The Criterion Collection

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by Meek12345

I did a few minutes of research on this and learned that O Brother, Where Art Thou was the first 2K digital intermediate.

First 2K DI was Pleasantville in 1998.

First 4K DI was ironically earlier, and for a much older film. In 1993, the OCN for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937) was scanned by Kodak at 4K resolution with 10-bit color depth, was digitally repaired, had a DI created (it wasn't called a DI then, but I forget what word they used), and from that DI they printed out multiple new negatives, with at least one housed alongside the 1937 negative in the Disney vaults, and at least one used to create the 1993 theatrical prints and the 1994 home video releases.

[Taylor3978]

Originally Posted by DWeickerSr

There was a French release of The 49th Parallel in 2013

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/49th-...Blu-ray/77641/

Great, my wife cringes every time Olivier does his Canadian French caricature (I still love this film).

Although it doesn't get as much love, I'd hope we'd also get a decent release of A Canterbury Tale. Scorsese describes it in the P&P documentary as their most mystical film (which may explain why it flopped). Plus, Eric Portman.

[ShellOilJunior]

Black Narcissus did not receive a UHD for its 75th and Tales of Hoffmann was a blu-ray only release. Red Shoes aside, what does Criterion have planned for Powell and Pressburger?

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

Black Narcissus did not receive a UHD for its 75th and Tales of Hoffmann was a blu-ray only release. Red Shoes aside, what does Criterion have planned for Powell and Pressburger?

I would imagine that The Small Back Room would get a BD release any month now.

A UK BD was released last summer, and Criterion added it for digital purchase on VUDU sometime last year, as well.

[Scottie]

Looks like Janus/Sideshow picked up Peter Hujar's Day.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/p...ce-1236312356/

[The Great Owl]

I was close to a Barnes & Noble during lunch break, so I bought two weird French movies that I have been wanting to see for a while...

The Beast
Last Summer

Both of these were 30% off on the Criterion rack.

[CRASHLANDING]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I was close to a Barnes & Noble during lunch break, so I bought two weird French movies that I have been wanting to see for a while...

The Beast
Last Summer

Both of these were 30% off on the Criterion rack.

Both currently on the Channel for anyone interested. I've had The Beast on my watchlist, thanks for the reminder Owl. Had not heard of Last Summer but added that as well.

[Querelle]

At first I thought you were talking about the Walerian Borowczyk film The Beast and was like what does that have to do with Criterion lol

[javy]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

Black Narcissus did not receive a UHD for its 75th and Tales of Hoffmann was a blu-ray only release. Red Shoes aside, what does Criterion have planned for Powell and Pressburger?

It would be very lame if they don't release I Know Where I'm Going! soon.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by CRASHLANDING

Both currently on the Channel for anyone interested. I've had The Beast on my watchlist, thanks for the reminder Owl. Had not heard of Last Summer but added that as well.

One of my favorite YouTube reviewers, Spookyastronauts, recently did a video naming the most disturbing movies that she saw last year. Last Summer was one of them.

I have not yet watched Last Summer, but the premise leads me to believe that it is the type of film that Babygirl (starring Nicole Kidman) should have been had Babygirl not played it safe.

[Dragun]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

That's true. But has Criterion been one of those upscaling them? Besides Wall-E.

The Shape of Water also had a 2K DI. The majority of Criterion's UHDs are from 4K restorations of movies finished on film (no DI originally). The few movies with DIs that they've released on UHD are fairly recent and had 4K DIs. No Country for Old Men (2007) is an exception, though it had a 4K DI, which was rare at the time.

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

Black Narcissus did not receive a UHD for its 75th and Tales of Hoffmann was a blu-ray only release. Red Shoes aside, what does Criterion have planned for Powell and Pressburger?

I wasn't particularly impressed with the old BD of Black Narcissus, which was fortunately a rental. Honestly, the transfer has a lot of similarities to the one of The Devils that's been around for 20 years now (come on, Warners...), which was struck from a lot of poor sources, to a Digibeta, probably through several other digital domains, and finally to a DVD.

I'm hoping that gets a 4K eventually, maybe for the 80th in 2027. Hopefully the (by then, 17-year-old) Blu-ray gets remastered too, because this thing with Criterion not remastering their Blu-rays is quickly getting old. The only ones they remaster are the ones where the directors want them to look like shit.

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I was close to a Barnes & Noble during lunch break, so I bought two weird French movies that I have been wanting to see for a while...

The Beast
Last Summer

Both of these were 30% off on the Criterion rack.

Originally Posted by CRASHLANDING

Both currently on the Channel for anyone interested. I've had The Beast on my watchlist, thanks for the reminder Owl. Had not heard of Last Summer but added that as well.

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

One of my favorite YouTube reviewers, Spookyastronauts, recently did a video naming the most disturbing movies that she saw last year. Last Summer was one of them.

I have not yet watched Last Summer, but the premise leads me to believe that it is the type of film that Babygirl (starring Nicole Kidman) should have been had Babygirl not played it safe.

Whenever Last Summer is mentioned, my heart jumps for a second.

I still say the answer to this is restore all the 35mm they have (which consists of the PG-rated cut on the negative, and the 95-minute R-rated cut on prints), rip the last two X-rated minutes from the tape, draw a line where it'll be sent to print, and if they find the X-rated scenes on film then they can push it back, but if they don't find those scenes then release what they have.

It's a hell of a lot better than pirating the movie or buying the obscenely expensive VHS tape.

And considering...

-There's a chance there's no film copies of those two minutes in existence
-The footage in question is only two minutes (compare this to Metropolis, where 25 minutes of the 145-minute movie, roughly 17.2413793%, is from the bad source; Last Summer is 2 minutes of a 97-minute movie, roughly 2.06185567%)
-Seamless branching is a thing, allowing all three cuts to be present on one 4K and one Blu-ray, without affecting anything (likely all three cuts and all special features can all be on one Blu-ray, since the movie would have at most 120 unique minutes of footage)
-There's no issues with the film besides elements
-The restoration would be normally priced
-There's no legal issues
-The director's not blocking the film
-There's no revisionism to fear
-Releasing an X-rated film nowadays is as simple as scan, restore, master, manufacture, pack, sell, ship
-The demand is high enough that most customers in the community would love it and buy it, and no one (aside from trolls and curmudgeons) would complain about it

...something needs to happen with this title. Now.

Originally Posted by Dragun

The Shape of Water also had a 2K DI. The majority of Criterion's UHDs are from 4K restorations of movies finished on film (no DI originally). The few movies with DIs that they've released on UHD are fairly recent and had 4K DIs. No Country for Old Men (2007) is an exception, though it had a 4K DI, which was rare at the time.

In terms of newly filmed movies with a 4K DI (excluding older films that got remastered at 4K or higher, which there were quite a few by the end of the 2000s), the films I can name are Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and No Country For Old Men.

I'd like to focus on The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford for a moment.

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

One of my favorite YouTube reviewers, Spookyastronauts, recently did a video naming the most disturbing movies that she saw last year. Last Summer was one of them.

John Waters had it as one of his Adventures in Moviegoing selections on the Criterion Channel, and he sounded transfixed by the monstrousness of it.

[CRASHLANDING]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

Whenever Last Summer is mentioned, my heart jumps for a second.

[Show spoiler]I still say the answer to this is restore all the 35mm they have (which consists of the PG-rated cut on the negative, and the 95-minute R-rated cut on prints), rip the last two X-rated minutes from the tape, draw a line where it'll be sent to print, and if they find the X-rated scenes on film then they can push it back, but if they don't find those scenes then release what they have.

It's a hell of a lot better than pirating the movie or buying the obscenely expensive VHS tape.

And considering...

-There's a chance there's no film copies of those two minutes in existence
-The footage in question is only two minutes (compare this to Metropolis, where 25 minutes of the 145-minute movie, roughly 17.2413793%, is from the bad source; Last Summer is 2 minutes of a 97-minute movie, roughly 2.06185567%)
-Seamless branching is a thing, allowing all three cuts to be present on one 4K and one Blu-ray, without affecting anything (likely all three cuts and all special features can all be on one Blu-ray, since the movie would have at most 120 unique minutes of footage)
-There's no issues with the film besides elements
-The restoration would be normally priced
-There's no legal issues
-The director's not blocking the film
-There's no revisionism to fear
-Releasing an X-rated film nowadays is as simple as scan, restore, master, manufacture, pack, sell, ship
-The demand is high enough that most customers in the community would love it and buy it, and no one (aside from trolls and curmudgeons) would complain about it

...something needs to happen with this title. Now.

Wrong Last Summer, Shane. Owl and I were talking about the 2023 Breillat film.

Also, for some reason this really cracked me up:

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

roughly 2.06185567%

If that's "roughly" I wonder what would be more precise lol

[DukeTogo84]

I'm going to will Kenji Misumi's sword trilogy into a release for June. That and Cyrano de Bergerac, and Killer of the Flower Moon, and...

[MifuneFan]

Room 666 / Room 999 (1982-2023)
Janus Contemporaries
Release Date: May 13th

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/79...m-666-room-999

At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders asked such filmmaking luminaries as Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Yılmaz Güney, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, and Susan Seidelman to ponder the question “Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” Forty years later—adopting the same minimalist, fixed-camera format as Wenders—Lubna Playoust poses the same question to a group of contemporary auteurs, including David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Lynne Ramsay, and Wenders himself. Together, Wenders’ Room 666 (Chambre 666) and Playoust’s Room 999 (Chambre 999) capture the unfiltered perspectives of pathbreaking filmmakers on the state of the industry as well as the upheavals brought on by various new technologies and methods of distribution—in the process touching on large-scale issues of politics, culture, and the meaning (and continued relevance) of cinema in two distinct eras, nearly half a century apart.

Room 666 (1982)

“Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders invited fifteen other filmmakers to give their personal answers to that question. Their responses—recorded privately via a static camera inside a hotel room—form an enlightening, provocative, and philosophical reflection on the challenges then facing filmmakers and on the possible future of their industry. Featuring luminaries such as Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Susan Seidelman, Yılmaz Güney, and, in his last interview before his death just weeks later, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Room 666 offers a uniquely candid look at the relationship between artists and their craft.

Room 999 (2023)

Forty years after Wim Wenders asked leading filmmakers at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival to offer their thoughts on the future of cinema in his documentary Room 666, Lubna Playoust poses the same question—“Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”—to a new generation of directors. Utilizing the same minimalist, fixed camera format as Wenders, Playoust invites thirty directors who attended the 2022 festival—including Claire Denis, David Cronenberg, Lynne Ramsay, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, and Wenders himself—to give their unfiltered perspectives on the state of the industry. Touching on upheavals in the technology, distribution, and economics of filmmaking as well as on larger questions of politics and culture, their answers provide a thought-provoking exploration of the meaning and relevance of cinema in the twenty-first century.

INCLUDES

• Meet the Filmmakers, a new interview with Room 999 director Lubna Playoust
• Trailer

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by CRASHLANDING

Wrong Last Summer, Shane.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Room 666 / Room 999 (1982-2023)

[Show spoiler]
Janus Contemporaries
Release Date: May 13th

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/79...m-666-room-999

[Show spoiler]

Will this be part of the July sale at B&N, or full price year-round?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

Will this be part of the July sale at B&N, or full price year-round?

Janus Contemporaries titles are part of the sale too.

[MifuneFan]

I just noticed Criterion have added one new extra to their release of Anora: Audition footage.

https://www.criterion.com/films/34891-anora

Original:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital master, supervised by director Sean Baker and producer Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan
• New making-of documentary
• New interviews with Baker and Madison
• Cannes Film Festival press conference
• Q&A with Madison and actor-stripper Lindsey Normington
• Deleted scenes
• Trailers
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
• PLUS: Essays by film critic Dennis Lim and author Kier-La Janisse

New cover by Bianca Parkes and GrandSon, with photography by Max Abadian

New:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital master, supervised by director Sean Baker and producer Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
• Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan
• New making-of documentary
• New interviews with Baker and Madison
• Cannes Film Festival press conference
• Q&A with Madison and actor-stripper Lindsey Normington
• Deleted scenes
• Audition footage
• Trailers
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
• PLUS: Essays by film critic Dennis Lim and author Kier-La Janisse

New cover by Bianca Parkes and GrandSon, with photography by Max Abadian

Edit: I also just noticed it's now a 3 disc release too instead of 2 (1 4K, 2 BD). Same for the BD release, going from one disc to two

Original (via Way Back Machine):

[Show spoiler]

Current:

[Show spoiler]

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Room 666 / Room 999 (1982-2023)
Janus Contemporaries
Release Date: May 13th

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/79...m-666-room-999

Somewhat baffling to release a 1980s film as contemporary, even if it’s tied to a more recent documentary, and then not license any of the existing extras (commentary/interview). Should be the same master as the French/Italian BDs which is a HD improvement compared to the Curzon.