Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
André Gregory & Wallace Shawn: 3 Films
When André Gregory and Wallace Shawn—theater directors, writers, actors, and longtime friends—sat down for a stimulating meal in 1981’s My Dinner with André, they not only ended up with one of cinema’s unlikeliest iconic scenarios but launched a film collaboration that would continue to pay creative dividends for decades. The subsequent projects they made together for the screen—1994’s Vanya on 42nd Street, a passionate read-through of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and 2014’s striking Henrik Ibsen interpretation A Master Builder—are penetrating works that exist on the boundary between theater and film, and that both emerged out of many years of rehearsals with loyal troupes of actors. Gregory and Shawn’s unique contributions to the cinematic landscape are shape-shifting, challenging, and entertaining works about the process of creation. – Criterion.com
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
He may not be making another feature film, but what is perhaps Hayao Miyazaki’s crowning achievement finally arrives on Blu-ray today. The Oscar-winning Spirited Away (which would make a fine double feature with this week’s Inside Out) is a visually and narratively stunning adventure that marks one of this century’s finest animations. This release includes storyboards and art behind the film, a look at the production in a 42-minute special, and more. For another dose of Studio Ghibli, Hiroyuki Morita‘s The Cat Returns is also on Blu-ray this week. – Jordan R.
Wild Tales (Damián Szifron)
Damián Szifron launches a satirical and visceral dissection of the social and political currents running underneath his native Argentina, but Wild Tales is the opposite of a stuffy, calculated screed. Playing with a touch of the pulp ghoulishness of Tales of the Crypt, Tales features plenty of darkly comic surrealism that’s been subtly grafted onto modern social anxieties. Whether it’s a plane full of strangers learning of the demented connection that bonds them, a waitress at a road-side diner forced to serve the author of her family’s misery, or a demolitionist waging a war against an impound lot, Wild Tales finds a deeply entertaining catharsis in isolated fragments that begin as revenge, only to crossover to examine ideas about justice and human morality. Taken as separate stories, these vignettes are entrancing, but, most impressive for an anthology, when assembled they create a fearsome portrait of Argentina itself, one unlikely to fade from memory. – Nathan B.
Also Arriving This Week
Chappie (review)
Run all Night (review)
Welcome to Me (review)
Recommended Deals of the Week
(Note: new additions are in red)
Adaptation (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Alfred Hitchcock: The Essentials Collection (Blu-ray) – $30.99
A Most Wanted Man (Blu-ray) – $9.96
A Most Violent Year (Blu-ray) – $12.99
The American (Blu-ray) – $8.47
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $6.66
Anna Karenina (Blu-ray) – $12.05
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $9.10
Birdman (Blu-ray) – $10.00
Black Swan (Blu-ray) – $6.74
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Casino (Blu-ray) – $8.88
Captain Phillips (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Children of Men (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Cloverfield (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Collateral (Blu-ray) – $7.88
The Descendants (Blu-ray) – $7.40
Do the Right Thing (Blu-ray) – $9.47
Drive (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Fly (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Gangs of New York (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Godzilla (Blu-ray) – $10.00
Gone Girl (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Goodfellas (Blu-ray) – $8.35
Good Will Hunting (Blu-ray) – $7.50
The Graduate (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Gravity (Blu-ray) – $10.00
The Grey (Blu-ray) – $8.57
Haywire (Blu-ray) – $7.64
Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray) – $6.50
The Illusionist (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $8.00
Interstellar (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Jackie Brown (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Jane Eyre (Blu-ray) – $8.33
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $10.99
John Wick (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Killing Them Softly (Blu-ray) – $6.96
Kingsman: The Secret Service (Blu-ray) – $12.49
L.A. Confidential (Blu-ray) – $8.51
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $8.71
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Blu-ray) – $6.50
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $8.63
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $6.20
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Observe & Report (Blu-ray) – $7.49
Office Space (Blu-ray) – $6.96
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $6.50
Public Enemies (Blu-ray) – $8.57
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $7.00
Reality Bites (Blu-ray) – $8.72
The Secret In Their Eyes (Blu-ray) – $6.72
Selma (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Seven (Blu-ray) – $7.00
Seven Psychopaths (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $6.89
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Snowpiercer (Blu-ray) – $8.00
The Spectacular Now (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Spring Breakers (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Synecdoche, NY (Blu-ray) – $6.59
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $7.88
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $6.99
The Truman Show (Blu-ray) – $7.99
True Grit (Blu-ray) – $7.99
This is the End (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Vanilla Sky (Blu-ray pre-order) – $8.31
We Own the Night (Blu-ray) – $8.95
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $6.94
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $14.99
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $6.72
Zero Dark Thirty (Blu-ray) – $8.00
What are you picking up this week?