10 NEW TO NETFLIX
“Ambulance“
“Gladiator“
“Heat“
“I’m Still Here“
“Killer Joe“
“Lucky“
“Nightcrawler“
“The Ring“
“True Romance“
“Under the Skin“
7 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD
“Frankenstein” (Criterion)
Guillermo del Toro’s latest may have been a multiple Oscar nominee but it felt a bit underrated at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. GDT’s work has had an interesting critical profile since he won the Oscar for Best Picture, something that often happens to filmmakers deemed too establishment by a certain brand of film lovers. While I’m a bit too close to the filmmaker to fully be unbiased, I think this is a special movie, something that Guillermo has been working toward his entire career. And I also think it’s very cool that Netflix has collaborated with Criterion to make this release possible, one that not only includes incredible special features but an 8-minutes-longer version called “The Reborn Cut” with a commentary by one of the most entertaining and informative people to ever do it, Del Toro himself. The Kubrick set this month has taken up a lot of the bandwidth from people who write about physical media, but this feels like an essential 4K Blu-ray release of the season, too.
Special Features
- 4K digital master of the theatrical version of the film, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack
- 4K digital master of Frankenstein: The Reborn Cut, a new, extended director’s cut of the film, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack
- Two 4K UHD discs of the films presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the films and special features
- New audio commentary on The Reborn Cut featuring director Guillermo del Toro
- The Anatomy Lesson: Director’s Cut, a new documentary on the making of the film
- The Parlour, a collection of conversations on craft featuring del Toro; actors Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, and Oscar Isaac; cinematographer Dan Laustsen; production designer Tamara Deverell; costume designer Kate Hawley; and creature designer Mike Hill
- Q&As moderated by filmmaker Martin Scorsese and musician Patti Smith
- Interview with composer Alexandre Desplat conducted by film-music scholar Jon Burlingame
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
- PLUS: An essay by scholar and author Christopher Frayling
Johnny Knoxville and his buddies pushed their 15 minutes of fame one trip around the clock too many as this was the first “Jackass” movie that could accurately be called a bomb. What happened here? Two things. News leaked out that this was nothing more than a greatest hits package, which isn’t exactly true. It has some best-of victory laps, but it also has some excellent new material that I don’t think a lot of people even know is in here. Two, the last movie felt like a finale, and people were just ready to move on. It’s also possible that comedy/humor has moved on from “Jackass.” Maybe it will take another generation to realize how brilliant and fearless these guys were. Until then, see the movie you probably didn’t in theaters, now on a bare-bones Blu-ray from Paramount.
Frank Oz’s “Little Shop of Horrors” is one of my favorite movie musicals. Seriously. It’s a film that never got the respect it deserved because of its tone and subject matter, but this movie absolutely rules. First, the stage musical on which it’s based is phenomenal, one of the best of its era, with all-timers like “Somewhere That’s Green” and “Suddenly Seymour.” Second, Oz totally nailed the direction of his adaptation, especially in the career-best turns he pulled from Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene. This new 4K restoration includes the notorious director’s cut ending, one that’s even darker than the theatrical (but more loyal to the play). It also has a great new special feature about the sustaining love for this play and movie. Long live Audrey II.
Special Features
- NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
- DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
- DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK
- THEATRICAL VERSION AND DIRECTOR’S CUT OF THE FILM
- NEW To Feed or Not to Feed: For the Love of the Little Shop – Explore why the film remains an enduring classic 40 years on
- NEW Mean Green Mother: Creating Audrey II – Join the puppeteering masterminds behind the man-eating plant
- Audio commentary on the Theatrical Version by Frank Oz
- Outtakes and Deleted Scenes
- Director’s Cut Ending with Audio Commentary by Frank Oz
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood circled back to He-Man, Skeletor, and the rest of the gang in “Masters of the Universe,” a blockbuster that bombed in theaters but has become a huge streaming hit for Amazon Prime Video. Why have people been drawn to it? It goes down easy at home, especially the first hour, which has a fun spirit and smart sense of humor. When our lead becomes He-Man back in the land he was thrown out of as a child, it loses some of that wonder, replaced by janky CGI and repetitive action, but this is way more fun than the awful theatrical previews might have led you to believe. Now, MGM has released a bare-bones physical edition to go with the successful streaming one.
“The Shout” (Criterion)
The Criterion haul this month has included some of the biggest horror films of all time in Oscar darlings from Jonathan Demme and Guillermo del Toro, but they’re accompanied by some left-of-center picks, including this 1978 flick from the genre-jumping Jerzy Skolimowski. The director of “EO” and “Moonlighting” helmed this exercise in dread-inducing sound deisgn that stars John Hurt and Susannah Yourk as a couple who cross paths with a man who claims to have discovered an Aboriginal “terror shout” that can kill anyone who hears it. Alan Bates plays the myserious traveller in a film that history has basically forgotten, likely chosen by Criterion because the nearly-90 Skolimowski was still around to talk about, sitting for an interview on this special edition.
Special Features
- 2K digital restoration, approved by director Jerzy Skolimowski and director of photography Mike Molloy, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interviews with Skolimowski and producer Jeremy Thomas
- Excerpts from Skolimowski’s appearance at the 1997 Midnight Sun Festival
- On the Set of “The Shout,” a short UK television program from 1977
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by scholar Leo Goldsmith
“The Silence of the Lambs” (Criterion)
What more could possibly be written about Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece? I know I personally have been writing about it for decades as it’s a movie that’s constantly showing me new things every time I watch it. Criterion released it years ago, but they chose it for one of this month’s 4K restoration releases, accompanying it with all of the previously available material, including an incredible 1994 audio commenyary, deleted scenes, and hours of documentary footage. This has long been one of my favorite Criterion releases for one of my favorite films of all time. Now it’s even better in 4K.
Special Features
- 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Tak Fujimoto, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Audio commentary from 1994 featuring director Jonathan Demme, actors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally, and former FBI agent John Douglas
- Interview with critic Maitland McDonagh
- Deleted scenes
- Interview from 2005 with Demme and Foster
- Four documentaries featuring hours of interviews with cast and crew
- Behind-the-scenes featurette
- Storyboards
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An introduction by Foster; two essays, one by critic Amy Taubin and one by critics Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay; pieces from 2000 and 2013 by author Thomas Harris on the origins of the character Hannibal Lecter; and a 1991 interview with Demme
“Welcome II The Terrordome” (Criterion)
Criterion has gotten a lot of bad Film Twitter press for “populist” releases like “Frankenstein” and the upcoming “KPOP Demon Hunters,” but those same people ignore off-the-radar releases like this unexpected edition of Ngzoi Onwurah’s 1994 debut. Criterion has also received criticism for its focus on films from Europe and the United States, which makes this genre reflection of the Black Diaspora from a Nigerian director even more notable. Criterion commissioned a new audio commentary track that includes the brilliant Ashley Clark, and got the rights to three short films by Onwurah.
Special Features
- New 2K digital restoration, supervised and approved by cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New audio commentary featuring Küchler, director Ngozi Onwurah, and Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark
- Meet the Filmmakers: Ngozi Onwurah, a Criterion Channel original interview
- Three short films by Onwurah—Coffee Coloured Children (1988), And Still I Rise (1993), and Hang Time (2001)—with a new introduction by the director
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by poet and critic Kadish Morris