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 VorlÃcek, 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).
