Kent Conrad

Starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brenner, Morituri is a great spy thriller beautifully shot aboard a real German frigate.

Richard Dreyfuss is Moses Wine, a former-hippy detective whose latest case takes him back to his radical roots.

Follow up to Hellraiser has the same aesthetic, same cast, much the same crew, but not enough story or ideas.

An erotic and grotesque twist on a haunted house story, with an unsettling horrific vision that supersedes some film-making fumbles.

Briskly paced, excellent acted late ’80s drama stars a disillusioned James Woods and a young, idealistic Robert Downey Jr.

Grandmaster filmmaker Ozu’s minor, observant comedy about the growing differences between a middle-aged married couple.

Challenging, evocative films from the Japanese New Wave that contemplate aspects of the Buddhist religion, with lots of sex.

A disappointment to its creators on release, The Leopard Man is one of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s hidden gems.

Three fun but gory short stories of the Yakuza taking the law into their own hands, filled with bloody torture.

The mutant turtles join the Caped Crusader as Foot ninjas descend on Gotham city.

This rote sci-fi horror thriller from a former master has some good ideas that it does nothing with.

An intimate look at Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s return from retirement to make a short CGI film.

A ridiculous, fun ’80s horror sci-fi flick about a man-eating alien brain with hypnotic powers.

An animated drama about a school bully picking on a deaf girl tells a story quiet about redemption and consequences.

One of RKO’s famous Val Lewton produced horror pictures and an atmospheric, tense horror thriller.

Satoshi Kon’s animated psychological thriller is a mind-bending story of violence and personality crisis in the Japanese pop world.

The Criterion Collection has stacked this beautiful release of Welles’s troubled second production with a plethora of extras.

A boy befriends a mermaid, and director Masaaki Yuasa reigns in his anarchic animation style…for a little while.

This visually arresting fantasy story of a mother and son that pulls at the heartstrings (and the tear ducts).

This remake of the 1977 horror classic completely reinvents the story, rarely for the better, and is very, very long.

A collection of 13 short films by the early effects genius of Silent Cinema.

One of Mary Pickford’s most successful films pulls on the heartstrings with admittedly shameless melodrama.

Mary Pickford’s waif character is charming in a rural comedy about a wild child and the townsman she loves.

Teruo Ishii’s strange anthology of period stories of sex and torture is more bizarre than erotic, though entertaining.

Inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s manga and Fritz Lang’s movie, this anime has style in excess…but lacks a cohesive story.

Director Sergio Martino crafts a precursor to modern slasher movies that combines sexploitation with stabbings. And gougings.

A comprehensive, lavishly illustrated overview of the reviled, but ever popular, slasher-movie genre.

Teruo Ishii’s strangest film of murder, doppelgangers, and the titular malformed men finally makes it to Blu-ray.

Terry Gilliam’s controversial tale of an innocent in a grotesque world is four parts beautiful, six parts repulsive.

Masaaki Yuasa’s debut animated feature is a kaleidoscope of images and scenes that, miraculously, make a coherent (if confusing) film.

Kinji Fukasaku’s brings docu-drama realism and brutal ugliness to the Yakuza genre in this gritty film.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s keen observation of human interaction is brought to a courtroom drama, winner of six Japanese Academy awards.

Released in 1963, director Seijun Suzuki was on the brink of his artistic breakthrough with this comic gangland picture.

Three Japanese movies directed by Michio Yamamoto that involve Western-style vampires, with style, atmosphere, and some decent sprays of blood.

Five early films by Seijun Suzuki spotlight Nikkatsu’s early 60s trends and the director’s growing ambition.

Frank Henenlotter’s feature debut comes on a ridiculously stuffed Blu-ray, a must for any fan.

Documentary details Clouzot’s experimental Inferno, using recently discovered footage from the failed production, to mixed results.

Heartfelt if slight documentary about a rock band’s return to Paris in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Kon Ichikawa’s remake of a ’30s movie dresses a stagey plot in innovative cinematic stylings.

Pabst’s 1931 mine disaster film is swiftly paced, beautifully shot, and a heartfelt plea for comradeship between nations.

In an industry that is lately obsessed with making films available in multiple different versions, both in medium of delivery and in the actual content, it’s astounding to conceive just how disposable film was in its early days. Cinema was more curiosity than art form, and it’s estimated that nearly 75% of all the films…

Ten years after it was a sleeper sci-fi hit, Man from Earth comes visually restored to Blu-ray.

A railway lineman ruins his life by doing the right thing in this semi-comic, biting and ultimately depressing film.

Olive Films releases an obscure film from epic director Cecil B. DeMille’s silent cinema days.

Lucio Fulci, famous for his gore and zombie films, brings his lurid vision to the Giallo.

One of Dalton Trumbo’s last pseudonymous screenplays before the blacklist was broken, this is a stylish Western noir.

An idiosyncratic semi-slasher that barely got a theatrical release is finally on home video, uncut and restored.

Arrow Books presents a critical overview of Lady Snowblood’s entire career.

Cult movies aren’t the same as good movies. Good movies generally have decent production values, interesting stories and scripts, nuanced performances, and resonant themes. Cult movies can have any or all of the above, but can often dispense with most or even all of the markers of quality to create their cult moments. That weird…

Based on a Clifford Odets stageplay, this story of 50s Hollywood corruption is melodramatic candy for classic cinema fans.