Later," a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil; new interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy; archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray; alternate ending; trailers; an essay by film critic Jessica Kiang. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Step by Step

    (1946) Marine veteran Johnny Christopher and Evelyn Smith, a secretary to a U.S. Senator, find themselves caught up in a plot involving Nazi spies in California. Stars Lawrence Tierney, Anne Jeffreys, Lowell Gilmore. (Warner Archive).

  • Take Me Out to the Ball Game

    (1949) Whether its Batter up! or Curtain Up!, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly are ready when they play early-1900s vaudevillians who spend the winter performing onstage and the summer performing on the field. Directed by Busby Berkeley and co-starring Esther Williams. (Warner Archive).


    July 27
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    Brotherhood of the Wolf

    (2001 -- France) In a rural province of France, a mysterious creature is laying waste to the countryside, savagely killing scores of women and children. Unseen, possessed of enormous strength and a human intelligence, the beast has eluded capture for years. King Louis sends in a renowned scientist and his Iroquois blood brother, an unconventional team whose combined methods and capabilities may bring the beast down. But the true nature of the beast is not what anyone could have anticipated. Director's extended cut. Extras: "The Guts of the Beast"e fight scenes and digital effects; "The Making of Brotherhood of the Wolf behind-the-scenes featurette; "The Legend" look at the historical facts behind the legend of the Gévaudan Beast; deleted scenes with introduction by director Christophe Gans; theatrical trailers. (Scream Factory). Read more here.

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    A Place in the Sun

    (1951) Director George Stevens’ masterwork won six* Academy Awards and is widely considered one of the finest works of America cinema. Remastered from a 4K film transfer in celebration of its 70th anniversary, the film is presented on Blu-ray with a brand-new Filmmaker Focus featuring film historian Leonard Maltin talking about Stevens and the innovative film techniques he used for this unforgettable story of ambition, passion, and betrayal. The disc also includes previously released bonus content, including commentary by George Stevens, Jr. and Ivan Moffat, retrospective cast and crew interviews, and a segment on George Stevens featuring filmmakers who knew him. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a young man determined to win a place in respectable society and the heart of a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor). Shelley Winters is the factory girl whose dark secret threatens Eastman’s professional and romantic prospects. The limited-edition Paramount Presents Blu-rays come in collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of each film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments. Each disc also includes access to a digital copy of the film. (Paramount Presents).


    August 10
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    After Life

    (1998 -- Japan) If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. "After Life’s" high-concept premise is grounded in Kore-eda’s documentary-like approach to the material, which he shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience -- its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets -- and a quietly profound meditation on memory, our interconnectedness, and the amberlike power of cinema to freeze time. With new 2K restoration, approved by writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary featuring film scholar Linda Ehrlich; new interviews with Kore-eda, stills photographer–cinematographer Masayoshi Sukita, and cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki; deleted scenes; trailer; an essay by novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen. (The Criterion Collection).


    August 17
  • In the Good Old Summertime

    (1949) Judy Garland, Van Johnson and silent comedy icon Buster Keaton star in this delightful musical when love can bloom between the most unlikely of couples in the good old summertime. Extras: Introduction by Garland Biographer John Fricke; vintage "Fitzpatrick TravelTalks Shorts: Chicago, the Beautiful & Night Life in Chicago," theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

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    Original Cast Album: 'Company'

    (1970) This holy grail for both documentary and theater aficionados offers a tantalizingly rare glimpse behind the Broadway curtain. In 1970, right after the triumphant premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking concept musical "Company", the renowned composer and lyricist, his director Harold Prince, the show’s stars, and a large pit orchestra all went into a Manhattan recording studio as part of a time-honored Broadway tradition: the recording of the original cast album. What ensued was a marathon session in which, with the pressures of posterity and the coolly exacting Sondheim’s perfectionism hanging over them, all involved pushed themselves to the limit -- including theater legend Elaine Stritch, who fought anxiety and exhaustion to record her iconic rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch.” With thrilling immediacy, legendary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker offers an up-close view of the larger-than-life personalities, frayed-nerve energy, and explosive creative intensity that go into capturing the magic of live performance. With new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by Chris Hegedus and Nate Pennebaker, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim; audio commentary from 2001 featuring director D. A. Pennebaker, actor Elaine Stritch, and Broadway producer Harold Prince; new conversation among Sondheim, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, and critic Frank Rich; new interview with Tunick on the art of orchestrating, conducted by author Ted Chapin; never-before-heard audio excerpts from interviews with Stritch and Prince, conducted by D. A. Pennebaker and Hegedus in 2000; “Original Cast Album: ‘Co-Op,’” a 2019 episode of the TV series "Documentary Now!" that parodies the film; reunion of the cast and crew of “Original Cast Album: ‘Co-Op’” recorded in 2020, featuring director Alexander Buono, writer-actor John Mulaney, actors Rénee Elise Goldsberry, Richard Kind, Alex Brightman, and Paula Pell, and composer Eli Bolin; an essay by author Mark Harris. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Shadow of the Thin Man

    (1941) William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed. A jockey who threw a race is murdered in the locker room. With that, Nora and hubby Nick are off to the races on another case of murder, mirth and perfect martinis. Red herrings abound. Extras: Vintage short: "The Tell-Tale Heart," cartoon: "The Goose Goes South," theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

    (2019) David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, Maxwell Caulfield, Morgan Brittany, M. Emmet Walsh, John Ireland. The road to Purgatory is paved with good intentions, and Count Mardulak (Carradine) wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s seeking atonement for centuries of human carnage, which is why he’s instructed Purgatory’s vampire residents to slather on SPF 100 sunblock, pursue daytime activities ... and drink only synthetic blood. But some vampires don’t agree with Mardulak — they want the real thing — and if that means wooden bullets flying in a vampire civil war, so be it, in this wild horror-comedy. Extras: Commentary with director Anthony Hickox and director of photography Levie Isaacks; isolated score selections and audio interviews with music historian Randall Larson and producer Jefferson Richard; "Wild Weird West” interview with director Anthony Hickox; “Bloodsuckers From Purgatory” interview with special makeup effects creator Tony Gardner; “Memories of Moab” interview with actor Bruce Campbell; “A Vampire Reformed” interview with actor David Carradine; “A True Character” interview with actor M. Emmet Walsh; theatrical trailer; still gallery. (Vestron Video Collector’s Series/Lionsgate).


    August 24
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    Ashes and Diamonds

    (1958 -- Poland) A milestone of Polish cinema, this electrifying international sensation by Andre Wad -- the final film in his celebrated war trilogy -- entwines the story of one man’s moral crisis with the fate of a nation. In a small Polish town on the final day of World War II, Mace (the coolly charismatic Zbigniew Cybulski), a fighter in the underground anti-Communist resistance movement, has orders to assassinate an incoming commissar. But when he meets and falls for a young barmaid (Ewa Krzyzewska), he begins to question his commitment to a cause that requires him to risk his life. "Ashes and Diamonds’" lustrous monochrome cinematography -- wreathed in shadows, smoke, and fog -- and spectacularly choreographed set pieces lend a breathtaking visual dynamism to this urgent, incendiary vision of a country at a crossroads in its struggle for self-determination. With new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Audio commentary from 2004 featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf; new video essay by Insdorf on the film’s legacy; "Andre Wad: On Ashes and Diamonds,” a 2005 program featuring director Andre Wad, second director Janusz Morgenstern, and film critic Jerzy Plazewski; archival newsreel footage on the making of the film; an essay by film scholar Paul Coates. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Prince of the City

    (1981) Director: Sidney Lumet; Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Williams plays a New York City narcotics detective who reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption, and soon realises he's in over his head. He's plunged into a nightmare of conflicting moral issues in a world where nobody can be trusted. Extras: "The Real Story" featurette. (Warner Archive).


    August 31
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    Beasts of No Nation

    (2015 -- ) The nightmare of war is seen through the eyes of one of its most tragic casualties -- a child soldier -- in this harrowing vision of innocence lost from Cary Joji Fukunaga. Based on the acclaimed novel by Uzodinma Iweala, "Beasts of No Nation" unfolds in an unnamed, civil-war-torn West African country, where the young Agu (Abraham Attah, in a haunting debut performance) witnesses carnage in his village before falling captive to a band of rebel soldiers led by a ruthless commander (an explosive Idris Elba), who molds the boy into a hardened killer. Fukunaga’s relentlessly roving camera work and stunning visuals -- realism so intensely visceral it borders on the surreal -- immerse the viewer in a world of unimaginable horror without ever losing sight of the powerful human story at its center. With 2K digital master, approved by director Cary Joji Fukunaga, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary featuring Fukunaga and first assistant director Jon Mallard; two new documentaries on the development and making of the film, featuring interviews with Fukunaga, author Uzodinma Iweala, actors Idris Elba and Abraham Attah, and producers Amy Kaufman, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, and Riva Marker; new conversation between Fukunaga and producer and cultural commentator Franklin Leonard; new interview with costume designer Jenny Eagan; trailer; an essay by film critic Robert Daniels. (The Criterion Collection).

  • Bugsy Malone

    (1976) Acclaimed director Alan Parker redefined the movie musical with his first feature-length film, "Bugsy Malone," which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year. Available for the first time in the U.S. on Blu-ray, the film has been remastered from the original elements for this limited-edition release. The Blu-ray includes a new Filmmaker Focus delving into this early work from the director of "Fame," "The Commitments," "Pink Floyd: The Wall," "Mississippi Burning" and "Evita." Set in 1929 New York City, the film captures a flashy world of would-be hoodlums, showgirls, and dreamers -- all portrayed by child actors. As Tallulah, the sassy girlfriend of the owner of Fat Sam's Grand Slam Speakeasy, future superstar Jodie Foster leads a talented cast. Parker’s sharp script, combined with the music and lyrics of Paul Williams, makes for an irresistible satire that’s truly one-of-a-kind. The limited-edition Paramount Presents Blu-rays come in collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of each film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments. Each disc also includes access to a digital copy of the film. (Paramount Presents).

  • The Last Man on Earth

    (1964) Vincent Price, Franca Bettola, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi, Umbert Raho, Christi Courtland. Screen legend Vincent Price gives a masterful performance in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi chiller, the first and most faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic novel "I Am Legend." A plague envelops the earth, decimating the population and leaving one man still alive: scientist Robert Morgan (Price), who exhibits a strange immunity to the deadly disease. The rest of the earth’s people slowly turn into bloodsucking vampires and Morgan must use all of his knowledge to survive their onslaught. Directed by Sidney Salkow, this seminal classic influenced the creation of "Night of the Living Dead" plus countless imitations. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary by Richard Harland Smith, "Trailers From Hell" with Joe Dante, "Richard Matheson Storyteller," two TV spots, alternate ending, Italian trailer. (Kino Lorber Studio Classics).


    September 14
  • Alone in the Dark

    (1982) Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Donald Pleasence, Dwight Schultz, At a secluded mental institution, electricity fuels the asylum's hi-tech security system that keeps the nearby neighborhoods safe from menaces like Frank Hawkes (Palance) and "Preacher" (Landau). Dr. Bain (Pleasence) maintains strict order while a new doctor, Dan Potter (Schultz), arrives in town with his family. But the inmates don't take kindly to Potter’s presence and believe he has killed off their former therapist. Suddenly, a power outage leaves the town in chaos ... and now the maniacs are free to roam the streets and hunt down the man they believe has invaded their lives. New 2K scan of the interpositive. Extras: New "Out of the Dark" interview with director and co-writer Jack Sholder; new "Mother Choppers: The Sic F*cks Remember Alone in the Dark"; new "Sites in the Dark: The Locations of Alone in the Dark"; new commentary with genre film critic Justin Kerswell and film historian Amanda Reyes; commentary with director Jack Sholder; "Bunky Lives!" interview with actress Carol Levy; "Still F*cking Sick -- Catching up with the The Sic F*cks"; theatrical trailer; TV spot; radio spots; still gallery. (Scream Factory).


    September 21
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    Breakdown

    Featuring a director-approved remaster from a new 4K film scan, presented in a limited-edition with collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of the film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments. Kurt Russell is Jeff Taylor, headed toward a new life in California with his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan). When their car dies on a remote highway, a seemingly helpful trucker (J.T. Walsh) offers Amy a ride to the local diner while Jeff waits with the car. Then Jeff discovers his vehicle was deliberately tampered with, and by the time he gets to the next town, his worst fears are about to come true. Extras: Commentary by director Jonathan Mostow and Kurt Russell; "Filmmaker Focus: Director Jonathan Mostow on Breakdown"; "Victory Is Hers - Kathleen Quinlan on Breakdown"; "A Brilliant Partnership - Martha De Laurentiis on Breakdown"; alternate opening; isolated score; theatrical trailers. (Paramount Presents).

  • Hardball

    (2001) Keanu Reeves, Diana Lane, John Hawkes, D.B. Sweeney, Michael B. Jordan. Follows Conor O’Neill (Reeves), a down-on-his-luck gambler in debt to dangerous loan sharks. Desperate for cash, Conor reluctantly takes a job coaching a youth baseball team. The “team” turns out to be a ragtag group of tough-talking kids from Chicago’s inner city. Secretly, Conor plans to desert the team after he wins a big bet. But the stakes are higher than Conor imagined: the kids need someone to believe in. As Conor wrestles with his past, the kids start to teach him some lessons that will forever change his future -- that responsibility and trust must be earned and hope can appear in the most unlikely places. Extras: Commentary by director Brian Robbins and writer John Gatins; "The Making of Hardball"; deleted scenes; music video “Hardball” by Lil’ Bow Wow, Lil’ Wayne, Lil’ Zane and Sammie; interstitials; theatrical trailer. (Paramount).

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    Throw Down

    (2004 -- Hong Kong) One of the most personal films by the prolific Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To is a thrilling love letter to both the cinema of Akira Kurosawa and the art and philosophy of judo. Amid the neon-drenched nightclubs and gambling dens of Hong Kong’s nocturnal underworld, the fates of three wandering souls -- a former judo champion now barely scraping by as an alcoholic bar owner (Louis Koo), a young fighter (Aaron Kwok) intent on challenging him, and a singer (Cherrie Ying) chasing dreams of stardom -— collide in an operatic explosion of human pain, ambition, perseverance, and redemption. Paying offbeat homage to Kurosawa’s debut feature, "Sanshiro Sugata," To scrambles wild comedy, flights of lyrical surrealism, and rousing martial-arts action into what is ultimately a disarmingly touching ode to the healing power of friendship. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Interview from 2004 with director Johnnie To; new interviews with co-screenwriter Yau Nai-hoi, composer Peter Kam, and film scholars David Bordwell and Caroline Guo; short making-of documentary from 2004 featuring To and actors Louis Koo, Aaron Kwok, Cherrie Ying, and Tony Leung Ka-fai; trailer; an essay by film critic Sean Gilman. (The Criterion Collection).

  • The Vigil

    (2019) Dave Davis, Menashe Lustig, Malky Goldman. Supernatural horror film set over the course of a single evening in Brooklyn’s Borough Park. Low on funds and having recently left his insular religious community, Yakov (Davis) reluctantly accepts an offer from his former rabbi and confidante to take on the responsibility of an overnight shomer — fulfilling the Jewish practice of watching over the body of a deceased community member. Shortly after arriving at the departed’s dilapidated house to sit in vigil, Yakov begins to realize that something is very, very wrong. Formats: Blu-ray. (IFC/Shout! Factory).


    September 28
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    The Damned

    (1969 -- Italy) The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazism’s total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler’s ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates -- including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the incestuous matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the perversely cruel heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning Dietrich-like drag in his breakthrough role) -- descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and all-consuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another. The heightened performances and Visconti’s luridly expressionistic use of Technicolor conjure a garish world of decaying opulence in which one family’s downfall comes to stand for the moral rot of a nation. With new 2K digital restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and Institut Lumière, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: Alternate Italian-language soundtrack; interview from 1970 with director Luchino Visconti about the film; archival interviews with actors Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin, and Charlotte Rampling; "Visconti: Man of Two Worlds," a 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary; new interview with scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film; an essay by scholar D. A. Miller. (The Criterion Collection).

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    Melvin Van Peebles: Four Films

    Director, writer, composer, actor, and one-man creative revolutionary Melvin Van Peebles jolted American independent cinema to new life with his explosive stylistic energy and unfiltered expression of Black consciousness. Though he undeniably altered the course of film history with the anarchic "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" (1971), that pop-culture bombshell is just one piece of a remarkably varied career that has also encompassed forays into European art cinema ("The Story of a Three Day Pass," 1967), mainstream Hollywood comedy ("Watermelon Man," 1970), and Broadway musicals ("Don’t Play Us Cheap," 1972). Each facet of Van Peebles’s renegade genius is on display in this collection of four films, a tribute to a transformative artist whose caustic social observation, radical formal innovation, and uncompromising vision established a new cinematic model for Black creative independence. Also included in the set is "Baadasssss!," a chronicle of the production of Sweet Sweetback made by Van Peebles’s son Mario Van Peebles -— and starring the younger Van Peebles as Melvin. Formats: Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restorations of all four films, approved by filmmaker Mario Van Peebles, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for "The Story of a Three Day Pass," "Watermelon Man," and "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack for "Don’t Play Us Cheap." Extras: "Baadasssss!," a 2003 fictional feature film based on director Melvin Van Peebles’s diaries from the making of "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song," directed by and starring his son Mario Van Peebles, with commentary by father and son; new conversations between Mario Van Peebles and film critic Elvis Mitchell, producer Warrington Hudlin and critic and filmmaker Nelson George, and scholars Gerald R. Butters Jr., Novotny Lawrence, and Amy Abugo Ongiri; audio commentary by Melvin Van Peebles from 1997 on "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song"; three early short films directed by Melvin Van Peebles; "How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)," a 2005 documentary on Van Peebles’s life and career; "The Story Behind “Baadasssss!: The Birth of Black Cinema," a 2004 featurette; "Melvin Van Peebles: The Real Deal," a 2002 interview with the director on the making of "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song"; episodes of Black Journal from 1968, 1971, and 1972, on "The Story of a Three Day Pass," "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song," and "Don’t Play Us Cheap"; interview from 1971 with Van Peebles on Detroit Tubeworks; French television interview from 1968 with Van Peebles and actors Harry Baird and Nicole Berger on the set of "The Story of a Three Day Pass"; excerpts from a 2004 interview with Van Peebles for the Directors Guild of America Visual History Program; introductions to all four films by Van Peebles; trailers; a 64-page book featuring writing on the films, including an introduction by film scholar Racquel J. Gates. (The Criterion Collection).




    October 5
  • Audrey Hepburn 7-Film Collection

    Timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the beloved classic "Breakfast at Tiffany’s," which was originally released on October 5, 1961, this collection sparkles with luminous performances from Hepburn in "My Fair Lady," "Funny Face," "Sabrina," "Roman Holiday," "Paris When It Sizzles," "War and Peace," and, of course, "Breakfast at Tiffany’s." The Collection also includes access to Digital copies of each film and the hours of bonus content. (Paramount). Read more here.

  • The Awakening

    (2011) Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton. They say the boy was scared to death. When the death of a child at a boarding school is blamed on a ghost, hoax exposer Florence Cathcart is certain that science and reason can explain it. But the truth she discovers is more terrifying than she could ever imagine, and soon the ghost hunter becomes the hunted. Extras: Deleted Scenes, "A Time for Ghosts" featurette, "Anatomy of a Scene: Florence and the Lake," "Anatomy of a SCREAM," behind the scenes, interview with director Nick Murphy. (Cohen Media Group).

  • Witching and Bitching

    (2013 -- Spain) Hugo Silva, Mario Casas, Pepón Nieto, Carolina Bang. When a bank heist in the city doesn’t all go according to plan, José and Tony find themselves in possession of some hostages and speeding through the mountains of Spain, hoping to quietly slip over the border. Not wanting to give up his custody days to his ex-wife, José has also brought his son along for both the robbery and the ride. Little do they know that this is only the beginning of their troubles, as they soon make a stop in a small tavern in the Basque countryside and find themselves the honored guests of a fractured family of witches who are preparing for an ancient ritual. Formats: Blu-ray. (IFC Midnight).


    October 12
  • Casanova, Last Love

    (2019) Vincent Lindon, Stacy Martin, Valeria Golino, Julia Roy, Nancy Tate, Anna Cottis. London, 18th century. Casanova (Lindon), famous for his taste of pleasure and gambling, arrives from Paris, forced into exile. In this city he knows nothing about, the libertine meets on several occasions a young prostitute, Marianne de Charpillon (Martin). She attracts him to the point that he starts disregarding all other women. The legendary seducer is ready to do anything to get her, but La Charpillon always escapes under various excuses. She challenges Casanova: “You will only have me if you stop desiring me!" (Cohen Media Group).

  • Deadly Friend

    (1986) Matthew Labyorteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett, Anne Twomey. From director Wes Craven comes a terrifying tale of technology gone haywire. A lonely teenage genius, a specialist in brain research, has two best friends: his remarkable robot and a beautiful girl next door. When tragedy strikes both of his friends, he desperately tries to save them by pushing technology beyond its mortal limits into a terrifying new realm. Like a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein, he discovers too late that he has created a rampaging monster. New 2K scan of the interpositive. Extras: "Hey Sam, Nice Shot" interview with actress Kristy Swanson; "Written in Blood" interview with screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin; "Robots, Ramsey and Revenge" interview with special makeup effects artist Lance Anderson; "Samantha’s Symphony" interview with composer Charles Bernstein; theatrical trailer; TV spots. (Scream Factory).

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    High Sierra

    (1941) Marking the moment when the gritty gangster sagas of the 1930s began giving way to the romantic fatalism of 1940s film noir, "High Sierra" also contains the star-making performance of Humphrey Bogart, who, alongside top-billed Ida Lupino, proved his leading-man mettle with his tough yet tender turn as Roy Earle. A career criminal plagued by his checkered past, Earle longs for a simpler life, but after getting sprung on parole, he falls in with a band of thieves for one last heist in the Sierra Nevada. Directed with characteristic punch by Raoul Walsh -- who makes the most of the vertiginous mountain location -- Roy and Lupino’s Marie, a fellow outcast also desperate to escape her past, hurtle inexorably toward an unforgettable cliffside climax and a rendezvous with destiny. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: "Colorado Territory," director Raoul Walsh’s 1949 western remake of "High Sierra"; new conversation on Walsh between film programmer Dave Kehr and critic Farran Smith Nehme; "The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh," a 2019 documentary by Marilyn Ann Moss; "Curtains for Roy Earle," a 2003 featurette on the making of "High Sierra"; "Bogart: Here’s Looking at You, Kid," a 1997 documentary aired on The South Bank Show; new interview with film and media historian Miriam J. Petty about actor Willie Best; new video essay featuring excerpts from a 1976 American Film Institute interview with "High Sierra" novelist and coscreenwriter W. R. Burnett; radio adaptation of "High Sierra" from 1944; trailers. (The Criterion Collection). Read more here.


    October 19
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    The Incredible Shrinking Man

    (1957) Existentialism goes pop in this benchmark of atomic-age science fiction, a superlative adaptation of a novel by the legendary Richard Matheson that has awed and unnerved generations of viewers with the question, What is humanity’s place amid the infinity of the universe? Six months after being exposed to a mysterious radiation cloud, suburban everyman Scott Carey (Grant Williams) finds himself becoming smaller ... and smaller ... and smaller -- until he’s left to fend for himself in a world in which ordinary cats, mousetraps, and spiders pose a mortal threat, all while grappling with a diminishing sense of himself. Directed by the prolific creature-feature impresario Jack Arnold with ingenious optical effects and a transcendent metaphysical ending, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" gazes with wonder and trepidation into the unknowable vastness of the cosmic void. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary featuring genre-film historian Tom Weaver and horror-music expert David Schecter; new program on the film’s special effects by effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt; new conversation between filmmaker Joe Dante and comedian and writer Dana Gould; "Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal" (Director’s Cut) (2021); interview from 2016 with Richard Christian Matheson, novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson’s son; interview with director Jack Arnold from 1983; 8mm home-cinema version from 1957; trailer and teaser narrated by filmmaker Orson Welles; an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien. (The Criterion Collection). Read more here.

  • Mad Love

    (1935) Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive. In his American feature-film debut, Lorre turns in one of his creepiest performances as a renowned plastic surgeon whose sadistic obsession with an actress drives him over the edge of sanity. Dr. Gogol (Lorre) is in love with Yvonne Orlac (Drake), an actress whose appearance in a Grand Guignol-like horror theater has mesmerized him. She quits the theater to travel with her concert pianist husband, Stephen (Clive), enraging Gogol. But when Stephen’s hands are crushed in a train accident, Yvonne turns to Gogol as a last resort. Motivated by sadistic intentions, Gogol secretly replaces Stephen’s hands with those of a guillotined murderer, hoping that the operation will send Yvonne rushing into his arms as the murderer’s hands take on a life of their own. (Warner Archive).

  • photo for Ratcatcher

    Ratcatcher

    (1999) In her breathtaking and assured debut feature, Lynne Ramsay creates a haunting evocation of a troubled Glasgow childhood. Set during Scotland’s national garbage strike of the mid-1970s, "Ratcatcher" explores the experiences of a poor adolescent boy as he struggles to reconcile his dreams and his guilt with the abjection that surrounds him. Utilizing beautiful, elusive imagery, candid performances, and unexpected humor, Ramsay deftly contrasts urban decay with a rich interior landscape of hope and perseverance, resulting in a work at once raw and deeply poetic. Formats: Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Lynne Ramsay and cinematographer Alwin Küchler, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Extras: New interview with Ramsay; audio interview from 2020 with Küchler; three award-winning short films by Ramsay: "Small Deaths" (1995), "Kill the Day" (1996), and "Gasman" (1997); interview with Ramsay from 2002; trailer; essays by film critic Girish Shambu and filmmaker Barry Jenkins. (The Criterion Collection). Read more here.


    October 26
  • Dinner at Eight

    (1933) Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Billie Burke, Marie Dressler. "Dinner at Eight," a vastly entertaining behind-closed-doors glimpse into the lives of the troubled and troublemaking who’s who of people invited to a posh Manhattan party, is served with ample helpings of humor and melodrama. Buoyed by the success of the studio’s multistarred, multistoried "Grand Hotel" the year before, producer David O. Selznick aspired to something grander – and found it in this George Cukor-directed adaptation of the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber stage hit. Highlights include Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery’s bitter battle of the sexes, hostess Billie Burke’s hissy fit and Marie Dressler’s grande dame worldliness. Of course, there’s only one way to catch all the great moments. Extras: Documentary profile "Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell," hosted by Sharon Stone; parody comedy short "Come to Dinner"; theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Children of the Damned

    (1963) Six gifted children are found to pose a threat to the world in this chilling horror story from the makers of "Village of the Damned." The children, who all live in England but are from different parts of the world, are normal in all respects except that they are geniuses with acute psychic powers. They have more in common than their IQs, however: None of them have fathers, and no one seems to know where they came from. When a psychologist attempts to find out more, he unlocks a mystery that could lead to the destruction of the universe. Extras: Commentary by screenwriter John Briley, theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Eye of the Devil

    (1966) Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasence, Flora Robson, David Hemmings, Edward Mulhare, Emlyn Williams. A forbidding French chateau and its surrounding vineyards are the setting for Gothic thrills in this haunting excursion into the occult. Kerr and Niven lead an exceptional cast in a chiller reminiscent of the later "The Wicker Man" (1973), in which an innocent outsider to an enclosed world peels back layers of mystery to reveal a shocking truth. Kerr plays the outsider, the wife of a troubled marquis (Niven), who discovers – perhaps too late – that her husband’s ancestral chateau is home to witches, warlocks, a sinister priest, 12 hooded figures ... and terror. (Warner Archive).

  • Mary Stevens, M.D.

    (1933) Kay Francis, Lyle Talbot, Thelma Todd. New doctors Mary Stevens (Francis) and Don Andrews (Talbot) launch their practices in the same medical building, where Mary dedicates herself to her patients while facing constant prejudice for being a woman. Despite Mary’s love for him, Don falls for Lois Rising (Todd), the daughter of a powerful politician, and the two eventually marry, leaving a brokenhearted Mary to move on and focus on her work. As Mary becomes a successful pediatrician, Don’s marriage deteriorates, driving him to drink and eventually threatening his career. Escaping to a resort, he unexpectedly runs into Mary, and the two rekindle their old love. But when Mary finds herself pregnant while scandalously unwed, she’s faced with a dilemma that could destroy everything she’s achieved.


    November 2
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    La strada

    (1954 -- Italy) With this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in favor of a personal, poetic vision of life as a bittersweet carnival. The infinitely expressive Masina registers both childlike wonder and heartbreaking despair as Gelsomina, loyal companion to the traveling strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn, in a toweringly physical performance), whose callousness and brutality gradually wear down her gentle spirit. Winner of the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, "La strada" possesses the purity and timeless resonance of a fable and remains one of cinema’s most exquisitely moving visions of humanity struggling to survive in the face of life’s cruelties. Formats: Blu-ray with 4K digital restoration, undertaken in collaboration with The Film Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras: Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack, featuring the voices of Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart; audio commentary from 2003 by Peter Bondanella, author of "The Cinema of Federico Fellini"; introduction from 2003 by filmmaker Martin Scorsese; "Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile," a documentary from 2004; "Federico Fellini’s Autobiography," a documentary originally broadcast on Italian television in 2000; trailer; an essay by film critic Christina Newland. (The Criterion Collection).


    November 9
  • Fury

    (1936) Director: Fritz Lang; stars Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney. Joe Wilson, a wrongly jailed man thought to have died in a blaze started by a bloodthirsty lynch mob, is somehow alive. And dead to all he ever stood for and perhaps ever will. Because Joe aims to ensure his would-be executioners meet the fate Joe miraculously escaped. Spencer Tracy is Joe, Sylvia Sidney is his bride-to-be, and "Fury" lives up to its volatile name with its searing indictment of mob justice and lynching. In his first American film, director Fritz Lang ("Metropolis," "The Big Heat") combines a passion for justice and a sharp visual style into a landmark of social-conscience filmmaking. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich with archival interview comments from Fritz Lang; theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • Ladies They Talk About

    (1933) Barbara Stanwyck, Lyle Talbot, Preston Foster, Lillian Roth, Allen Jenkins. In most prison films, the convicted man is rehabilitated by the love of a woman. "In Ladies They Talk About," Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who becomes rehabilitated by the love of the man who sent her to prison. A prime example of the raw and racy films made before the enforcement of Hollywood’s repressive “production code”, this Warner Bros. title previously released in the “Forbidden Hollywood” series stars Stanwyck as Nan Taylor, a bank robber who gets sent to prison for her role in a bank heist. David Slade (Foster) is the reformer who has fallen in love with her. When her two “partners” are killed in a jailbreak attempt in which she, too, is involved, Nan thinks David is the one responsible for tipping off the authorities. But she soon learns to trust in his love for her, eventually reciprocating and leaving her unsavory past behind. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Vintage WB 1933 cartoon "I Like Mountain Music," vintage WB 1933 short "Pure Feud," theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).

  • The Last of Sheila

    (1973) Director: Herbert Ross; stars James Coburn, Raquel Welch, Richard Benjamin, Joan Hackett, James Mason, Dyan Cannon, Ian McShane. A movie kingpin (Coburn), whose wife, Sheila, was killed by a hit-and-run driver a year before, hosts a cruise aboard his sleek yacht. His guests (Mason, Welch, Cannon, Benjamin, Hackett, and McShane) are all friends (and some lovers) who may know more about Sheila’s death than they’re letting on. An elaborate murder game with Mediterranean ports of call is the itinerary. Formats: Blu-ray. (Warner Archive).

  • L.A. Story

    (1991) L.A. Story is legendary comedian-actor-author Steve Martin’s love letter to the City of Angels. Being in a magical city with predictably pleasant weather can make the life of a meteorologist seem monotonous. When TV weatherman Harris Telemacher (Martin) begins receiving secret messages from an electronic freeway sign, he leaves his longtime girlfriend (Marilu Henner) and embarks on a frivolous romance with a vapid, young model (Sarah Jessica Parker), which ultimately leads him to true love with the woman of his dreams (Victoria Tennant). Beloved by generations of movie fans, "L.A. Story" reminds us that anything is possible, and real love can be found — even in the city of make-believe. Extras: Deleted scenes and outtakes, "O2BINLA: Mick Jackson’s L.A. Stories," “The Story of L.A. Story,” “The L.A. of L.A. Story,” original theatrical marketing materials. (Lionsgate).


    November 16
  • The Deceivers

    (1988) Director: Nicholas Meyer; stars Pierce Brosnan, Shashi Kapoor, Saeed Jaffrey, Helena Mitchell. A new digital restoration of this Merchant Ivory classic. "The Deceivers" is adapted from the John Masters novel, set in India in 1825, which depicts the exploits of William Savage (based on William Sleeman of the Indian Political Service), who disguises himself as an Indian in order to expose and destroy a secret cult whose members, the infamous Thugees, ritually murdered and robbed travelers in the name of the goddess Kali. Merchant had read the novel years before, been struck by it, and later decided to film it. The movie was slow in getting into production, however, and once into that stage presented such an array of problems as to stagger even Merchant. An entire book, "Hullabaloo in Old Jeypore: The Making of The Deceivers,", was needed for Merchant to set down all that occurred. (Cohen Film Collection).

  • National Velvet

    (1945) Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere. As long as young hearts endure, so will "National Velvet" and movies like it. In her star-making role, Elizabeth Taylor plays Velvet Brown, a wide-eyed adolescent who, assisted by her jockey pal (Rooney), trains Pie, a horse she won in a raffle, for the Grand National Steeplechase. Of course, no girl can ride in the National, can she? Yet Velvet, posing as a boy, assuredly does. M-G-M was so impressed with their young new star’s work on the film, that the studio gave Pie to Miss Taylor after filming completed. Formats: Blu-ray. (Warner Archive).

  • Some Came Running

    (1958) Director: Vincente Minnelli; stars Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer. After a round of partying he can’t remember, World War II veteran Dave Hirsh is placed on a bus headed for the last place he’d choose Parkman, Indiana, the hometown Hirsh hasn’t seen in well over decade. Frank Sinatra plays Hirsh, whose arrival in Parkman brings small-town hypocrisy to the unforgiving light of day in this character-driven tale based on a novel by James Jones (whose "From Here to Eternity" led to Sinatra’s 1953 Oscar). In his first screen pairing with Sinatra, Dean Martin plays a sharp-witted card sharp. And Shirley MacLaine earned one of the movie’s five Academy Award nominations as the good-hearted floozy with a potentially fatal attraction to Hirsh. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: “The Story of Some Came Running” featurette, original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).


    November 23
  • photo for Deep Blues

    Deep Blues

    (1992) In 1990, commissioned by award-winning musician, songwriter, producer, innovator and Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart, veteran music film director Robert Mugge and renowned music scholar Robert Palmer ventured deep into the heart of the North Mississippi Hill Country and Mississippi Delta to seek out the best rural blues acts currently working. Starting on Beale Street in Memphis, they headed south to the juke joints, lounges, front porches, and parlors of Holly Springs, Greenville, Clarksdale, Bentonia, and Lexington. Along the way, they visited celebrated landmarks and documented talented artists cut off from the mainstream of the recording industry. The resulting film expresses reverence for the rich musical history of the region, spotlighting local performers, soon to be world-renowned, thanks in large part to the film, and demonstrating how the blues continues to thrive in new generations of gifted musicians. Digitally restored in 4K. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary by director Robert Mugge, "Deep Blues Behind-the-Scenes." (Film Movement).

  • Lullaby of Broadway

    (1951) Doris Day, Gene Nelson, S.Z. Sakall, Gladys George, Billy DeWolfe. Doris Day is at the top of her form in this Warner Bros. musical classic, which gave her a chance to not just vocalize with her usual excellence, but to also show off her impressive dancing talents. The prospect was daunting for the star, as a car accident during her youth left her with severe injuries, and she was told that she would have to put aside her dreams of becoming a dancer. Vocally talented as she was, she rose to fame as a big band singer, which eventually led to her screen stardom. When preparing for this big-budget musical’s finale to the famous title tune, the steps of the studio set towered before her like a pyramid. All Day had to do was dance up and down those steps wearing a flowing gold lamé dress. “You’ve got to be out of your minds,” Day exclaimed in a voice head across the soundstage. “I can’t even walk up and down those stairs.” She danced divinely – and sang in this musical delight about a singer newly arrived in New York ... and destined for Great White Way fame. Formats: Blu-ray. (Warner Archive).

  • The Thin Man Goes Home

    (1944) William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucile Watson, Gloria De Haven, Anne Revere. William Powell and Myrna Loy reunite as amateur sleuths Nick and Nora Charles in this penultimate 5th entry to the beloved, long-running series of mystery comedies that began a decade earlier. Outlaws come and go in Nick and Nora’s lives. Now it’s time to meet the in-laws. The debonair sleuths leave little Nicky Jr. at boarding school, grab Asta and head to Nick’s boyhood home of Sycamore Springs. Of course, wherever they go, murder has a way of showing up on the doorstep. Nick can show off his gumshoe talents for his parents when an artist is killed. And he’ll do it without customary liquid inspirations… because Nick is on the wagon. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Classic M-G-M Robert Benchley short “Why, Daddy?,” classic M-G-M Tex Avery cartoon “Screwball Squirrel,” original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).


    November 30
  • Heaven Can Wait

    (1978) Warren Beatty stars in (as well as produces, co-writes, and co-directs) this fan-favorite comedy, which has been fully restored and remastered from the original negative under Beatty’s supervision for its arrival on Blu-ray for the first time ever. Directed by Beatty and Buck Henry, with a screenplay by Elaine May and Beatty, "Heaven Can Wait" features a sensational cast filled with comedic talent, including Julie Christie, James Mason, Charles Grodin, Dyan Cannon, Buck Henry, Vincent Gardenia, and Jack Warden. Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is a Los Angeles Rams backup quarterback ready to lead the team all the way to the Super Bowl, but the afterlife has other plans. It seems an overzealous guardian angel has prematurely plucked Joe from the living. When he’s returned to Earth in the body of millionaire industrialist Leo Farnsworth, he inherits a world of challenges, including winning the love of a woman (Christie) who already hated “him.” Formats: Blu-ray + Digital Copy. (Paramount).

  • Party Girl

    (1958) Director: Nicholas Ray; stars Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland. When maverick director Nicholas Ray turned his talents to a gangster movie, a familiar genre became startling and new. Under the auspices of long-time M-G-M musical producer Joe Pasternak, and with the added gloss of the CinemaScope widescreen and Metrocolor, the auteur created a cult classic. Set in 1930s Chicago, "Party Girl" follows a bum-legged mouthpiece for the mob (Taylor) and a gorgeous, wised-up vamp (Charisse) who fall in love, try to go straight ... and head straight for trouble. Ray deepens the drama and heightens the violence with filmmaking artistry: a screen painted in sinister ebony and blood red, an urban landscape of shattered glass and shattered bodies, and a scene where a Jean Harlow-besotted mobster learns his idol has married – and shreds her photo with a rat-a-tat of lead. Formats: Blu-ray. (Warner Archive).


    December 7
  • Angels With Dirty Faces

    (1938) The acclaimed Warner Bros. gangster classic which paired off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O’Brien for the sixth time. Cagney’s Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic ghetto tough whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks. O’Brien is Father Connolly, the boyhood chum-turned-priest who vows to end Rocky’s influence. Other top talents join them including Humphrey Bogart as a scheming lawyer, Ann Sheridan (in her first major leading-lady role) as Rocky’s hard-edged girlfriend and the Dead End Kids as worshipful street urchins, all ably directed by the great Michael Curtiz. The 1938 New York Film Critics Best Actor Award came Cagney’s way, as well as one of the film’s three Oscar nominations. Extras: "Warner Night at the Movies": introduction by Leonard Maltin, "Boy Meets Girl" theatrical trailer, newsreel, WB Technicolor musical short "Out Where the Stars Begin", classic Warner Bros. cartoon "Pork & Daffy"; feature commentary by Dana Polan; making-of featurette “Whaddya Hear?, Whaddya Say?”; Lux Radio Theater broadcast (5/22/39) with Cagney and O’Brien; original theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).


    December 14
  • Ivanhoe

    (1952) M-G-M spared no expense and brought their top talent to film this opulent Technicolor epic to England to film this boxoffice smash that starred not one, but two Taylors. Related only as studio royalty, long-time leading man Robert Taylor played opposite the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor in this action-packed adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s legendary novel. 1194. King Richard the Lion Hearted is being held for ransom by the King of Austria, and his evil brother, John, conspires to take the throne. But while Robin of Locksley fights as Robin Hood, another man, Ivanhoe (Taylor), risks everything for his king -- and for the honor of Rebecca (Taylor), the woman he loves. Gallantry and costumed pageantry combine in this crowd-pleasing nominee for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Underscored by the unforgettable music of Miklos Rosza. Extras: Theatrical trailer. (Warner Archive).


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