The 8 Best New Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Releases This September (2025)

• ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ (Sony, 4K Ultra HD)

  

  Orson Welles’ 1948 film noir was his last studio feature before he spent the next 30 years globetrotting and making one low-budget masterpiece (“Othello,” “Mr. Arkadin,” “The Trial,” “Chimes at Midnight”) after another, with only the interruption of “Touch of Evil” in 1958 marking a temporary return to Hollywood. Welles was always at heart an independent filmmaker, which creates an odd sort of tension in “Shanghai”; it’s his most superficially conventional film, a glossy star vehicle for his soon to be ex-wife Rita Hayworth with a traditional thriller plot about a man framed for murder, but Welles is too interested in the idiosyncrasies around the edges to deliver the mainstream satisfactions the premise calls for.

  Instead, he provides one of his many scathing meditations on the corrosive nature of greed and power and uses the story (and studio resources) as a pretext for some truly stunning set pieces, the most famous of which is the frequently imitated shoot-out in a hall of mirrors that climaxes the picture. Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn’s meddling left “The Lady From Shanghai,” like so many of Welles’ films, a mutilated masterpiece, but even in its truncated form it’s dazzling, and never more so than on Sony’s flawless new 4K edition. It’s the best video transfer of “Shanghai” to date, accompanied by a worthwhile Peter Bogdanovich commentary track and interview ported over from an earlier release. —JH

  Now available.

• ‘Marie: A True Story’ (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray)

  

  The good people at Warner Archive continue to excavate the Warner Bros. vaults for forgotten or unsung gems with an exquisite Blu-ray edition of Roger Donaldson’s 1985 drama. While a quick description of the plot — a Tennessee government worker (Sissy Spacek) blows the whistle on her corrupt parole system’s practice of selling clemencies — might make “Marie” sound like just another in the cycle of post-“Norma Rae” movies about plucky women fighting the system (“Places in the Heart,” “Country”), Donaldson’s delicate observational eye and a deep bench of supporting players make it a singular piece of work.

  Spacek is fantastic in the title role and has a lot to work with thanks to screenwriter John Briley’s subtle, complex approach, which clearly conveys all the emotional, economic, and moral factors that inform Marie’s decisions without resorting to didacticism — this is issue-driven filmmaking of the finest order, closer to Ken Loach than other American films of the time. And that’s no coincidence, since Loach’s frequent collaborator Chris Menges is the director of photography here; working on his first American feature, he finds the perfect visual corollary for Marie’s relentless energy in the form of perpetually restless Steadicam shots.

  Menges’ vivid cinematography is just one reason the Blu-ray is essential viewing; another is the opportunity to watch players like Morgan Freeman, Jeff Daniels, Trey Wilson and Fred Dalton Thompson — playing himself in the movie that kicked off an acting career that would continue in films like “Die Hard 2” and “Cape Fear” — acting up a storm in a movie that, as of this writing, is not available to stream anywhere. —JH

  Now available.

• ‘Nightmare Beach’ (Kino Lorber, 4K Ultra HD)

  

  Italian director Umberto Lenzi isn’t as well known or highly regarded as his peers Dario Argento and Mario Bava, but to dive into his filmography is to take a wild ride through a wide variety of genres, from spy movies and Westerns to erotic thrillers and cannibal pictures. One of his best films, the 1989 spring break horror flick “Nightmare Beach,” is newly available on 4K UHD from Kino Lorber’s “Kino Cult” label, and it’s one of the most deliriously entertaining — and uncategorizable — movies you’re ever likely to see. Lenzi takes two of the most disreputable trends in 80s youth films — the teen sex comedy and the body count slasher film — and combines them in a tale of horny spring breakers being knocked off one by one by a motorcycle-riding psychopath who may or may not be supernatural in origin.

  The collision of these two guilty pleasure subgenres is fun right from the start, but Lenzi is just getting started — his movie also has a biker gang, a police procedural element (complete with John Saxon giving a terrific performance as a corrupt cop), and wall-to-wall 80s metal on the soundtrack (interrupted only for score by Bava and Argento stalwart Claudio Simonetti). It’s all served up with enthusiasm and style, and the 4K release includes an audio commentary by film critic Samm Deighan in which she passionately makes the case for Lenzi as an underrated auteur. —JH

  Now available.

• ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’ (Criterion Collection; 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray)

  

  Like Orson Welles, Sam Peckinpah was a brilliant director whose best work was often mangled in battles with financiers, which makes Criterion’s new 4K release of his broken and beautiful “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” a real gift. While no definitive director’s cut exists — the movie was taken out of Peckinpah’s hands early on — the three versions here collectively give a sense of what Peckinpah had in mind and make the case for “Pat Garrett” as one of his finest films.

  The Criterion package includes a preview cut that was the last version Peckinpah worked on, the theatrical cut that the studio released without his involvement, and a new 50th anniversary cut supervised by Peckinpah’s editor Roger Spottiswoode and Peckinpah scholar Paul Seydor (a master editor himself who frequently works with Ron Shelton). Spottiswoode and Seydor are joined by ace film critic Michael Sragow on an audio commentary that nicely delineates some of the differences between the versions and explores Peckinpah’s approach, and it’s a testament to the richness of his vision that even in its chronic state of flux “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” is one of the greatest Westerns ever made, Peckinpah at his most elegiac and lyrical. The friendship at that gives the movie its title oscillates between tenderness, brutality, humor and regret in a manner that leaves the viewer completely shaken by what the characters, and by allegorical extension America itself, have lost.

  Add to that some of Peckinpah’s most memorably staged moments of violence (the image of Billy firing a shotgun full of dimes that explode in the air singlehandedly justifies the entire film), a typically rich cast of character actors, and a classic score by Bob Dylan, and you’ve got a wounded Western classic. —JH

  Now available.

• ‘Caligula’ (Unobstructed View; 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD)

  

  The infamously iconic, debauched Roman epic “Caligula” (1973) reemerged in all its uncut glory with an alternative “recut” version sans Penthouse financier Bob Guccione’s studio interference. Director Tinto Brass and writer Gore Vidal stripped their names from the pornographic, narratively muddled movie that ended up in theaters; now, the new “Caligula” aims to bring more cohesion, along with a crisper image, to the video nasty starring Malcolm McDowell as the decadent Roman emperor.

  The new version also restores the complete performances of Peter O’Toole and Helen Mirren in supporting roles that ended up mostly on the cutting room floor in the theatrical release. Extras include an audio commentary with Aaron Shaps and Thomas Negovan, the editor and producer respectively on the new version, plus restored trailers and making-of documentaries. —RL

  Available September 17.

  See Also

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• ‘Happiness’ (Criterion Collection; 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray)

  

  Todd Solondz’s perverse but compassionate slice of suburban squalor, “Happiness” has been unavailable on home media or streaming for at least five years. But Criterion saves the day (or spoils yours, if you’re a prudish viewer) with a director-supervised 4K transfer of this darkest of comedies, where Dylan Baker plays the head of a Cleaver-levels-of-deluded clan who’s a closeted pedophile and child rapist on the inside; Jane Adams, Cynthia Stevenson, and Lara Flynn Boyle are sisters with sadnesses and dark impulses of their own; and Philip Seymour Hoffman is a horny crank caller desperate for human touch.

  Sundance refused to show “Happiness,” which ended up winning the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes and was released unrated by Ted Hope and James Schamus’ since-shuttered Good Machine. The Criterion release features a new conversation between Solondz and “Aftersun” director Charlotte Wells, whom the filmmaker mentored, plus a new interview with Dylan Baker. —RL

  Available September 24.

• ‘The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy’ (Criterion; 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray)

  

  Beloved indie filmmaker Gregg Araki flies his freak flag freely in his Teen Apocalypse trilogy of films that launched his close collaboration with the handsome Gen X greaser James Duval. The three films — “Nowhere,” “The Doom Generation,” and “Totally Fucked Up” — all get a 4K restoration courtesy of Criterion, and what better way to see these three films that remixed the conventions of the American teen movie to fit Araki’s queer sensibility? The sci-fi, bisexual vibes of a movie like “Nowhere” presages the same in Araki’s short-lived cult series “Now Apocalypse,” while the kinky, libidinous aesthetic of “The Doom Generation” introduced Rose McGowan to the world.

  This release features a new 2K transfer of “Totally Fucked Up” and new 4Ks of “The Doom Generation” and “Nowhere” as supervised by Araki. Plus, check out a new conversation between the director and his friend and fellow Gen X filmmaker Richard Linklater. Audio commentaries with Araki, Duval, and McGowan are also included. —RL

  Available September 24.

• ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ (Kino Lorber, 4K Ultra HD)

  

  Starring Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi as strangers in a luxury hotel who may have met before, and may have tried to start an affair, Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” has seen intermittent home video releases prior. This enigmatic puzzle box of an arthouse classic, written by avant-garde French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, saw a Criterion Blu-ray and DVD release in 2009 that’s been largely out of print in the decade and a half since.

  Kino Lorber released a 2019 Blu-ray restoration after the movie screened anew at Venice; but here is “Last Year at Marienbad” for the first time in 4K Ultra HD, featuring an interview with filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff and new audio commentary from film historian Tim Lucas. The 1961 black-and-white masterpiece polarized and disturbed audiences at the time but remains hugely influential on films from “The Shining” to “Inland Empire.” It’s even inspired a number of Chanel fashion campaigns ever since for its chic ennui and baroque imagery, which opens itself to many interpretations. —RL

  Now available.

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