Coming in June: West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty, Med Hondo’s one-of-a-kind Pan-African musical spectacular; High Art, an essential 1990s NYC queer romance from Lisa Cholodenko; from John Waters, the irresistible rock-and-soul comedy, Hairspray, and his antifascist fairy tale, Desperate Living; Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, an urgent moral thriller from Iran; and—fresh from theaters—Magellan, Lav Diaz’s radically antiheroic portrait of a sixteenth-century explorer. Plus: Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy, three colorful paeans to bodies in motion; Five Easy Pieces, a masterpiece of early-1970s American alienation, directed by Bob Rafelson; and Charade, a deliciously dark 1960s comedic thriller directed by Stanley Donen.
Five Easy Pieces (#546) out Jun 2
Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirty-something oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged, ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early-1970s American alienation. The Special Edition Features are:
Buy Five Easy Pieces (Criterion Collection)- 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 by director Bob Rafelson and interior designer Toby Rafelson
- Soul Searching in “Five Easy Pieces,” a 2009 program featuring Bob Rafelson
- BBStory, a documentary about the legendary film company BBS Productions, with Rafelson; actors Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Ellen Burstyn; filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom; and others
- Documentary featuring critic David Thomson and historian Douglas Brinkley
- Audio excerpts from a 1976 AFI interview with Rafelson
- Trailer and teasers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones
Charade (#57) out Jun 2
In this comedic thriller, a trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American, played by Audrey Hepburn in gorgeous Givenchy, through Paris in an attempt to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is Cary Grant’s suave, mysterious stranger. Director Stanley Donen goes deliciously dark for Charade, a glittering emblem of 1960s style and macabre wit. The Special Edition Features are:
Buy Charade (Criterion Collection)- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary from 1999 featuring director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film historian Bruce Eder
West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (#1313) out Jun 9
Mauritanian French firebrand Med Hondo puts colonialism itself on trial in this one-of-a-kind musical spectacular—a collective effort of unprecedented scale and ambition that proved a watershed event in African cinema. Aboard an enormous mock slave ship, Hondo stages a series of imaginative reenactments and intricately choreographed dance numbers that trace the devastating effects of French imperialism across centuries of enslavement and injustice. Beyond mere extravaganza, West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty is a stirring call to Pan-African independence and a dazzling yet critical reconception of an entire people’s history of oppression and rebellion. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with African-cinema scholar Aboubakar Sanogo
- Program featuring archival interviews with director Med Hondo
- Excerpted archival interview with cinematographer François Catonné
- Trailers
- PLUS: An essay by film programmer and critic Ashley Clark
- New cover by Chris Visions
High Art (#1314) out Jun 16
In a revelatory performance, Ally Sheedy stars in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s debut feature, a wry and incisive look at the politics of the New York art scene wrapped in the guise of an emotionally spiky queer romance. When Lucy Berliner (Sheedy), a once prominent photographer who has retreated into a life of heroin abuse with her faded-actress lover (Patricia Clarkson), is rediscovered by Syd (Radha Mitchell), an up-and-coming editor at a photography magazine, professional ambition and personal attraction become dangerously entwined. Stripping away art-world glamour to tell a seductive yet troubling story of complicated human connection, High Art stands as an essential work of both queer and 1990s independent cinema. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Lisa Cholodenko, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Cholodenko
- New conversation between Cholodenko and filmmaker Karyn Kusama
- New interviews with actors Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell and photographer JoJo Whilden
- Dinner Party (1997), a short film by Cholodenko
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic B. Ruby Rich
Magellan out Jun 23
A hypnotic journey engraved in images of staggering beauty and horror, this monumental achievement from Lav Diaz boldly rewrites the imperialist mythmaking of the Age of Discovery. Elegantly minimalist yet overpowering in its scale and impact, Magellan follows the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) as he embarks on his epochal quest to cross the Pacific—a voyage that spirals into zealotry and violence when he attempts to impose Christianity upon the people of the Philippines. Abetted by García Bernal’s radically antiheroic portrayal, Diaz composes a stark vision of the brutality at the heart of European conquest and a haunting elegy for a lost precolonial past.
Hairspray (#1315) out Jun 23
After decades of pushing the boundaries of bad taste with his underground provocations, John Waters found surprising mainstream success with this infectiously irreverent rock-and-soul comedy. It’s 1962, and the only things bigger than the bouffant hairdos are the popular dance crazes sweeping the nation. When Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) shoots to stardom on a local TV dance party, her radical self-confidence and support for racial integration launch a movement that takes the city by storm. Costarring the inimitable Divine in a fiercely funny double role, Hairspray finds Waters marrying his wildly subversive sensibility with a newfound bubblegum sweetness for what may be his most irresistible film. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Alternate 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
- Audio commentary featuring Waters and actor Ricki Lake
- New conversation between Waters and WFMU DJs Dave “the Spazz” Abramson and Gaylord Fields
- New interview with Lake and actor Colleen Fitzpatrick
- Reflections from actors Debbie Harry, Jo Ann Havrilla, Leslie Ann Powers, Clayton Prince, Shawn Thompson, and Pia Zadora
- Deleted scenes
- Behind-the-scenes documentary
- Get to Know John Waters (1987)
- Interview with production designer Vincent Peranio
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Jessica Kiang
Desperate Living (#1316) out Jun 23
Following the unrepentant outrageousness of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, director John Waters brought his notorious trash trilogy to a fittingly twisted close with this antifascist fairy tale. After hysterical housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) murders her husband with the help of her fed-up housekeeper (Jean Hill), the newfound “sisters in crime” escape to the bizarro shantytown of Mortville, a depraved penal colony presided over by a despotic queen (Edith Massey) whose tyranny pushes her subjects to shocking revolt. Deviant cops, death by dog food, DIY surgery—Waters unleashes all this and more in an at once relentlessly warped and oddly moral vision of queer rebellion. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Waters and actor Liz Renay
- Optional Italian dub track
- New conversation between Waters and film programmer Cristina Cacioppo
- Back to Mortville, a tour of the film’s main Baltimore location, led by Waters
- New interview with actors Susan Lowe, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Mink Stole
- Interview with production designer Vincent Peranio
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Grace Byron
It Was Just an Accident (#1317) out Jun 30
In this Palme d’Or winner from the Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, a chance encounter sets in motion an urgent moral thriller. When a stranded driver (Ebrahim Azizi) walks into his shop, mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) believes he has come face-to-face with Eghbal, a notoriously brutal guard who tortured him during his political imprisonment. Gathering a band of fellow former inmates and other allies, Vahid sets out to take justice into his own hands—but does he have the right man? Shot in secret after Panahi’s longtime ban from filmmaking in his home country, It Was Just an Accident is a tour de force of sustained tension and mordant humor, provocatively shifting perspectives to examine vital questions of trauma and revenge. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New digital master, approved by director Jafar Panahi, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- New conversation between Panahi and filmmaker Ramin Bahrani
- Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2025 featuring Panahi and members of the cast and crew
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy out Jun 30
One of Spanish cinema’s great auteurs, Carlos Saura brought international audiences closer to the art of his country’s dance than any other filmmaker, before or since. In his Flamenco Trilogy—Blood Wedding, Carmen, and El amor brujo—Saura merged his passion for music with his exploration of national identity. All starring and choreographed by legendary dancer Antonio Gades, the films feature thrilling physicality and electrifying cinematography and editing—colorful paeans to bodies in motion as well as to cinema itself.
