Coming in February: Network, a prescient X-ray of the corrupted soul of a corporate-dominated America, directed by Sidney Lumet; The Man Who Wasn’t There, Joel and Ethan Coen’s existential noir thriller set in 1940s California; Eclipse Series 8: Lubitsch Musicals, four elegant, bawdy pre-Code movie musicals from Ernst Lubitsch; and, fresh from theaters, Cloud, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s darkly comic, gonzo revenge thriller. Plus: now on 4K UHD—3:10 to Yuma, a psychologically complex western directed by Delmer Daves, and PlayTime, Jacques Tati’s nearly wordless comedy about confusion in an age of high technology—and, on stand-alone Blu-ray, A Woman Under the Influence, a benchmark of American independent cinema from John Cassavetes.
3:10 to Yuma (#657) out Feb 3
In this beautifully shot, psychologically complex western, Van Heflin is a mild-mannered cattle rancher who takes on the task of shepherding a captured outlaw (played with cucumber-cool charisma by Glenn Ford) to the train that will deliver him to prison. This apparently simple mission turns into a nerve-racking cat-and-mouse game that tests each man’s particular brand of honor. Based on a story by Elmore Leonard, 3:10 to Yuma is a thrilling, humane action movie, directed by the supremely talented studio filmmaker Delmer Daves with intense feeling and precision. Read Gordon S. Miller’s review of the Blu-ray. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Interviews with author Elmore Leonard and actor Glenn Ford’s son and biographer, Peter Ford
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones
PlayTime (#112) out Feb 10
Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PlayTime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the lovably old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a baffling modern world, this time Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, PlayTime is a lasting record of a modern era tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion. Read Davy’s review of the Blu-ray. The Special Edition Features are:
- 4K digital restoration, with 3.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the special features
- Introduction by actor and comedian Terry Jones
- Three selected-scene commentaries, by film historian Philip Kemp, theater director Jérôme Deschamps, and Jacques Tati expert Stéphane Goudet
- Like Home, a visual essay by Goudet
- “Tativille,” a 1967 television program featuring an interview with Tati from the set of PlayTime
- Beyond “PlayTime,” a short documentary featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the production
- Interview with script supervisor Sylvette Baudrot
- Audio interview with Tati from the U.S. debut of PlayTime at the 1972 San Francisco International Film Festival
- Tati Story, a short film by Goudet on the life and career of Tati
- “Monsieur Hulot’s Work,” a 1976 television program about Tati’s beloved character
- Cours du soir (1967), a short film written by and starring Tati
- Alternate English-language soundtrack
- PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
A Woman Under the Influence (#253) out Feb 10
This uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her family’s struggle to save her from herself. Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk give unforgettably harrowing performances as a married couple deeply in love but unable to express their ardor in terms the other can understand. This landmark American film is perhaps the most beloved work from the extraordinary John Cassavetes. The Special Edition Features are:
- High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary by sound recordist and composer Bo Harwood and camera operator Michael Ferris
- Conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk
- Archival audio interview with director John Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson
- Trailer
- Stills gallery featuring behind-the-scenes production photos
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and an interview with Cassavetes from 1975
Eclipse Series 8: Lubitsch Musicals out Feb 17
Renowned as a silent-film pioneer and the man who refined Hollywood comedy with such masterpieces as Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be, Ernst Lubitsch also had another claim to fame: he helped invent the modern movie musical. With the advent of sound, and with audiences clamoring for “talkies,” Lubitsch combined his love of European operettas and his mastery of cinema to develop this entirely new genre. These elegant, bawdy films, made before strict enforcement of the moralizing Production Code, feature some of the greatest stars of early Hollywood (Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins), as well as that elusive style of comedy that would thereafter be known as “the Lubitsch touch.” The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
Cloud out Feb 17
A gonzo revenge thriller, a darkly comic anticapitalist critique, and a dizzying plunge into the alienated abyss of the internet, Cloud is among the most audacious genre experiments to date from master of psychological tension Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Factory worker Yoshii (Masaki Suda) quits his job to pursue his side business reselling questionably procured items online at outrageous markups. His profits quickly grow—but so does his list of enemies, and the petty grievances of his disgruntled clients and competitors soon take on a terrifying life of their own. With slow-burn precision, Kurosawa constructs a dread-inducing vision of digital depersonalization that ignites into something altogether shocking and unpredictable. The Special Edition Features are:
- Meet the Filmmakers: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a Criterion Channel original interview
- Trailer
- Notes by critic Sean Gilman
Network (#1300) out Feb 24
This media satire, directed by Sidney Lumet from a brilliantly incisive script by Paddy Chayefsky, is an X-ray of the corrupted soul of a corporate-dominated America, startlingly prescient in its anticipation of today’s outrage-driven news cycle. At a struggling television network, ambitious executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) finds herself with a hit on her hands when disgruntled newscaster Howard Beale (Peter Finch) goes off script, transforming himself into a mad-as-hell prophet railing against the ills of modern society. But can she control the populist revolution they have unleashed on the airwaves? Garnering four Oscars, including for Dunaway, Finch, and Chayefsky, this no-holds-barred New Hollywood classic remains as fearlessly funny as it is unnervingly relevant. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring director Sidney Lumet
- Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words (2025), a feature-length documentary about the screenwriter by Matthew Miele
- The Making of “Network” (2006), a six-part documentary by Laurent Bouzereau
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by writer and New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie
The Man Who Wasn’t There (#1301) out Feb 24
The Coen brothers peer into the existential abyss of the atomic age in this coolly riveting, drolly profound noir thriller. In a performance of masterfully calibrated understatement, Billy Bob Thornton stars as a disaffected barber in 1940s California whose suspicion that his wife (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him leads him down a crooked path of blackmail and murder. Fusing the expressionistic black and white and hard-boiled poetry of classic noir with their own idiosyncratic feeling for sinister, surreal Americana, Joel and Ethan Coen craft an arresting vision of the cruelty of fate and the mystery of our place in the cosmos. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director of photography Roger Deakins, with 5.0 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
- Audio commentary featuring filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen and actor Billy Bob Thornton
- New conversation between the Coens and author Megan Abbott
- Archival interview with Deakins
- Short making-of documentary and deleted scenes
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author Laura Lippman
