Blu-ray

We take a look through some classic and some not so classic Hitchcock in the new native 4K set from Universal.  

Eddie Murphy and Tony Scott in their primes deliver one of the most underrated sequels of the 1980s. And now that two-hour long magic hour looks absolutely stunning in glorious 4K…  

John McNaughton's lewd and delicious Wild Things comes to 4K UHD looking hot and will no doubt wear your pause button out.  

The movie that was adapted from a videogame that stole wholesale from a fistful of movies… the cycle is now complete, and cinema has actually started to eat itself with this damp squib of an actioner from Sony and their new PlayStation Productions.  

One of the best months of Blu-ray releases so far this year, May gives us a dazzling array of films to provoke all manner of feelings from romantic longing, to seething rage, to quiet existential contemplation before finally landing on actual physical sickness. Twice. - ALSO Enter Competitions to win 7 of them on Blu-ray!  

Joe Carnahan’s insanely schizophrenic actioner that’s part freak show, part roller coaster, part everything else, scrubs up nicer than you’d imagine on 4K from Universal…  

Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker saw the director and her two young stars doing some of the best work of their careers, oft overlooked now, and never more so than with this elusive US 4K Best Buy Steelbook exclusive release.  

Time, love, apocalypse, insanity all this and more can be found in 12 Monkeys, newly scanned in native 4K by Arrow  

Gene Kelly’s cinematic equivalent of joy personified is given a spiffing new 4K transfer ready for us all to fall in love with it all over again…  

Cronenberg reunites with star Viggo Mortensen for a perfect crime companion piece to their preceding History of Violence, now on US 4K disc from Kino.  

John McNaughton’s infamous treatise on the mundanity of true ‘horror’ is brought to grubby life in all its 4K glory from Arrow… and finally answers the question of how good can 16mm look in 4K?  

The year is now a third gone and the release schedules are settling down into familiar patterns. So with Arrow, Criterion, 88 Films, Studiocanal and even a couple of smaller studios all releasing this month, which ones are worthy of your time? Also, we've competitions to win over half of them on Blu-ray!  

A sunny Christmas in Australia has never been so bleak, The Proposition comes to 4K Blu-ray in a stunning limited edition  

Tony and Grammy Award-winning Dear Evan Hansen comes to 4K UHD looking and sounding smashing - is it enough to overcome the adaptation?  

Second time around does this new iteration of the Scream franchise no favours at all, with this 4K disc from Paramount going out of its way to remind you exactly what’s so wrong with the film itself...  

John Carpenter’s only sequel as director shows why sometimes, it’s best not to revisit the glory days of your past - EDIT - now updated with corrected audio!  

Like a live action Into the Spider-Verse, No Way Home blows the doors open to the multiverse and ties up over two decades of Spidey adventures, with Sony's 4K Dolby Vision and Atmos release as spectacular as the titular character(s).  

Frank Darabont's treatment of Stephen King's novels is second to none, and The Green Mile is one of the best, coming to 4K with an image that needs a little help from John Coffey himself.  

The greatest gangster saga ever told comes to 4K, with all new restorations, making this a set you cannot refuse.  

The much-vaunted return to The Matrix was met with a wave of disappointed apathy and frustration upon its theatrical release. But how will it fare upon a return to arguably its true spiritual home – the shiny home entertainment disc?  

Mark Wahlberg's first lead action flick remains comfortably his best too, making the most of its Jack Reacher-lite ingredients to deliver a pretty damn decent couple of hours of OTT entertainment.  

Another month of juicy 1080p Blu-ray goodies sees Criterion once again standing out but a sneaky Eureka serial killer thriller taking the top spot! Plus links to Competitions to win a slew of them!  

Verhoeven's sci-fi masterpiece infuses 2000AD's Dredd with 80's corporate greed for a darkly witty, brazenly violent, and still-resonant satire, deployed on glorious 4K with Dolby Vision AND Arrow's first Dolby Atmos track.  

Plants. They're everywhere. We eat them. They clean the air we breathe. So, the Beeb and Sir Dave take a closer look at their struggle for survival in the stunning new documentary The Green Planet.  

Faithful adaptation of one of gothic literature’s most famous novels? Or mega-budgeted vanity project that saw Sir Kenneth’s nipples have equal screen time to the film’s titular creation...?  

We take a look at one of the greatest werewolf films ever made, new from Arrow in native 4K - but is it worth the upgrade?  

Another on the Arrow/Argento 4K conveyor belt… but only one features a future Oscar winner, a killer chimpanzee, and telepathic insects…  

After a short delay, we rev up our player and spin the mighty Mad Max Anthology in all its 4K glory.  

Ah, the month of amour… in the immortal words of one of cinema’s greatest lovers “Say no more, Mon Amour” (Rex Manning, Empire Records). So what romantic releases have the labels been warming over a hot stove for us then? Let’s take a look shall we...? ALSO - Links to win titles from the Top 10 on Blu-ray!  

Marvel's biggest misstep is like a pathetically melodramatic riff on Watchmen, with the 4K seeking to double down on its pointlessness by landing long after it's come to Disney Plus in 4KDV IMAX Enhanced, here boasting neither DV nor IMAX.  

Inexplicably getting a physical release AFTER being made available on Disney/Star, Ridley Scott's Rashomon-esque The Last Duel isn't even available on general 4K, with this Zavvi Exclusive Steelbook the only way to own it.  

Edgar Wright’s brilliant and very British reworking of a classic giallo pays homage to Bava, Blighty and the beautifully dangerous world of the very swinging 60s, and earns a blisteringly good 4K release.  

Whilst not quite ranking up there with the likes of Doctor Sleep and Blade Runner 2049 in terms of near-flawless decades-later sequels, Afterlife hits a lot of the right notes and is an absolute stunner in 4KDV with Atmos.  

A modern sci-fi classic in the making, this is grand, epic filmmaking at its absolute best, with a stunning 4K release to boot. UPDATED to include UK 4K disc.  

The third second film in the franchise (keep up at the back) continues directly on from a burning and left-for-dead Michael. Is anyone surprised that he doesn’t die? Is anyone surprised that this isn’t as good as the previous film?  

Another year will no doubt bring yet more doomsaying about the ‘death’ of physical media. A good job then that no-one from the boutique labels we know and love seems to be listening! Read the lineup. Plus enter competitions to win over half of this month's releases!  

Sony attempts yet again to squeeze even more life out of its Spider-verse cash cow with a sequel that certainly improves over its poor original… but only just.  

Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in style, The Spirits Within - which bankrupted a Studio - is still the best Final Fantasy movie, with seemingly outdated effects that somehow stun in 4K.  

John Woo's Hollywood breakthrough was also arguably Van Damme's best action flick, but how on earth did Kino screw up this native 4K restoration so royally?  

Two time best Bond director Martin Campbell, who gave us Casino Royale and Goldeneye, gifts the latest Nikita, Maggie Q, her first real shot at a decent solo lead action movie and it's... fine.