CRITERION
Best release (1-5)
1. I Walked With A Zombie / The Seventh Victim
2. Brief Encounters / The Long Farewell: Two Films by Kira Muratova
3. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
4. The Heroic Trio / Executioners
5. Demon Pond
Best Boxed Set or Multi-Film Collection
Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembene
Best Modern/New Film
Perfect Days
Best Commentary
I'll cheat here and go for the commentaries on the Val Lewton films despite them having been produced for the 2005 Warners DVD edition. The Stephen Jones and Kim Newman commentary for I Walked With A Zombie in particular is in my regular rotation and one of my very favourite commentaries.
Best “Bonus” film
Old-Fashioned Woman on Not A Pretty Picture
Best Booklet
The Underground Railroad with its 'unfilmed chapter' produced as a graphic novel
Best On-Disc Non-Commentary Extra
Shadows In The Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy on the I Walked With A Zombie/The Seventh Victim set, albeit again originally produced for the 2005 DVD set
Best UHD Release
Gummo
Best Reissue
Peeping Tom
Best Upgrade
Pandora's Box
Best Cover
Lots to choose from this year. Loved The Heroic Trio/Executioners, The Underground Railroad, Farewell My Concubine and Tales of the Four Seasons. But I'll go for Demon Pond.
Worst Cover
Scarface (1932) doesn't look any better in physical reality, unfortunately. Yikes!
Best Packaging – Non-Boxed Set Individual Release
It has to be Trainspotting's glow-in-the-dark packaging (amusingly coming out the same year that Criterion upgraded their only other glow-in-the-dark title, Repo Man!)
Best Packaging – Boxed Set
Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembene, though Gregg Araki's Teen Apocalypse Trilogy was a really close runner up.
Best Discovery
Demon Pond
Most Unnecessary Release
I guess the last couple of months of UHD reissues of films that already have UHD editions available elsewhere might be the main thing here.
Best Thread
It has probably been all of the activity in the Deaf Crocodile thread for me this year.
Member of the Year
I'll put in a word for therewillbeblus and their write ups
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GENERAL RELEASES
1. Discotek takes the year for me with the release of the first Chie The Brat! series (series 2 is out in March) along with a wonderful edition of the first OVA series ever produced, Mamoru Oshii's 1983-4 four part
Dallos series. And last but not least a set of one of the most notorious anime titles (at least in the West) with 1998's Kite. This child-turned-assassin OVA production became famous as one of the influences on the "origin of O-ren Ishii" anime sequence in Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 1, but also infamous at the same time for having moments of rather graphic sexual material in it - this edition presents every version the film has been available in (released in three separate editions by Media Blasters in the US back in the day). As the write up on the back says it has the "US General Release Version - no sex, but all the violence; International Version - Director supervised with all the violence and a little bit of sex; and Original Uncut Version - all the sex and nudity"
2. Mute Witness (UHD) (Arrow) - I've
gone on about this film in its dedicated thread but was very glad to see this film finally get its due
3. Michael Powell: The Early Works (BFI) - after tackling the end of Powell with Bluebeard's Castle in 2023, the BFI tidied up the beginning this year. Hopefully this set did well enough to make another set of the remaining films a viable proposition
4. Louis Feuillade: The Complete Crime Serials (1913-1918) (Masters of Cinema)
5. Hitchcock: The Beginning (Studio Canal) - nicely complimenting the BFI's Michael Powell set are these somewhat better known Hitchcock films. Great to upgrade my Network DVDs of these, and to see Juno and The Paycock finally brought into the fold (meaning I could finally upgrade from my mid-2000s
MovieMail exclusive DVD edition of the film!)
6. Shadow of Fire (Third Window)
7. Witchfinder General and Blood On Satan's Claw (UHD) (88 Films) - which kicked off the beautifully produced editions of Tigon films (on Blu) for the rest of the year, which even extended to similarly beautiful complimentary editions of the Planet Films productions of Island of Terror and Night of the Big Heat. Somehow we also got the entire filmography of Michael Reeves out on disc within this single year too with 88 Films release of The Sorcerors on Blu-ray and Raro's edition of Revenge of the Blood Beast (aka The She Beast) also on Blu.
8. The Kingdom Trilogy (Mubi)
9. L'amour Fou (Radiance)
10. The Second Sight corner: The Hitcher and The Blair Witch Project in UHD were essentials, but I also picked up Late Night With The Devil
11. J-Horror Rising (Arrow) and a shout out to Arrow's Blu-ray edition of Tomie
12. Macross Plus: The Ultimate Edition (All the Anime) - after years of teasing finally the series arrived in both its 4 part OVA and theatrical cuts. I had to budgetarily draw the line at the edition containing 7 LPs of the entire score(!) but I did pick up the giant box limited edition of it containing the art book as a nice display piece in itself. I'll also note the big boxsets produced of two series finally escaping streaming for physical media years after their release with All the Anime bringing out editions of A Place Further Than The Universe and the first season of Ghost In The Shell SAC_2045 this year.
13. Goodbye Uncle Tom (UHD) (Blue Underground) - how? why? who knows, but its here!
14. A surprisingly Dario Argento-heavy year with both the Blu-ray edition of his latest film Dark Glasses through RLJE Films in the US, the 5 disc UHD edition of Opera from Severin and the wonderful
"Dario Argento: Deep Cuts" set produced by Severin of his Italian TV series work. That was the best surprise of the year for me.
15. All The Haunts Be Ours Volume 2 (Severin)
16. Suzhou River (Radiance)
17. Bandits of Orgosolo & The Lost World: Ten Short Films (Radiance)
18. Trenque Lauquen (Radiance)
19. A general appreciative nod towards Radiance's championing of 60s and 70s rarities from Japan along with the more recognisable Suzukis and Fukasakus, especially the single-labelled promotion of Tai Kato throughout the year.
20. Separate collector's editions of Patlabor: The Movie, Patlabor 2: The Movie & Patlabor The Movie 3: WX111 (All the Anime)
21. 88 Films and their "Japanarchy" line with Tokyo Decadence followed by the two Evil Dead Trap films and Gaira's Guts Trilogy, the latter being films that I never imagined would get a UK release
22. The Nude Vampire / The Demoniacs and Requiem For A Vampire / The Escapees (Indicator) - deluxe treatment of Jean Rollin continues apace
23. Third Window's "Directors Company" releases of The Crazy Family, Luminous Woman and Love Hotel. I'm very excited for what they have in store for us in 2025.
24. But just as exciting was 88 Films starting up their own line of Nikkatsu Roman Porno films. I was especially glad to see this as Impulse Pictures in the US were quiet on this front in 2024. So far they have released: The Watcher In The Attic, Woods Are Wet, Apartment Wife: Affair In The Afternoon, and perhaps the most incongruous of all Sweden Porno: Blonde Animal, which was apparently one of six films in the subgenre where the Roman Porno series jumped on the bandwagon of the "Sexy Sweden" trend of the mid-1970s by using imported blonde Swedish starlets but with the entire film still being dubbed in Japanese!
25. Shawscope Volume 3 (Arrow)
26. The Game of Clones: The Brucespoitation Collection (Severin) - I'm not crazy about many of these films, but this is perhaps the labour of love of the year
27. Hidden City (BFI)
28. Worlds: Selected Works by Ben Rivers (Second Run)
29. From Beyond (UHD) (88 Films)
30. Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (Umbrella Films) - I could not find any UK release of this so far, so imported the Australian set which includes the new version plus most of the older variants, and their respective extras, for completeness
31. Watership Down (BFI) - the UHD release of this inspired me to pick up the Richard Adams novel in hardback, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the night blubbing after re-reading that final chapter. Thanks for the trauma BFI!
[-(
32. Shirobako (All the Anime)
33. The Hong Sang-soo corner with Cinema Guild's release of Walk Up at the end of 2023 and In Water for this years' annual event
34. Eureka's championing of Kinji Fukasaku with The Fall of A-Ko Castle, Message From Space and Wolves, Pigs & Men (complemented by Arrow's edition of The Threat and Radiance's edition of Japan Organised Crime Boss)
35. Unearthed Films with Nicolas Roeg's Full Body Massage and Nacho Cerdá's The Abandoned. Although their big release of the year was of 1983's true crime shocker Village of Doom
36. Looney Tunes Collector's Edition Volumes 3 & 4 (Warners)
37. More classic anime coming to disc - a great year for this with All the Anime bringing both the horror series from 2004 Elfen Lied and the classic 1989 sci-fi OVA Venus Wars to disc in the UK
38. Death Machine (Kino) - all three cuts of Stephen Norrington's tongue in cheek sci-fi/horror mashing up Terminator with Aliens, and which damningly may be Norrington's best film
39. Riddle of Fire (Vinegar Syndrome)
40. Pharaoh (Second Run) - finally I got to upgrade from the aspect ratio squashed into incomprehensibility and badly dubbed into English Eureka DVD edition from the early 2000s! It was quite a relevation to actually see this one properly!
41. Eurkea's forays into Japanese genre cinema throughout the year beyond Fukasaku - Samurai Wolf I+II, Yakuza Wolf 1 & 2 , Prison Walls: Abashiri Prison I-III
42. The Flesh & Blood Show: The Films of Pete Walker (88 Films) which I complemented by finally picking up The Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection
43. Ozon's Transgressive Triple (Altered Innocence) which I paired up with the US Blu-ray release of Ozon's latest film The Crime Is Mine (Music Box)
44. The Music Lovers (BFI) - another Ken Russell gap filled!
45.
Mars Express (G Kids) - the long awaited first animated feature by Jérémie Périn
46. The Island (Treasured Films) - great to finally get the chance to see this Michael Ritchie directed, Peter Benchley written, Michael Caine starring pirate shocker in its correct aspect ratio, as I have somewhat fond memories of being traumatised as a teen by that surprisingly graphically violent opening sequence when it turned up pan-and-scanned on the television! It certainly shook up my somewhat childishly naive notions of pirates as garrulous Long John Silver-types or Captain Hook-style comic foils!
47. River (Third Window)
48. The Godzilla-verse spot: Shin Ultraman (MVD) & Godzilla Minus One (All the Anime)
49. She is Connan (Altered Innocence) - and that inspired me to finally pick up the Altered Innocence discs of The Wild Boys and After Blue: Dirty Paradise to go with it (and the Apocalypse After disc of the Bertrand Mandico shorts which had been an immediate pick up back in the day!)
50. BFI's Flipside series continued with - Remembrance, The Outcasts and Cooking Price-Wise
51. Paramount had a surprisingly good archival year with Blu-ray releases of Dragonslayer (with commentary from Guillermo del Toro!) and an excellent edition of Milos Forman's Ragtime along with a much longer 'workprint' version of the film running three hours.
52. The Yorgos Lanthimos duet: Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness both getting disc releases through Searchlight
53. The Janus Contemporaries series with Wim Wenders' Anselm and Ryusuke Hamaguichi's Evil Does Not Exist, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses and Bertand Bonello's The Beast. All of which probably could, and should, have made it into the main Criterion line.
54. 88 Films appears again with their third (or fourth) new line of the year with the "French Collection" of discs including I Am A Nymphomaniac, 'French giallo' Knife Under the Throat and Just Jaeckin's 1977 film about notorious real-life brothel madame Madame Claude
55. The Boy and the Heron (Studio Ghibli)
56. Nucleus Films had a naughty year with a paired release of French fancies Dressage and Education Anglaise at the beginning of the year; and at the end an excellent Blu-ray edition of the only Kenny Everett-starring film Bloodbath at the House of Death, with a second disc containing two of Everett's video productions.
57. Speaking of naughtiness: Behind Convent Walls (Blu) (Arrow)
58. The Secret of N.I.M.H (Eureka)
59. Truffaut appeared with Radiance's releases of Mississippi Mermaid and The Story of Adele H.
60. Brotherhood of the Wolf (UHD) (Studio Canal) - finally I could listen to the French commentary with subtitles decades after importing the 3 DVD Canadian edition that for some reason refused to subtitle the commentary!
61. Memento Mori: The Jorg Buttgereit Collection (Arrow) - I'm not a fan of the Nekromantik films (I'm more of a Schramm and Der Todesking kind of guy!), but this was a great way to gather all of the essential titles together in one place. Plus it has my vote for best pacakaging to display in a prominent spot to unnerve visitors with!
62. The Slumber Party Massacre / Slumber Party Massacre II (101 Films)
63. Die Monster Die! (BFI) - which nicely compliments Arrow's release of The Dunwich Horor in 2023 as early attempts at Lovecraftian horror films
64. Hundreds of Beavers (Lightbulb Pictures)
65. Ark of the Sun God (88 Films)
66. The Taste of Things and Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest Monster (Picturehouse Films)
67. The Good, The Bad, The Weird (Arrow)
68. The Complete Confessions Series / Pryor & Wilder / Guest House Paradiso - Indicator doing their bit to keep comedy films in the mix which need the attention as much as classic Hollywood.
69.
Brooklyn '45 (Shudder)
70. Enys Men (BFI)
71. Priscilla (on UHD), Fallen Leaves, Crossing and The Settlers (Mubi)
and 72. Grindhouse Pictures finally made it across to the UK with their release of 1977's Death Game (aka the film Eli Roth remade as Knock Knock with Keanu Reeves a while back). On that note the Canadian International Pictures boutique label also made their UK debut this year with the release of the Buster Keaton Rides Again/Helicopter Canda disc. Fingers crossed that we will see more UK releases from both labels in 2025
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So that was my year in discs. I've minimised the Indicator and Radiences since we have lots of coverage dedicated to these labels already and instead wanted to do a relatively brief skim across a strange (and bizarrely kinky! ) animation-heavy year. Maybe a lot of it was oddities, or odds and ends, but it is hard to be unimpressed by the sheer diversity of material released on disc. Disappointments were no releases from Impulse Pictures in the US or from Anti-Worlds in the UK in 2024. However a great year for Michael Reeves fans (though maybe we need a Dario Argento's Deep Cuts equivalent dive into Reeves' short films) and an especially surprisingly excellent year showcasing Vincent Price with Witchfinder General making it to UHD, Nucleus Films releasing Bloodbath At The House of Death; and BFI bringing out Blu-rays of both The Oblong Box and Cooking Price-Wise!
Shoutouts to discs that I backed through Kickstarters, so cannot in good conscience place in the above list: the Aleksandr Ptushko Fantastika Box from Deaf Crocodile.
From previous years: Irwin Allen: Master of Disaster Collection from Shout Factory (collecting all of the TV-movie produced films, plus 1980s volcano disaster film When Time Ran Out), Drowning By Numbers (Severin - any hope of an edition of the The Tulse Luper Suitcases? Hint, hint?
), Private Crimes (Severin)
