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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

So long as you know where to look or can swing the price, here are 20 essential releases you’ll want to have on your shelves.

The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015
Photo: The Criterion Collection

In 2005, Netflix looked like a cinephile’s best friend. Not only did they stock nearly every in-print, Region 1 DVD, but their delivery methods were flawless, with a one-business-day turnaround for each disc shipped. Fast-forward to a decade later and things are quite the opposite: Not only do they no longer have an interest in stocking boutique releases, but Saturday deliveries are now a method of the past, not to mention the two-business-day minimum in either direction for a mailed disc. With talk of the inevitable end to tangible media looming in the not-so-distant future, one might think companies would be folding left and right. But that’s not the case at all, as home-video distributors like Arrow Video, the Criterion Collection, Flicker Alley, Kino Lorber, Twilight Time, and Shout! Factory continue to release Blu-rays with top-shelf A/V transfers and engaging, indispensible supplements at an impressive, even increased, clip. As our list shows, titles thought forever lost or damaged arrived in high definition or 4K to prove quite the opposite. So long as you know where to look or can swing the asking price, here are 20 essential releases you’ll want to have on your shelves by year’s end. Clayton Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

20. Dressed to Kill, The Criterion Collection

The Criterion Collection may have famously mucked up its first print of Brian De Palma’s cheeky erotic-horror masterpiece, but the second printing is one of the company’s finest and most transformative releases of the year. For young nerds raised on this film via VHS, the shock resides not in the painterly rapture of the images, which is apparent no matter how abused the transfer in question may be, but in their pristine clarity. Dressed to Kill really is one of De Palma’s most hyper-tactile works, which is saying something, and which contrasts brilliantly with the figurative, intensely frightening, sometimes nearly slapstick-y shenanigans that comprise much of the narrative’s second half. The sound mix offers a diegetic symphony that’s counterpointed by the lush, purplish pathos of one of Pino Donaggio’s finest scores. The extras generously balance the expected with the eccentric. De Palma elegantly discusses his technique with super-fan and forthcoming De Palma co-director Noah Baumbach, but room is also allowed for Victoria Lynn Johnson, Angie Dickinson’s stunt double in the opening shower sequence, and Stephen Sayadian, the art director of the film’s one sheet. A smorgasbord of other goodies collectively examine the film’s extraordinary balance of the intellectual with the carnal. Chuck Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

19. Hard to Be a God, Kino Lorber

For a film of such revolting tactility, anything less than the eye-popping high-definition work provided here by Kino Lorber would be unsatisfactory. Sweat glistens off foreheads, snowflakes pop out from overcast skies, and pools of mud emanate a rich, gurgling darkness. Sound is equally sharp and meticulous: Without a musical score to balance, Kino Lorber focuses attention on the diverse sonic minutiae of Hard to Be a God’s universe, drawing out fidelity from something as seemingly marginal as a throat-clearing grunt heard off screen. Unfortunately, the disc takes a hit in the extras department, despite boasting two supplements that sound, on the surface, like promising avenues for deeper immersion into the film: a 44-minute behind-the-scenes documentary that’s really more of a crudely cut stream-of-consciousness interview with Aleksei German in some dingy prop closet, and a tediously translated half-hour introduction by German’s wife and co-screenwriter, Svetlana Karmalita. In any case, a massive, decades-in-the-making cinematic achievement has received the comprehensive home-video treatment and that would be something to celebrate even if Kino Lorber hadn’t risen so faithfully to the occasion. Carson Lund


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

18. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, The Criterion Collection

Supervised by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, this disc offers a stunning transfer of a Rainer Werner Fassbinder debauch that would prove pivotal in his evolution as a purveyor of bold class-conscious tragedies. Colors are rich and intoxicating, particularly the reds, blues, and various cream colors. The sound mix, which is important for a film that’s aurally symbolic as well as visually, is dense and percussive when it needs to be, as well as soft and subtle, which is evident in the delicate orchestrations of the noises that accompany small human movements or the clinking of everyday objects. New interviews with Ballhaus and actors Margit Carstensen, Eva Mattes, Katrin Schaake, and Hanna Schygulla emphasize familiar components of working with Fassbinder—namely, that he was an empathetic control freak given to playing mind games with his beloved cast for the sake of emboldening the film in question. A variety of other extras dissect The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant’s themes and Fassbinder’s general concerns, while wrestling with whether or not his work can be read as feminist or even as queer progressive, despite the director’s obsession with gender politics, socially forbidden relationships, and women in general. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

17. Miracle Mile, Kino Lorber

Steve De Jarnatt’s unclassifiable curio Miracle Mile isn’t the kind of film that screams “lost classic,” yet this apocalyptic romance is ripe for rediscovery in a time of renewed jingoism and dire atmosphere. Or maybe it doesn’t need parallel context. The highly chromatic, slick frames may scream “1980s,” but despite the decade-specific fears of impending mutually assured destruction, there’s something timeless about this story of a man discovering his strength, as well as his darkness, in his quest to protect those he care about. The greatest virtue of the Blu-ray isn’t the technical presentation, but the extras, which don’t break down the film so much as passionately champion it. Front and center are the contributions of Walter Chaw, who wrote a monograph on the film and who leads a commentary track with De Jarnatt that balances the critic’s excitement with filmmaker’s professionalism, creating an easygoing but intelligent atmosphere that never fails to get relaxed and thoughtful answers from the director. Few releases, of this or any year, better argue for the potential of intelligent, advocating fandom. Jake Cole

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

16. Stray Dogs, Cinema Guild

No stranger to the public service of releasing the best new releases, Cinema Guild didn’t exactly turn heads by picking up Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs, but its Blu-ray is nonetheless superb. Detail is paramount to fully appreciate a film of agonizingly long close-ups, and the high-def transfer rises to the task with video that leaves every line and pore of its actors’ faces visible even on the small screen. Vibrant colors and deep black levels handle the surprising variety of the film’s color palettes and lighting setups, while the surround-sound mix spotlights the Bressonian physicality of the sound design. Extras stress quality over quantity, but a lengthy master class with Tsai counts for a dozen featurettes. Best of all is the inclusion of Journey to the West, Tsai’s contemporaneous short and possibly the superior of the feature it accompanies. Cole


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

15. Every Man for Himself, The Criterion Collection

In their Blu-ray of Every Man for Himself, the Criterion Collection marvelously renders one of Jean-Luc Godard’s most voluminous uses of sound and image, with nary an imperfection to be found. Rival studios, even Criterion themselves, should take note: This is how to supplement a standalone release. With material that covers pre-production, in the form of Godard’s own 20-minute video “Scénario de Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)” that served as the film’s method for securing funding, to numerous features both contemporary and archival from the time of the film’s release, nearly every base of the film’s historical and theoretical legacy is touched upon. There’s even an insightful video essay by Colin MacCabe that examines the use of image and sound throughout Godard’s career and how Every Man for Himself furthers those interests. Godard called the film his “second first film,” so whether you’re a Godard novice or completist, this disc belongs on your shelf. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

14. Tenderness of the Wolves, Arrow Video

In 2015, Arrow Video cemented itself as a dedicated, resourceful, and indispensible player in the North American Blu-ray market, providing packages for cult films like Immoral Tales and Contamination that not only rivals, but equals the care and comprehension one expects from the Criterion Collection. Among their best of 2015 was Tenderness of the Wolves, featuring a top-shelf Blu-ray presentation of a haunting, if tasteless, curio directed by Ulli Lommel, about a criminal-cum-child rapist/murderer. Based on the same source material as M, the film, produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, works on a reflexive register due to Kurt Raab’s performance, who displays his own homosexuality in a fashion that blurs lines between fiction and documentary, albeit a bit coarsely, since Lommel often trains his camera on Haarmann’s sexual encounters to milk their exploitative potential. It’s no Blood for Dracula (after all, Lommel’s film isn’t very funny), but it’s an important ’70s films in its own right, which Arrow helps reveal through a plethora of supplements and interviews. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

13. Dont Look Back, The Criterion Collection

Even within Criterion’s prodigious tradition, the new Don’t Look Back Blu-ray stands out as an especially loaded package. Interested in enough never-before-seen footage to constitute an entire alternate version of the film? Curious to gauge Dylan’s personal feelings about D.A. Pennebaker’s project? Looking for context of the film’s placement within music history, including everything from the loving testaments of Patti Smith to fond remembrances by Bob Neuwirth regarding the era’s revolutionary sounds? All is here, in addition to a handful of supplements that further illuminate Pennebaker’s early filmmaking career. Don’t Look Back is basically the gold standard for a certain monochromatic, late-’60s grit that’s become the template look for all kinds of tossed-off rock-n’-roll promotional imagery in the intervening decades, but it’s to Criterion’s credit that they haven’t glossed it up to match modern appropriations. Initial imperfections (analog hiss, cracks and pops, sudden shifts in focal length and aperture) are preserved beautifully. Dylan aficionados and casual listeners alike ought not to look any further for a more comprehensive immersion into this phase of the musician’s career. Lund

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

12. Dziga Vertov: The Man with the Movie Camera and Other Newly-Restored Works, Flicker Alley

Largely remembered for a single film, Dziga Vertov was a foundational academic talent in cinema, and Flicker Alley’s bundling of a clutch of his documentaries better illustrates just how advanced a filmmaker he was. The Man with a Movie Camera is the obvious stand-out of the disc, but pay attention to the way that Enthusiasm both relies on music for dramatic impact and shows how to dramatize music with images. Likewise, Three Songs About Lenin uses folk culture to bridge the old Russia with the new, lessening the sense of total Bolshevik upheaval by creating an intuitive, subconsciously logical path from peasant to comrade. It’s also easier, in films like Kino-Eye, to see the director’s capacity for sly satire, and the biggest takeaway of this release may be that Vertov could pass for the Chaplin to Eisenstein’s Griffith. Cole


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

11. The Decline of Western Civilization, Shout! Factory

Charting the L.A. youth music scene from fetid underground to slick mainstream and back again, Penelope Spheeris’s Decline films (the third of which remained effectively unseen until now) are some of the best, most unvarnished music documentaries ever made. Kept off home video for various reasons, the trilogy at last got a release this year from Shout! Factory, who admirably loaded the discs with commentaries and extended clips, but provide the biggest service merely in placing the movies back into the public sphere. (No one should ever go too long without watching the second film, a document of L.A.’s exploding ’80s metal scene that’s as loaded with oblivious rock-star egos and quotable lines as This Is Spinal Tap.) The films themselves look rough even on Blu-ray, but newly created 5.1 surround mixes bring out all the filth and fury of the hardcore punk and glam-metal classics that make up the soundtracks. Cole


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

10. Silent Ozu: Three Crime Dramas, The Criterion Collection

Walk Cheerfully, That Night’s Wife, and Dragnet Girl are utterly fascinating snapshots of Yasujirō Ozu’s early fetishization of American cinema, as well as singular entries in his body of work in their own right, but they’re also the kind of non-canonical films that get relegated to Criterion’s supplement-deprived Eclipse series. That said, it’s hard to quibble when the curation is this strong and the presentation is this sparkling. The films here, each accompanied by typically erudite liner notes from Michael Koresky, look bright, sharp, and contrasty without any sacrifice in celluloid texture. Not that there was any major reconstruction or “improvement” work to do anyway (the lighting in each film is extraordinarily expressive, with traces of Sternberg), but Criterion has nonetheless done full justice to the already pristine surfaces of these works. New piano scores by Neil Brand, on the other hand, feel rather generic and intrusive, but for that there’s always the mute button. Lund


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

9. The Golden Year Collection, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Retroactively termed the “Golden Year” of Hollywood, 1939 represents a brief moment where socio-economic circumstance merged with technological innovation and was punctuated by social clarity, producing a slate of films that persist as not only signposts of the period, but emblems of corporate art that, even at its most sprawling in the case of Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, manage a sensibility that consistently reorients the proceedings through blending classical and modern notions of style, while relying on Fordist terms of efficiency. As scholar Thomas Schatz states it, the genius of 1939 was the genius of the system. The Warner Bros. set The Golden Year Collection constitutes a creative and welcome concept for a home-video release, focusing titles around periodization rather than director or theme. The included titles—Dark Victory, Dodge City, Gone With the Wind, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Ninotchka—all receive first-rate A/V transfers and a host of supplements both historical and critical. With several additional shorts and newsreels included, this set is the closest thing to a cinematic time machine 2015 has to offer. Dillard

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

8. André Gregory and Wallace Shawn: 3 Films, The Criterion Collectio

It would be enough to have André Gregory and Wallace Shawn’s three wonderful films together in one set, though the Criterion Collection also does one the courtesy of providing beautiful restorations and illuminating supplements, per the company’s wont. My Dinner with André shows its age visually, but the transfer provides terrific facial detail. Meanwhile, Vanya on 42nd Street and A Master Builder are both unambiguously gorgeous, the former a film defined by reds and blacks, primarily of the cavernous theater that serves as the chief setting, the latter often composed of varied and pristine whites. The respective sound mixes are subtle and nuanced, particularly in terms of suggesting location with supporting sounds. Hearing these movies, one really feels as if they’re among the clattering dishes of a restaurant, or moving within the echoing, voluminous confines of a theater or navigating a country mansion. Collectively, the three discs assemble a historically revealing range of interview materials spanning from My Dinner with André’s release in 1981 to the promotion of A Master Builder over the last few years. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

7. In Cold Blood, The Criterion Collection

A shotgun is not just a shotgun in Richard Brooks’s In Cold Blood, one of the Criterion Collection’s finest Blu-ray packagings for a single film in the past half-decade. The film, based on Truman Capote’s novel, charts the misguided efforts of Perry (Robert Blake) and Dick (Scott Wilson), a couple of shit-kicking ex-cons whose robbery plans, following a false lead from Dick’s cellmate, go horribly awry. The 4K digital restoration, with a cracking 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix of Quincy Jones’s score, is among the audio-visual highlights of this or any year since the Blu-ray format hit shelves in 2006. Elements that might have been hampered or gone missing in the past, like how raindrops on a window look like tears on Perry’s face, are now fully restored with incredible clarity and density. With a boatload of supplements, including a short by the Maysles brothers, this release will invade its way into your Blu-ray player for years to come. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

6. Kwaidan, The Criterion Collection

The fact that Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer of Kwaidan, one of the boldest-looking films ever made, is so pristine that one can even distinguish the individual specks of artificial snow within its wintry mounds isn’t a problem; if anything, further clarifying the film’s meticulous fakery sheds new light on its self-conscious construction of Japanese society. We’re also, thanks to the addition of the 22 minutes missing from the original DVD release, invited to appreciate a heightened understanding of director Masaki Kobayashi’s schematic but assertive use of chromatic symbolism. The curiosities included in the set—such as vintage Japanese-language trailers that not only report on the film’s production status, but even telegraph its budget—give a charming sense of the cultural cachet Kwaidan held in its time, as do lengthy interviews with assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara and literary scholar Chsitopher Benfey. Lavished with Criterion’s customarily meticulous restoration work, Kobayashi’s harmonious mise-en-scène and composer Tôru Takemitsu cutting-edge soundtrack have never looked or sounded better through a home setup. Lund


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

5. Society, Arrow Video

For fans of 1980s-era horror cinema, Arrow Video’s attentive refurbishing of this simultaneously banal and inspired cult horror movie is surely one of the home release events of the year. The image boasts terrifically deep blacks, as well as a sense of clarity that renders the pinks and reds even more lurid than they already were. The diegetic soundtrack has a richness that greatly contributes to Society’s eeriness, and the score by Phil Davies and Mark Ryder really shines with bass-y malevolence. A bounty of extras allow the filmmakers room to shed admirably blunt light on the production, including a variety of interviews with director Brian Yuzna spanning from the year of the film’s initial release to earlier in 2015. There’s also a music video featuring Screaming Mad George, the architect of the film’s special effects, as well as a lot of other fan-centric doodads: The film’s comic-book sequel, Society: Party Animal, is included in its entirety, and the packaging includes newly commissioned artwork and a terrific essay by Alan Jones. Bowen

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

4. House of Bamboo, Twilight Time

Twilight Time offers a stunning presentation of an underrated masterpiece of visual imagination. The images are preserved in all their wide, colorful glory, allowing one to discern the minute textures of director Sam Fuller and cinematographer Joseph Macdonald’s compositions, from the skyline dotting Mount Fuji in the opening sequence to the tiny bristles of pine trees to the steam that rises out of a hot bath. The soundtrack is equally spiffy, with nuanced attention notably paid to the non-diegetic details of the visceral fights, whether they involve fists or firearms. The supplement package is slim but rich, with two notable audio commentaries. The first track features TT regulars Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman, the former characteristically serving as the warmer, more enthusiastic foil to the latter’s more pragmatic conversationalist. Alain Silver and James Ursani’s commentary is dryer (they appear to be less in love with House of Bamboo than Kirgo), but offers an equally detailed examination of the film. Rounding out the package are a liner essay by Kirgo, an isolated score track, the original theatrical trailer, and a couple of Fox Movietone newsreels. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

3. Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film, 1920-1970, Flicker Alley

Flicker Alley’s Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film, 1920-1970 is a doubly suffocating and haunting collection of films, both because of the remarkable works within and how they unfold as consistent reminders that we now live in an era where historically hard-to-see films are simply at our fingertips in vibrant, faithful transfers. With 36 films totaling just less than seven hours, the cumulative effect is something akin to a countercultural history of non-narrative filmmaking from post-WWI to post-civil-rights America, supplemented by a preceding, descriptive title card for each film. Moreover, every film looks sterling and rich in high definition, especially those from the ’60s and ’70s, where the prints are the least damaged. The crown jewel is Meshes of the Afternoon, which up to this point had been available only with a soundtrack that Maya Deren never originally intended. Presented here, completely and intentionally silent, the film is more haunting than ever. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

2. Kijû Yoshida: Love + Anarchism, Arrow Video

Even the packaging of this box set cops to the extreme obscurity of Japanese experimenter Kijû Yoshida, whose filmography attracts so little attention that a release of this care and quality comes as a total shock. The centerpiece of this collection is the filmmaker’s 1969 masterpiece Eros + Massacre, presented in both its theatrical version and 220-minute director’s cut. Similar to the work Jean-Luc Godard produced around that time, the film is an incredible mashup of sex and politics, tracing the development of radicalization with liberation and the occasionally amusing pitfalls of both. The preservation and presentation of this wry, autocritical epic would be cause enough for celebration, but the inclusion of two other films, Coup d’État and Heroic Purgatory, marks the first concentrated effort to expose Yoshida to the West. Arrow’s region-free set also comes with a host of extras, the majority featuring Japanese New Wave historian David Desser. Cole


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2015

1. The Apu Trilogy, The Criterion Collection

For cornerstones in the history of international cinema, Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy remained unavailable for far too long, and any out-of-print copy that interested parties might have tracked down looked like it had been pulled from a sunken ship. The restoration work presented on Criterion’s new release of the films is every clichéd superlative you could use to describe them. The dirty silt tint that plagued many international releases has been washed away to reveal the pristine monochrome underneath, while scratches and buffs have been almost totally removed while retaining, and revealing, incredible depth of detail and texture. It’s been years since Criterion has so thoroughly rescued works from dilapidated prints, and at last these films can be remembered again not only for their emotional neorealistic impulses, but the rapidly developing sophistication of Ray’s techniques. Among the highlights of the bountiful extras included in this set is a 43-minute analysis from filmmaker Mamoun Hassan that’s so minutely observed that even actors’ body language and orientation to the camera becomes fodder for considered analysis. Cole

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