criterionforum.org

Atom Egoyan pieces together the shards of a tragedy that has left a community shattered in this ethereal, emotionally arresting film, an Oscar-nominated adaptation of the Russell Banks novel. Drifting between past and present, The Sweet Hereafter offers an intimate panorama of a snowbound Canadian town reckoning with the fallout of a school-bus crash that claimed the lives of fourteen children—a fresh wound that’s further inflamed when a big-city lawyer, who is contending with his own personal tragedy, arrives to assemble a lawsuit on behalf of the victims’ families. Achieving an almost incantatory intensity through the mesmerizing performances of an ensemble cast led by Ian Holm and Sarah Polley, this winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival is a devastatingly clear-eyed vision of the ways in which trauma can ripple through our lives.

FILM INFO

Canada
1997
112 minutes
Color
2.39:1
English
Spine #1349

New 4K digital restoration supervised and approved by director Atom Egoyan, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Two audio commentaries, one from 1998 featuring Egoyan and author Russell Banks, and the other from 2012 featuring Egoyan
New interview with Egoyan
Interview with Egoyan and actor Sarah Polley
“Egoyan to the Oscars,” a 1998 segment from the Canadian television program The National
Episode of the Criterion Channel series Observations on Film Art about the use of associative editing, featuring scholar Jeff Smith
Isolated track featuring Mychael Danna's score
Trailers
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic César Albarrán-Torres and an introduction by Egoyan

I like that it's probably coming out on the Tuesday of their 50% sale but I'd have also pre-ordered on Orbit with a 30% discount in Orbit's price. A stunning film and I need to watch the clip from the site later today to check out what the restoration looks like.

The last truly great Egoyan film in what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest runs in cinema history.
I love every film from his debut (Next of Kin) to this.

The clip on Criterion's page is suggesting a very nice improvement on the recent-ish Blu-rays. Is it Feb 23 yet?

dda1996a wrote: Sat Nov 14, 2026 5:19 am The last truly great Egoyan film in what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest runs in cinema history.
I love every film from his debut (Next of Kin) to this.

It really is unfortunate that this particular critical point of view continues to be as prominent, if not dominant, as it is, especially as that tends to prevent much of the excellent later work from getting its proper due and a re-presentation. Felicia's Journey, for instance, which was released right after this, is just as great as far as I'm concerned, as are a number of the others after that (including his most recent, Seven Veils, which desperately needs a video release somewhere).