Coming in September: a trio of films from a New Queer Cinema renegade, a metaphysical exploration of gay love and loneliness, and a disturbingly funny portrait of middle-class suburbia. Plus: a landmark of British crime cinema and a quintessential 1980s cult comedy—now on 4K UHD.
Repo Man (#654) out Sep 3
A quintessential cult film of the 1980s, Alex Cox’s singular sci-fi comedy stars the always captivating Harry Dean Stanton as a weathered repo man in a desolate Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez as the nihilistic middle-class punk he takes under his wing. The job becomes more than either of them bargained for when they get involved in repossessing a mysterious—and otherworldly—Chevy Malibu with a hefty reward attached to it. Featuring the ultimate early-eighties LA punk soundtrack, this grungily hilarious odyssey is also a politically trenchant take on President Reagan’s domestic and foreign policies. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
Buy Repo Man (The Criterion Collection) Blu-ray- New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Alex Cox, 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 Cox, executive producer Michael Nesmith, casting director Victoria Thomas, and actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, and Del Zamora
- Interviews with musicians Iggy Pop and Keith Morris and actors Dick Rude, Olivia Barash, and Miguel Sandoval
- Deleted scenes
- Roundtable discussion about the making of the film, featuring Cox, Richardson, Rude, Zamora, and producers Peter McCarthy and Jonathan Wacks
- Conversation between McCarthy and actor Harry Dean Stanton
- Cox’s “cleaned-up” television version of the film
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Sam McPheeters, an illustrated production history by Cox, and a 1987 interview with real-life repo man Mark Lewis
All of Us Strangers (#1234) out Sep 10
A metaphysical exploration of queer love and loneliness, familial grief and healing, this delicate but audacious chamber drama confirms director Andrew Haigh’s gift for bringing complicated emotions to the screen. Isolated in a seemingly empty new high-rise, London screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) finds his solitary existence upended when he begins a passionate romance with the impulsive Harry (Paul Mescal), then reconnects with his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) in a reunion that pushes beyond the limits of time and space. Putting a deeply personal imprint on a novel by Japanese writer Taichi Yamada, Haigh reaches cosmic heights while never losing sight of the story’s achingly human heart. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- 4K digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio and uncompressed stereo soundtracks
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- New conversation between director Andrew Haigh and author and critic Michael Koresky
- New interview with cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay
- Behind-the-scenes documentary and featurettes
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
The Long Good Friday (#26) out Sep 17
A combustible performance from Bob Hoskins is the fuse that lights this underworld saga, a landmark of British crime cinema. Hoskins plays Harold Shand, an ambitious London mobster who, just as he attempts to close a major real-estate deal with the American Mafia, finds his crime empire rocked by a string of attacks, sending him on a ruthless quest to find out who’s responsible. Abetted by an ice-cool performance from Helen Mirren as Shand’s in-command moll, The Long Good Friday is not only a gripping gangster thriller but also a vivid portrait of late-1970s Britain—a powder keg of cultural and political tensions on the verge of explosion. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Phil Méheux, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Audio commentary with director John Mackenzie
- An Accidental Studio (2019), a documentary about the early years of HandMade Films
- Introduction by Criterion Collection curatorial director Ashley Clark
- Documentary about the making of the film featuring interviews with Mackenzie and actors Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren
- Program comparing the soundtracks for the UK and U.S. releases
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Ryan Gilbey
Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy (#1233) out Sep 24
Take the conventions of the American teen movie, transpose them to Los Angeles’s freaky fringes, anchor them in an unapologetic vision of sexual fluidity, and top it all off with heavy doses of Gen X disillusionment, gonzo violence, and hallucinogenic surrealism, and you’ll end up with something like these audacious transgressions from New Queer Cinema renegade Gregg Araki. Gleefully mixing slacker irony with raw sincerity, Godardian cool with punk scuzz, the savagely subversive, hormone-fueled films that make up the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy pushed 1990s indie cinema into bold new aesthetic realms, while giving blistering expression to adolescent rage and libidinal desire. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 2K digital restoration of Totally F***ed Up and new 4K digital restorations of The Doom Generation and Nowhere, supervised and approved by director Gregg Araki, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
- In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of The Doom Generation and Nowhere and two Blu-rays with all three films and the special features
- New conversation between director Gregg Araki and filmmaker Richard Linklater
- New audio commentary on Nowhere with Araki and actors James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton, Jordan Ladd, Sarah Lassez, Guillermo Diaz, and Jaason Simmons
- Audio commentary on Totally F***ed Up with Araki, Duval, and actor Gilbert Luna
- New documentary on the trilogy’s visual style featuring Araki, Duval, producer Andrea Sperling, cinematographer Jim Fealy, costume designers Cathy Cooper and SaraJane Slotnick, production designer Patti Podesta, art director Michael Krantz, and hair and makeup artist Jason Rail
- James Duval’s Teen Apocalypse Archive, a new conversation between Araki and Duval Q&As with Araki, moderated by filmmakers Gus Van Sant and Andrew Ahn
- The Doom Generation video comic book
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Nathan Lee
Happiness (#1235) out Sep 24
As disturbingly funny as it is audaciously empathetic, auteur of unease Todd Solondz’s portrait of damaged souls reaching out for connection reveals the existential void underneath middle-class suburban “normalcy.” An extraordinary ensemble cast—including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, and Dylan Baker—embodies an array of loosely connected New Jersey deviants, depressives, and misfits, among them a frustrated phone-sex pest, an all-American dad concealing his pedophilic urges, and a lonely woman with a grisly secret, all of whom want just one thing: to be loved. One of the most controversial films of the 1990s, the unflinching Happiness unnerves precisely because it dares to see the humanity in those most often denied it. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Maryse Alberti, with 2.0 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
- New conversation between director Todd Solondz and filmmaker Charlotte Wells
- New interview with actor Dylan Baker
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner
- New cover based on original poster art by Daniel Clowes
