10 best criterion collection

The Criterion Collection is a highly respected and prestigious collection of films and multimedia content dedicated to preserving and showcasing important classic and contemporary cinema. It is renowned among cinephiles, film enthusiasts, and collectors for its commitment to presenting high-quality editions of significant films from around the world. Here are some key details about the Criterion Collection:

  1. Mission: The Criterion Collection's primary mission is to curate, restore, and distribute classic and important films from various genres, eras, and countries. They aim to provide audiences with the opportunity to experience these films in the best possible quality.

  2. Selection: Criterion releases encompass a diverse range of films, including classics, foreign films, independent cinema, and cult favorites. These films are chosen for their artistic, historical, and cultural significance.

  3. Restoration: Criterion is known for its meticulous restoration efforts. The team works to source the best available film elements and conducts extensive restoration work to ensure that the films look and sound their best.

  4. Special Features: Criterion editions are renowned for their extensive bonus features. These can include interviews with directors and actors, audio commentaries, documentaries, essays, and other educational materials that provide context and insights into the films.

  5. Packaging: Criterion releases are often distinctive in terms of packaging. They feature original artwork and designs, and many collectors appreciate the aesthetic value of Criterion's packaging.

  6. Formats: While Criterion initially focused on DVD releases, they have transitioned to Blu-ray and, more recently, 4K Ultra HD formats. This ensures that viewers can experience the films in the highest quality possible.

  7. Online Streaming: In addition to physical media, Criterion also offers a streaming service called the Criterion Channel. It provides subscribers with access to a vast library of Criterion films and special features for online viewing.

  8. Essential Titles: Some films are considered iconic Criterion Collection releases, such as Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai," François Truffaut's "The 400 Blows," and Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal."

  9. Collaborations: Criterion often collaborates with filmmakers and experts to create definitive editions of films. They work closely with directors to ensure that the releases accurately represent their artistic vision.

  10. Expanding Library: The Criterion Collection continues to grow, adding new titles regularly. This expansion ensures that the collection remains a valuable resource for film enthusiasts and scholars.

In summary, the Criterion Collection is a renowned and respected institution in the world of cinema, dedicated to preserving and presenting significant films in the best possible quality with a wealth of supplementary materials. It has contributed significantly to film education and appreciation over the years.

Below you can find our editor's choice of the best criterion collection on the market
  

World of Wong Kar Wai (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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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 Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046, approved by director Wong Kar Wai, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks • New 4K digital restorations of As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks • New program in which Wong answers questions submitted, at the invitation of the director, by authors Andre Aciman and Jonathan Lethem; filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Rian Johnson, Lisa Joy, and Chloe 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 • Plus: 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 as tears go by Wong Kar Wai’s scintillating debut feature is a kinetic, hypercool crime thriller graced with flashes of the impressionistic, daydream visual style for which he would become renowned. Set amid Hong Kong’s ruthless, neon-lit gangland underworld, this operatic saga of ambition, honor, and revenge stars Andy Lau Tak Wah as a small-time mob enforcer who finds himself torn between a burgeoning romance with his ailing cousin (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, in the first of her iconic collaborations with the director) and his loyalty to his loose-cannon partner in crime (Jacky Cheung Hok Yau), whose reckless attempts to make a name for himself unleash a spiral of violence. Marrying the pulp pleasures of the gritty Hong Kong action drama with hints of the head-rush romanticism Wong would push to intoxicating heights throughout the 1990s, As Tears Go By was a box-office smash that heralded the arrival of one of contemporary cinema’s most electrifying talents. Days of being wild the breakthrough sophomore feature by Wong Kar Wai represents the first full flowering of his swooning signature style. The initial entry in a loosely connected, ongoing cycle that includes In the Mood for Love and 2046, this ravishing existential reverie is a dreamlike drift through the Hong Kong of the 1960s in which a band of wayward twenty somethings—including a disaffected playboy (Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing) searching for his birth mother, a lovelorn woman (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) hopelessly enamored with him, and a policeman (Andy Lau Tak Wah) caught in the middle of their turbulent relationship—pull together and push apart in a dance of frustrated desire. The director’s inaugural collaboration with both cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who lends the film its gorgeously gauzy, hallucinatory texture, and actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who appears briefly in a tantalizing teaser for a never-realized sequel, Days of Being Wild is an exhilarating first expression of Wong’s trademark themes of time, longing, dislocation, and the restless search for human connection. Chungking Express the whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and the film that made Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take out food stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing. Fallen Angels Lost souls reach out for human connection amid a glimmering Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai’s hallucinatory, neon-soaked nocturne. Originally conceived as a segment of Chungking Express only to spin off on its own woozy axis, Fallen Angels plays like the dark, moody flip side of its predecessor as it charts the subtly interlacing fates of a handful of urban loners, including a coolly detached hit man (Leon Lai Ming) looking to go straight; his business partner (Michelle Reis), who secretly yearns for him; and a mute delinquent (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who wreaks mischief by night. Swinging between hard-boiled noir and slapstick lunacy with giddy abandon, the film is both a dizzying, dazzling city symphony and a poignant meditation on love, loss, and longing in a metropolis that never sleeps. Happy together one of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Setting out to depict the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong—when the country’s LGBTQ community suddenly faced an uncertain future—Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that is by turns devastating and deliriously romantic. Shot by ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color, Happy Together is an intoxicating exploration of displacement and desire that swoons with the ache and exhilaration of love at its heart-tearing extremes. In the mood for love Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career. 2046 Wong Kar Wai’s loose sequel to In the Mood for Love combines that film’s languorous air of romantic longing with a dizzying time-hopping structure and avant-sci-fi twist. Tony Leung Chiu Wai reprises his role as writer Chow Mo-Wan, whose numerous failed relationships with women who drift in and out of his life (and the one who goes in and out of room 2046, down the hall from his apartment) inspire the delirious futuristic love story he pens. 2046’s dazzling fantasy sequences give Wong and two of his key collaborators—cinematographer Christopher Doyle and editor/costume designer/production designer William Chang Suk Ping—license, to let their imaginations run wild, propelling the sumptuous visuals and operatic emotions skyward toward the sublime.

Product features

Wong Kar Wai’s most beloved works, together for the first time, including three films new to Blu-ray!

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.

Essential Fellini (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane. He began his career working in the slice-of-life poetry of neorealism, and though he soon spun off on his own freewheeling creative axis, he never lost that grounding, evoking his dreams, memories, and obsessions on increasingly grand scales in increasingly grand productions teeming with carnivalesque imagery and flights of phantasmagoric surrealism while maintaining an earthy, embodied connection to humanity. Bringing together fourteen of the director’s greatest spectacles, all beautifully restored, this centenary box set is a monument to an artist who conjured a cinematic universe all his own: a vision of the world as a three-ring circus in which his innermost infatuations, fears, and fantasies take center stage. Fifteen-Blu-Ray special edition collector's set features. • New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for all films • New digital restorations of the short film Toby Dammit (1968) and the television film Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969), with uncompressed monaural soundtracks • Feature documentaries Fellini: I’m a Born Liar (2002) and Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember (1997), the latter presented in its 193-minute version • Two-hour, four-part 1960 interview with director Federico Fellini by filmmaker Andre Delvaux for Belgian television • Four behind-the-scenes documentaries: Reporter’s Diary: “Zoom on Fellini” (1965), Ciao, Federico (1969), The Secret Diary of “Amarcord” (1974), and Fellini racconta: On the Set of “And the Ship Sails On” (1983) • Fellini racconta: Passegiatte nella memoria, a 2000 documentary featuring interviews with a late-in-life Fellini • Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile, a 2004 documentary about Fellini’s wife and frequent collaborator • Once Upon a Time: “La dolce vita,” a French television documentary about the film • Audio commentaries on six of the films • Program from 2003 on Fellini's 1980s television advertising work • Archival interviews with Fellini stars and collaborators, including Mastroianni, Sandra Milo, Anouk Aimee, and Magali Noël • Archival audio interviews by film critic Gideon Bachmann with Fellini, Mastroianni, and Fellini's friends and family • Video essays, trailers, and more • PLUS: Deluxe packaging, including two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of content: notes on the films by scholar David Forgacs, essays by filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Kogonada, and Carol Morley; film critics Bilge Ebiri and Stephanie Zacharek; and novelist Colm Tóibín, and dozens of images spotlighting Don Young’s renowned collection of Fellini memorabilia.

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14 films from the maestro of Italian cinema together for the first time

One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane.

He began his career working in the slice-of-life poetry of neorealism, and though he soon spun off on his own freewheeling creative axis, he never lost that grounding, evoking his dreams, memories, and obsessions in increasingly grand productions teeming with carnivalesque imagery and flights of phantasmagoric surrealism while maintaining an earthy, embodied connection to humanity.

Bringing together fourteen of the director’s greatest spectacles, all beautifully restored, this centenary box set is a monument to an artist who conjured a cinematic universe all his own: a vision of the world as a three-ring circus in which his innermost infatuations, fears, and fantasies take center stage.

“It’s not enough to call Fellini a filmmaker—he was a maestro . . . He was cinema. Fellini’s work is like a treasure chest; you open it up and there’s a world of wonders—sparkling visions of beauty, terror, absurdity—where the ancient and the modern become one, where all the barriers between reality and fantasy just shatter before your eyes."

—Martin Scorsese

Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits (The Big Boss / Fist of Fury / The Way of the Dragon / Enter the Dragon / Game of Death) (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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In the early 1970s, a kung-fu dynamo named Bruce Lee side-kicked his way onto the screen and straight into pop-culture immortality. With his magnetic screen presence, tightly coiled intensity, and superhuman martial-arts prowess, Lee was an icon who conquered both Hong Kong and Hollywood cinema, and transformed the art of the action film in the process. This collection brings together the five films that define the Lee legend: furiously exciting fist-fliers propelled by his innovative choreography, unique martial-arts philosophy, and whirlwind fighting style. Though he completed only a handful of films while at the peak of his stardom before his untimely death at age thirty-two, Lee left behind a monumental legacy as both a consummate entertainer and a supremely disciplined artist who made Hong Kong action cinema a sensation the world over. SEVEN-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • 4K digital restorations of The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Game of Death, and The Way of the Dragon, with uncompressed original monaural soundtracks • New 2K digital restoration of the rarely-seen 99-minute 1973 theatrical version of Enter the Dragon, with uncompressed original monaural soundtrack • 2K digital restoration of the 102-minute “special-edition” version of Enter the Dragon • Alternate audio soundtracks for the films, including original English-dubbed tracks and a 5.1 surround soundtrack for the special-edition version of Enter the Dragon • Six audio commentaries: on The Big Boss by Bruce Lee expert Brandon Bentley; on The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Game of Death, and The Way of the Dragon by Hong Kong–film expert Mike Leeder; and on the special-edition version of Enter the Dragon by producer Paul Heller • High-definition presentation of Game of Death II, the 1981 sequel to Game of Death • Game of Death Redux, a new presentation of Lee’s original Game of Death footage, produced by Alan Canvan • New interviews on all five films with Lee biographer Matthew Polly • New interview with producer Andre Morgan about Golden Harvest, the company behind Hong Kong’s top martial-arts stars, including Lee • New program about English-language dubbing with voice performers Michael Kaye (the English-speaking voice of Lee’s Chen Zhen in Fist of Fury) and Vaughan Savidge • New interview with author Grady Hendrix about the “Bruceploitation” subgenre that followed Lee’s death, and a selection of Bruceploitation trailers • Blood and Steel, a 2004 documentary about the making of Enter the Dragon • Multiple programs and documentaries about Lee’s life and philosophies, including Bruce Lee: The Man and the Legend (1973) and Bruce Lee: In His Own Words (1998) • Interviews with Linda Lee Cadwell, Lee’s widow, and many of Lee’s collaborators and admirers, including actors Jon T. Benn, Riki Hashimoto, Nora Miao, Robert Wall, Yuen Wah, and Simon Yam and directors Clarence Fok, Sammo Hung, and Wong Jing • Promotional materials • New English subtitle translations and subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by critic Jeff Chang THE BIG BOSS Enter a legend. Bruce Lee’s return to the Hong Kong film industry after a decade in America proved to be his big breakthrough, launching him to superstardom and setting a new standard for kung-fu heroics. In The Big Boss, he commands the screen with his gravitas and explosive physicality in the role of a Chinese immigrant working at a Thai ice factory and sworn to an oath of nonviolence. When he discovers that the factory’s ruthless higher-ups are running a secret heroin ring and offing their own workers, his commitment to pacifism is put to the test. With his undeniable charisma and fluid, lightning-fast martial-arts style, Lee is a revelation, blazing across the screen with a speed and power the likes of which had never been seen before. FIST OF FURY Bruce Lee is at his most awe-inspiringly ferocious in this blistering follow-up to his star-making turn in The Big Boss, which turned out to be an even greater success than its predecessor. Set in 1910s Shanghai, Fist of Fury casts Lee as a martial-arts student who, after his revered master is murdered by a rival dojo of Japanese imperialists, sets out to defend the honor of both his school and the Chinese people, with his fatal fists as his weapon of choice. Elevating Lee to a hero of near folkloric proportions, this historical revenge fantasy blends its stunning action set pieces with a strong anticolonialist statement and a potent dose of the fierce cultural pride that the actor embodied. THE WAY OF THE DRAGON After the back-to-back triumphs of The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, Bruce Lee was given the chance to write, produce, and direct his third outing as a martial-arts superstar. He used the opportunity to add a touch of goofily entertaining comedy to the typically action-driven proceedings in The Way of the Dragon, which finds him playing a rigorously trained martial artist who travels from Hong Kong to Rome to help his cousin, whose restaurant is being threatened by a gang of thugs. Reaching new heights of physical virtuosity, Lee unleashes an astonishing display of nunchuck-swinging, fly-kicking mayhem, all culminating in one of his most breathtaking fights: an epic gladiatorial death match with Chuck Norris in the Roman Colosseum. ENTER THE DRAGON At the height of his stardom in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee was called to Hollywood to make the film that, perhaps more than any other, defines his legacy. His electrifying fighting style and the deeply personal philosophy that guided it received their fullest expression yet in this thrilling tale of a Shaolin fighter who goes undercover to infiltrate a treacherous island presided over by a renegade monk turned diabolical criminal mastermind. Released just days after Lee’s tragic death, Enter the Dragon went on to become his greatest international success and one of the most influential action movies ever made, with its famed hall-of-mirrors finale bringing together the physical and intellectual dimensions of his artistry in one dazzling set piece. GAME OF DEATH Released five years after Bruce Lee’s death, this eccentrically entertaining kung-fu curio combines footage from an unfinished project directed by and starring Lee with original material shot by Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse to create an entirely new work that testifies to the actor’s enduring place in the pop-culture imagination. Using stand-ins, doubles, and archival footage to compensate for Lee’s absence, Game of Death follows a martial-arts movie star who, when he is threatened by a cutthroat crime syndicate intent on controlling his career, must take his skills from the soundstage to the streets. It all builds to an exhilarating climax that is pure Lee: a tour de force of martial-arts mastery in which the legend himself, clad in an iconic yellow jumpsuit, fights his way up a multilevel pagoda, with the towering Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among his formidable opponents.

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Five action-packed kung-fu landmarks from international martial-arts legend Bruce Lee

n the early 1970s, a kung-fu dynamo named Bruce Lee side-kicked his way onto the screen and straight into pop-culture immortality. With his magnetic screen presence, tightly coiled intensity, and superhuman martial-arts prowess, Lee was an icon who conquered both Hong Kong and Hollywood cinema, and transformed the art of the action film in the process.

This collection brings together the five films that define the Lee legend: furiously exciting fist-fliers propelled by his innovative choreography, unique martial-arts philosophy, and whirlwind fighting style.

Though he completed only a handful of films while at the peak of his stardom before his untimely death at age thirty-two, Lee left behind a monumental legacy as both a consummate entertainer and a supremely disciplined artist who made Hong Kong action cinema a sensation the world over.

Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman (Journey to the Beginning of Time/Invention for Destruction/The Fabulous Baron Munchausen)(The Criterion Collection)

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A one-of-a-kind silver-screen illusionist, Czechoslovak filmmaker Karel Zeman devoted his career to transporting viewers to realms beyond their wildest imagining. The deft, breathtaking combinations of live-action and animation techniques that he pioneered in the postwar years earned him comparisons to legends such as Georges Meliès, and an array of followers that includes Jan Švankmajer, Terry Gilliam, and Wes Anderson. Presented here are three of Zeman’s most enchanting fantasies—a boys’ adventure into the mists of prehistory, a Jules Verne–derived flight of fancy, and an exotic eighteenth-century tall tale—all of them treasure chests of wondrous sights, tactile textures, and headlong yarn-spinning that helped put Czechoslovak cinema on the international map. THREE-DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restorations of all three films • New programs with animation filmmaker John Stevenson and special-effects artists Phil Tippett and Jim Aupperle discussing director Karel Zeman and his complex visual trickery • Four early short films by Zeman: A Christmas Dream (1946), A Horseshoe for Luck (1946), Inspiration (1949), and King Lavra (1950) • Film Adventurer: Karel Zeman, a 2015 documentary about the director, featuring filmmakers Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, illustrator Ludmila Zeman, and others • Short documentaries by the Karel Zeman Museum profiling the director and detailing the production and effects of all three films • U.S.-release version of Journey to the Beginning of Time from 1960 • Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack for Invention for Destruction, and the opening sequence of the 1961 U.S.-release version • Restoration demonstrations and an interview with restoration supervisor James Mockoski • Trailers • New English subtitle translations • PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME A beguiling mix of natural history and science fiction, this early feature by Karel Zeman follows four schoolboys on an awe-inspiring expedition back through time, where they behold landscapes and creatures that have long since vanished from the earth. Hewing closely to the scientific knowledge of its era, Journey to the Beginning of Time brings its prehistoric beasts alive through a number of innovative techniques—including stop-motion, puppetry, and life-size models—creating an atmosphere of pure wonderment. INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION This eye-popping escapade revolves around a scientist and his doomsday machine—and the pirates who will stop at nothing to gain possession of it. Freely adapting the fiction of Jules Verne, and inspired by Victorian line engravings, Karel Zeman surrounds his actors with animated scenery of breathtaking intricacy and complexity, constructing an impossibly vivid proto-steampunk world. Released abroad at the turn of the 1960s, Invention for Destruction went on to become one of the most internationally successful Czechoslovak films of all time. THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN In The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, Karel Zeman conjures the adventures of the legendary, boastful baron, whose whirlwind exploits take him from the moon to eighteenth-century Turkey to the belly of a whale and beyond. A kaleidoscopic marvel that blends live action with techniques including stop-motion, cutout collage, puppetry, painted backdrops, and antique tinting, Zeman’s film is an exhilarating visual delight and a warmhearted whirl through a bygone age too entrancing to have existed.

My Brilliant Career (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

CRITERION COLLECTION

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The Princess Bride [Blu-ray]

Criterion

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From celebrated director Rob Reiner ( When Harry Met Sally ) and Oscar (r) winning* screenwriter William Goldman ( Chaplin ) comes "an enchanting fantasy" ( Time ) filled with adventure, romance and plenty of "good hearted fun" (Roger Ebert)! Featuring a spectacular cast thatincludes Robin Wright ( Forrest Gump ), Cary Elwes ( Liar, Liar ), Mandy Patinkin ( Dick Tracy ) and Billy Crystal ( City Slickers ), this wonderful fairy tale about a Princess named Buttercup and her beloved is "a real dream of a movie" ( People )! *1969: OriginalScreenplay, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1976: Adapted Screenplay, All the President's Men

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Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles'

A kid (Fred Savage), home sick from school, grudgingly allows his grandfather (Peter Falk) to read him a dusty storybook—which is how we meet the innocent Buttercup (Robin Wright, in her breakout role), about to marry the nefarious Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) though her heart belongs to Westley (Cary Elwes). The wedding plans are interrupted, however, by a mysterious pirate, a vengeful Spaniard, and a good-natured giant, in a tale full of swashbuckling, romance, and outrageously hilarious spoofery.

A high-spirited adventure that pits true love against inconceivable odds, The Princess Bride has charmed legions of fans with its irreverent gags, eccentric ensemble, and dazzling swordplay.

Directed by Rob Reiner from an endlessly quotable script by Oscar winner William Goldman, The Princess Bride reigns as a fairy-tale classic.

The Silence of the Lambs (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Criterion

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In this chilling adaptation of the best selling novel by Thomas Harris, the astonishingly versatile director Jonathan Demme crafted a taut psychological thriller about an American obsession: serial murder. As Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who enlists the help of the infamous Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter to gain insight into the mind of another killer, Jodie Foster subverts classic gender dynamics and gives one of the most memorable performances of her career. As her foil, Anthony Hopkins is the archetypal antihero cultured, quick witted, and savagely murderous delivering a harrowing portrait of humanity gone terribly wrong. A gripping police procedural and a disquieting immersion into a twisted psyche, The silence of the lambs swept the Academy Awards (best picture, director, screenplay, actress, actor) and remains a cultural touchstone.



BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Tak Fujimoto, with 2.0 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack

Alternate 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack

Audio commentary from 1994 featuring director Jonathan Demme, actors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally, and former FBI agent John Douglas

New interview with critic Maitland McDonagh

Thirty eight minutes of deleted scenes

Four documentaries featuring hours of interviews with cast and crew

Behind the scenes featurette

Storyboards

Trailer

Plus: A book featuring an introduction by Foster, an essay by critic Amy Taubin, pieces from 2000 and 2013 by author Thomas Harris on the origins of the character Hannibal Lecter, and a 1991 interview with Demme.

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Jonathan Demme’s brilliantly twisted thriller

In this chilling adaptation of the best-selling novel by Thomas Harris, the astonishingly versatile director Jonathan Demme crafted a taut psychological thriller about an American obsession: serial murder. As Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who enlists the help of the infamous Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter to gain insight into the mind of another killer, Jodie Foster subverts>The Silence of the Lambs swept the Academy Awards (best picture, director, screenplay, actress, actor) and remains a cultural touchstone.

Rashomon (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Criterion Collection

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A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people recount different versions of the story of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife, which director Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) presents with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema—and a commanding new star by the name of Toshiro Mifune (Yojimbo)—to the Western world.

Parasite (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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A zeitgeist-defining sensation that distilled a global reckoning over class inequality into a tour de force of pop-cinema subversion, Bong Joon Ho’s genre-scrambling black-comic thriller confirms his status as one of the world’s foremost filmmakers. Two families in Seoul—one barely scraping by in a dank semibasement in a low-lying neighborhood, the other living in luxury in a modern architectural marvel overlooking the city—find themselves on a collision course that will lay bare the dark contradictions of capitalism with shocking ferocity. A bravura showcase for its director’s meticulously constructed set pieces, bolstered by a brilliant ensemble cast and stunning production design, Parasite cemented the New Korean Cinema as a full-fledged international force when it swept almost every major prize from Cannes to the Academy Awards, where it made history as the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for best picture. Director-Approved Two-Blu-Ray special edition features. • New 4K digital master, approved by director Bong Joon Ho and director of photography Hong Kyung Pyo, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack • New audio commentary featuring Bong and critic Tony Rayns • Black-and-white version of the film with a new introduction by Bong, and Dolby Atmos soundtrack • New conversation between Bong and critic Darcy Paquet • New interviews with Hong, production designer Lee Ha Jun, and editor Yang Jinmo • New program about the New Korean Cinema movement featuring Bong and filmmaker Park Chan Wook (Oldboy) • Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2019 featuring Bong and members of the cast • Master class featuring Bong from the 2019 Lumière Festival in Lyon, France • Storyboard comparison • Trailers • Plus: An essay by critic Inkoo Kang.

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Bong Joon Ho’s brilliant, wickedly entertaining international smash hit, in a supplement packed edition

A zeitgeist-defining sensation that distilled a global reckoning over class inequality into a tour de force of pop-cinema subversion, Bong Joon Ho’s genre-scrambling black-comic thriller confirms his status as one of the world’s foremost filmmakers.

Two families in Seoul—one barely scraping by in a dank semibasement in a low-lying neighborhood, the other living in luxury in a modern architectural marvel overlooking the city—find themselves on a collision course that will lay bare the dark contradictions of capitalism with shocking ferocity.

A bravura showcase for its director’s meticulously constructed set pieces, bolstered by a brilliant ensemble cast and stunning production design, Parasite cemented the New Korean Cinema as a full-fledged international force when it swept almost every major prize from Cannes to the Academy Awards, where it made history as the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for best picture.

GODZILLA: THE SHOWA-ERA FILMS, 1954–1975 (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

The Criterion Collection

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In 1954, an enormous beast clawed its way out of the sea, destroying everything in its path—and changing movies forever. The arresting original Godzilla soon gave rise to an entire monster movie genre (kaiju eiga), but the King of the Monsters continued to reign supreme: in fourteen fiercely entertaining sequels over the next two decades, Godzilla defended its throne against a host of other formidable creatures, transforming from a terrifying symbol of nuclear annihilation into a benevolent (if still belligerent) Earth protector. Collected here for the first time are all fifteen Godzilla films of Japan’s Showa era, in a landmark set showcasing the technical wizardry, fantastical storytelling, and indomitable international appeal that established the most iconic giant monster the cinema has ever seen. EIGHT BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTOR’S SET FEATURES • High definition digital transfers of all fifteen Godzilla films made between 1954 and 1975, released together for the first time, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks • High definition digital transfers of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the 1956 U.S. release version of Godzilla; and the 1962 Japanese release version of King Kong vs. Godzilla • Audio commentaries from 2011 on Godzilla and Godzilla, King of the Monsters featuring film historian David Kalat • International English language dub tracks for Invasion of Astro Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs. Megalon, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla • Directors Guild of Japan interview with director Ishiro Honda, conducted by director Yoshimitsu Banno in 1990 • Programs detailing the creation of Godzilla’s special effects and unused effects sequences from Toho releases including Destroy All Monsters • New interview with filmmaker Alex Cox about his admiration for the Showa era Godzilla films • New and archival interviews with cast and crew members, including actors Bin Furuya, Tsugutoshi Komada, Haruo Nakajima, and Akira Takarada; composer Akira Ifukube; and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai • Interview with critic Tadao Sato from 2011 • Illustrated audio essay from 2011 about the real life tragedy that inspired Godzilla • New English subtitle translations • Trailers • PLUS: A lavishly illustrated deluxe hardcover book featuring an essay by cinema historian Steve Ryfle, notes on the films by cinema historian Ed Godziszewski, and new illustrations by Arthur Adams, Sophie Campbell, Becky Cloonan, Jorge Coelho, Geof Darrow, Simon Gane, Robert Goodin, Benjamin Marra, Monarobot, Takashi Okazaki, Angela Rizza, Yuko Shimizu, Bill Sienkiewicz, Katsuya Terada, Ronald Wimberly, and Chris Wisnia.

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GODZILLA: THE SHOWA-ERA FILMS, 1954–1975

IN 1954, AN ENORMOUS BEAST CLAWED ITS WAY OUT OF THE SEA, destroying everything in its path—and changing movies forever. The arresting original Godzilla soon gave rise to an entire monstermovie genre (kaiju eiga), but the King of the Monsters continued to reign supreme: in fourteen fiercely entertaining sequels over the next two decades, Godzilla defended its throne against a host of other formidable creatures, transforming from a terrifying symbol of nuclear annihilation into a benevolent (if still belligerent) Earth protector. Collected here for the first time are all fifteen Godzilla films of Japan’s Showa era, in a landmark set showcasing the technical wizardry, fantastical storytelling, and indomitable international appeal that established the most iconic giant monster the cinema has ever seen.

Deluxe Packaging

A lavishly illustrated deluxe hardcover book featuring an essay by cinema historian Steve Ryfle, notes on the films by cinema historian Ed Godziszewski, and new illustrations by Arthur Adams, Sophie Campbell, Becky Cloonan, Jorge Coelho, Geof Darrow, Simon Gane, Robert Goodin, Benjamin Marra, Monarobot, Takashi Okazaki, Angela Rizza, Yuko Shimizu, Bill Sienkiewicz, Katsuya Terada, Ronald Wimberly, and Chris Wisnia.

A closer look at 4 influential films in the collection...

Toho Studios followed the enormous success of the original Godzilla with this sequel, efficiently directed by Motoyoshi Oda as a straight-ahead monsters-on-the-loose drama. An underrated standout among the Showa Godzilla films, Godzilla Raids Again introduces the monster-versus-monster format that would dominate the remainder of the series, pitting Godzilla against the ferocious, spiny Anguirus as the kaiju wreak havoc in the streets of Osaka in a series of elaborate set pieces that succeed in upping the ante for destruction.

A closer look at 4 influential films in the collection...

After his first two cinematic rampages, Godzilla was revived as an adversary for the Hollywood import King Kong. When Kong is discovered on a remote island by a publicity-hungry pharmaceutical company, the giant ape is set on a collision course with Godzilla, and Japan braces for a double dose of devastation. Both the Japanese-release version and the U.S.-release cut were rousing hits, cementing Godzilla’s status as a series-worthy star.

A closer look at 4 influential films in the collection...

Intended to address the crisis levels of pollution in postwar Japan, Godzilla vs. Hedorah finds the King of the Monsters fighting an alien life form that arrives on Earth and steadily grows by feeding on industrial waste. Director Yoshimitsu Banno infuses the film with equal parts ecological horror, humorous monster antics, and sixties psychedelia straight out of San Francisco, making for a truly unique—and divisive—entry in the series.

A closer look at 4 influential films in the collection...

Godzilla’s evil twin Mechagodzilla first reared its head in this Jun Fukuda–directed film. A robot designed by aliens to conquer Earth, the enduringly popular villain has since been resurrected by Toho Studios several times. With the help of earnest direction, spectacular pyrotechnics, and guest appearances by veteran genre actors, this film recaptures the feel of the sixties Godzilla movies.

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