CineVentures' Best of 2025 Blu-ray/4K UHD Releases!

I participated in the DVDBeaver Blu-ray and 4K UHD of the Year 2025 poll and a number of my comments are excerpted throughout the coverage; however, I have included here my picks and comments in full (Amazon links in the titles).

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2025:

1. The Betrayal (Tokuzô Tanaka, 1966) Radiance Films; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

2. Inflatable SexDoll of the Wastelands (Atsushi Yamatoya, 1967) Deaf Crocodile; Region A REVIEWED HERE!

3. Hyena in the Safe (Cesare Canevari, 1968) Celluloid Dreams; Region A REVIEWED HERE!

4. Malpertuis (Harry Kumel, 1971) Radiance Films; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

5. The Barnabas Kos Case (Peter Solan, 1965) Second Run; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

6. Senso (Luchino Visconti, 1955) Radiance Films; Region B REVIEWED HERE!

7. Through and Through (Grzegorz Królikiewicz, 1973) Radiance Films; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

8. Oil Lamps (Juraj Herz, 1971) Second Run; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

9. Juice/Daddy Dearest (Arthur J. Bressan Jr., 1984) Altered Innocence; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

10. Rampo Noir (Akio Jissoji, Atsushi Kaneko, Hisayasu Sato, Suguru Takeuchi, 2005) Arrow Video; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

Comments: Radiance's The Betrayal reveals that Kurosawa was not the only Japanese filmmaker approaching the Bushido code from a critical perspective, Deaf Crocodile's Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wasteland – and its U.K. and German releases – constituted a rescue job of one of the Japanese pinku eiga genre films (the studio examples having been well-preserved compared to the equally prolific output of the independent producers).

Radiance's Malpertuis is an exquisite edition even if the film's 4K restoration/reconstruction is still compromised by the damage wrought on it by the editor in preparing the French and English versions for Cannes. The Barnabas Kos Case is utterly hilarious even as it skewers authoritarian regimes and personalities.

Radiance's Senso does an admirable job reworking a flawed restoration while their edition of Through and Through introduces us to one of Poland's unheralded filmmakers and the context of the true crime that inspired the film. Oil Lamps is yet another stunning example of Juraj Herz's approach to Gothic melodrama.

Altered Innocence continues to explore the intersections of gay porn and melancholy – previously exemplified in their special editions of Equation to an Unknown, L.A. Plays Itself, and Le beau mec – with their edition of the late Arthur J. Bressan's back-to-back duo Juice and Daddy Dearest. Arrow Video's Rampo Noir offers up a more diverse and grotesque alternative to the art house The Mysteries of Rampo in exposing the Japanese Edgar Allen Poe to the West.

There were far too many to include in a top ten list with Second Run and Radiance Films with honorable mentions to Radiance's The Eel (Shôhei Imamura, 1997) and Underworld Beauty (Seijun Suzuki, 1958), Second Run's Who Wantsto Kill Jessie? (Václav Vorlícek, 1966), and 88 Films' Castaway (Nicolas Roeg, 1986).

Top 4K UHD Releases of 2025:

1. Short Night of the Glass Dolls (Aldo Lado, 1971) Celluloid Dreams; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

2. Raw Meat (Gary Sherman, 1972) Blue Underground; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

3. Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981) Second Sight; Region ALL 4K (Region B Blu-ray) REVIEWED HERE!

4. The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati, 1976) Arrow Video; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

5. Incubus (Leslie Stevens, 1966) Arrow Video; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

6. Don't Torture a Duckling (Lucio Fulci, 1972) Arrow Video; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

7. TIE: Motorpsycho/Up! (Russ Meyer, 1965-1976) Severin Films; Region ALL Motorpsycho REVIEWED HERE! Up! REVIEWED HERE!

8. The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979) Second Sight; Region ALL 4K (Region B Blu-ray) REVIEWED HERE!

9. The Stuff (Larry Cohen, 1985) Arrow Video; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

10. Alice, Sweet Alice (Alfred Sole, 1976) Arrow Video; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

Celluloid Dreams' second release Short Night of the Glass Dolls is an expansive and likely definitive edition of one of the more unnerving examples of the giallo genre. Blue Underground's 4K restoration of Raw Meat gazes deeper into the Stygian blackness of the London Underground. Second Sight's Possession is thus far the best-looking release of both versions and as yet definitive in terms of its extras.

Arrow had to compromise in their grade of The House with Laughing Windows undoing the particularities of the 4K restoration (see rants) but the subtitle translation is great and the extras are exquisite. Arrow's Incubus is an extraordinary rescue job given the materials for a rare example of American folk horror. 

Arrow Video's Blu-ray of Don't Torture a Duckling had to undo the issues of the German release while dealing with baked-in grading so their 4K upgrade was a fresh start while their Alice, Sweet Alice offered a more modest upgrade while allowing them to address some issues with their reconstructions of the film's versions on the Blu-ray edition.

From either side of Russ Meyer's filmography, Severin's Motorpsycho and Up! are showcases for Meyer's visual style in sterling quality. Second Sight's The Brood strikes a nice grading balance between the older SD masters and the previous 2K restoration. 

Arrow's The Stuff presents a roughly-made film in 4K for its theatrical cut while the bonus Blu-ray offers up a long-unseen pre-release version that both supports director Larry Cohen's statements about the distributor-imposed changes while also revealing the deficits of his loose, improvisational approach with in this case an ideal version not lying somewhere in between both cuts.

Top Boxsets:

1. Daiei Gothic Volume 2 (Tokuzô Tanaka, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1966-1970) Radiance Films; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

2. World Noir 3 (Henri Decoin/Peter Lorre/Hasse Ekman, 1947-1951) Radiance Films; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

3. Radical Japan:Cinema and State - Nine Films by Nagisa Oshima (Nagisa Ôshima, 1961-1972) Radiance Films; Region ALL

4. The Inquisitor/Deadly Circuit (Claude Miller, 1981-1983) Radiance Films; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

5. Zoltán Huszárik:Szindbád/Csontváry/Five Short Films (Zoltán Huszárik, 1971-1980) Second Run; Region ALL REVIEWED HERE!

6. Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau (Alain Corneau; 1976-1981) Radiance Films; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

7. Terror in the Fog: The Wallace Krimi at CCC - Limited Edition (Franz Josef Gottlieb, Harald Reinl, Edwin Zbonek, 1963-1964) Eureka; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

8. Mabuse Lives! - Dr. Mabuse at CCC: 1960-1964 - Limited Edition (Fritz Lang, Harald Reinl, Werner Klingler, Paul May, Hugo Fregonese, 1960-1964) Eureka; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

9. V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal - Limited Edition (Toshimichi Okawa, Banmei Takahashi, Shunichi Nagasaki, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Yôichi Sai, Toshiharu Ikeda, Teruo Ishii, Yasuharu Hasebe, Masaru Konuma, 1989-1994) Arrow Video; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

10. Shawscope Volume4 (Shan Hua, Ho Meng-Hua, Pao Hsueh-Li, Kuei Chih-Hung, Chor YuenLau Kar-Wing, Kuen Yeung, Tak-Cheung Tang, Kwok-Ming Cheung, 1975-1983) Arrow Video; Region A/B REVIEWED HERE!

This year has been rich in box sets and unfortunately we could not buy all of them or even fully watch some of the ones we did but hopefully this list offers up some of the most popular ones as well as lesser-mentioned ones also worth a look.

Whereas the three films in the first Radiance Daiei Gothic set were variations on legends also seen in the more widely-released Kwaidan, the films in the second volume are also adaptations of popular legends and stories and actually better films.

Radiance's third World Noir volume has two great films in Not Guilty and Girl with Hyacinths while Peter Lorre's The Lost One is still interesting as Peter Lorre's sole directorial effort and a response to his career-making turn in Fritz Lang's M.

Not all of the films in Radiance's Nagisa Oshima's Radical Japan set are previously unreleased but they offer more examples of the director's transgressive than his pornographic In the Realm of the Senses.

The duo of Claude Miller's The Inquisitor and Deadly Circuit – the latter Blu-ray only in this 4K set – contrasts a tense one setting three-hander noir with a globe-hopping blackly comic murder mystery.

Second Run's Zoltán Huszárik set is a comprehensive set of the director's sadly small filmography including the definitive edition of Szindbád and his long-gestating sophomore (and final) effort Csontváry.

The films in Alain Corneau set have all been available before but Radiance's extras make a compelling case for their "hardboiled" label as part of the French Serie noire genre.

The CCC films of Eureka's Mabuse and Krimi sets stretch the definition of "Masters of Cinema" but it is great to have them all together and English-friendly.

Arrow's V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal sheds light on how Japan exploiting the video rental boom kept their cinema industry afloat while offering opportunities for emerging talents.

Arrow's fourth Shawscope set shed light on the studio's move into gore horror in the mid-seventies as well as the Hong Kong industry's response to Japanese monster and superhero movies and television.

Favorite Label: Celluloid Dreams has only put out three titles so far, two of which were this year, but they have been definitive editions of two films with previous Blu-ray and 4K editions as well as the stunning world Blu-ray premiere of A Hyena in the Safe, a giallo that seemed less interesting on paper but is utterly dazzling given that Celluloid Dreams had to contend with a studio master unlike their previous two releases where they started from scratch with a raw scan and reference materials.

Favorite Commentarists (or commentaries): Alexandra Heller Nichols and Josh Nelson on The House with Laughing Windows focus on thematic elements rather than production factoids and Heller Nicholas and Alison Taylor on Second Sight's Possession provide a mix of both drawing on their own writings including the latter's monograph on the film featuring more insight from actor Sam Neill than he has ever offered up elsewhere on the film. Kim Newman, Jonathan Rigby, Barry Forshaw, and Kevin Lyons on their British horror commentaries usually provide a mix of production detail, literary source discussion, and insight into the state of the British film industry during the periods of the films' productions. Dave Wain and Matty Budrewicz in their 88 Films commentaries for Full Moon productions make up for the holes left in the film's discussion in the studio's own extras with plenty of primary source insight. Michael Brooke provides insight into more of Radiance's and Second Run's Eastern European cinema releases, most notably this year his commentary on the "impossible to read" source of Piotr Szulkin's Golem. Eugenio Ercolani and his various commentary cohorts discuss the trajectory of various Italian genre cycles and their practitioners for various labels.

Best Cover Design Nominations: Radiance's Malpertuis is so exquisitely designed that one wishes an edition of the novel looked so good.

Rant and Praise: L'Immagine Ritrovata has been said to have a signature style of grading that often varies from the original look which makes it odd that they get so many significant titles to restore, and it is hard to defend their work on The House with Laughing Windows to the extent that Arrow's otherwise spectacular 4K and Blu-ray editions look wildly different from the French release of the restoration. AI upscales are becoming more common not only with films for which standard definition masters are the only available material – whether the film materials are lost or they were shot on film but finished on video as was the practice with a lot of lower-budget and video-bound productions in the late eighties through the early 2000s – or studios that would rather upscale their 1080p or 2K masters or just let AI do the cleanup on a raw 4K scan, and there are many notable and lesser known releases that are travesties – with Rustblade's The Killer Must Kill Again and Full Moon's Subspecies IV on the latter side – when better choices might include just a well-encoded DVD or at least offering either the optional viewing of the original SD master at its original resolution and possibly a non-AI upscale option as well (MVD's double feature Blu-ray of TheBikini Car Wash Company and its sequel is one such release that includes the SD master for comparison while Terror Vision's Blu-ray of Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout includes as its main presentation a 720p60 regular upscale and the original 480i60 version and the 1080i60 AI experimental upscale as the bonus options).

DVD has largely been getting short shrift this year apart from television series and reissues of films labels still want to exploit in the absence of HD masters (whether there are simply no elements or no one wants to shell out for one), and some Blu-ray AI upscales of finished-on-video productions suggest that some films are better off staying on DVD. For myself, the last few years in DVD have been about discovering films that seem even more unlikely to get Blu-ray or 4K upgrades despite more niche labels establishing themselves or rediscovering older editions that sometimes have exclusive extras or are just fascinating in a nostalgic sense for that magenta push, entirely different grading, different audio mixes (sometimes an original mono or stereo surround track rather than a downmix option), sometimes open-matte framing, a different aspect ratio (or just variant framing of the same ratio), and how well or not one's 4K television/player upscaling algorithm deals with them. More frustrating are films that are still only available on DVD when HD masters are streaming on subscription sites like Prime or free sites like Tubi (1995's Persuasion, 1988's A Handful of Dust, 1990's Midnight Cabaret, for example).