Bodily media tradition is alive and thriving because of the house video tastemakers hailing all over the place from The Criterion Assortment to Kino Lorber and the Warner Archive Assortment. Every month, IndieWire highlights the perfect latest and upcoming Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K releases for cinephiles to personal now — and to deliver ballast and permanence to your moviegoing at a time when streaming home windows on basic motion pictures shut simply as quickly as they open.
The gift-giving season formally begins this month with the discharge of Criterion‘s huge Wes Anderson boxed set, a 20-disc behemoth certain to pop up on many cinephiles’ vacation want lists this 12 months. But it’s an indication of how sturdy the world of bodily media stays that the Wes Anderson bundle is only one of many indispensable releases dropping in September; we’ve additionally bought a Criterion improve of a Kurosawa favourite, a brand new minimize of an obscure Sylvester Stallone car, and Jack Nicholson’s criminally underrated “Chinatown” sequel “The Two Jakes.”
Add to {that a} pristine switch of an missed Walter Hill gem, a group dedicated to one among basic Hollywood’s biggest stars, and a brand new restoration of Victor Sjöström’s silent masterpiece “He Who Will get Slapped.” And let’s not neglect to say the bodily media premiere of one among this 12 months’s greatest motion pictures, “Materialists,” with illuminating supplementary options.
IndieWire picks our eight favourite new bodily releases for September 2025, under.
“Errol Flynn Assortment” (Warner Archive, Blu-ray)
One other beautiful set from Warner Archive following this 12 months’s earlier Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Elizabeth Taylor collections, this six-film bundle offers a rousing crash course within the work of one of many biggest motion stars of his period. Flynn’s most well-known movie, Michael Curtiz’s influential “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” is right here in a blinding switch that showcases all its Technicolor glory; so is among the actor’s greatest motion pictures, Raoul Walsh’s epic World Struggle II journey movie “Goal, Burma!” The gathering additionally consists of one other Curtiz swashbuckler, “The Sea Hawk”; the extra somber WWII drama “Fringe of Darkness”; and a late entry from Flynn’s days at Warner Bros., “The Adventures of Don Juan.” The weirdest and most fascinating movie within the set is “Santa Fe Path,” a Curtiz-helmed Western that imagines future Civil Struggle enemies Jeb Stuart (Flynn) and George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan) as army faculty friends competing for the affections of an heiress performed by Olivia de Havilland. This is only one of a number of extremely beneficial releases from Warner Archives this month; they’ve additionally bought terrific collections dedicated to Greta Garbo and 50s sci-fi, in addition to new remasters of the pre-code gangster basic “The Beast of the Metropolis” and the blaxploitation favourite “Black Samson.”
Obtainable September 2
“Insurgent” Director’s Minimize (Large Photos, Blu-ray)
Initially titled “No Place to Cover” when it was launched in 1973, this micro-budget characteristic from director Robert Schnitzer gave Sylvester Stallone his first starring position as an anti-war activist — but it’s been nearly inconceivable to see for many years because of the vicissitudes of unbiased filmmaking. Retitled “Insurgent” and re-released after “Rocky” made Stallone in 1976, the movie made the rounds on videocassette and tv however by no means bought the eye it deserved as a richly detailed portrait of one of many worst moments in American historical past and its influence on folks preventing for what they believed in. For this Blu-ray launch Schnitzer has remastered “Insurgent” in 4K, remixed the sound, and made refined changes to repair points that had at all times bothered him. The consequence offers a possibility to find one of many nice unsung unbiased movies of its period, a film crammed with electrifying New York location taking pictures, political urgency, and complicated ethical inquiry.
Obtainable September 2
“The Two Jakes” (Kino Lorber, 4K UHD and Blu-ray)
Jack Nicholson stepped into the director’s chair for this sequel to “Chinatown,” which met with blended opinions and tepid field workplace upon its launch in 1990 however is, in actual fact, each bit the creative equal to Roman Polanski’s masterpiece. Broader in its tonal vary, subtler in its observations, and extra adventurous in its narrative construction than its predecessor, it’s a messier film than the one concocted by Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne in 1974, but it surely yields even better pleasures for viewers prepared to simply accept its challenges. In his richly complicated portrait of Jake Gittes studying to dwell — or not — with the tragedy that outlined his life after the occasions of “Chinatown,” Nicholson reaches his apex as each actor and director.
Obtainable September 2
“Undisputed” (Kino Lorber, 4K UHD and Blu-ray)
When Walter Hill‘s 2000 science fiction movie “Supernova” was taken out of his fingers throughout modifying (he ended up signing the movie beneath a pseudonym), he wasn’t certain if he wished to make motion pictures anymore. Fortunately, for these of us who treasure the lean, good style movies (“48HRS,” “Streets of Fireplace,” “Johnny Good-looking”) through which Hill specializes, he ultimately modified his thoughts and determined to return to fundamentals for one among his greatest and most underrated movies. After the massive scale and considerable visible results of “Supernova,” Hill bought his inventive mojo again (with assist from co-screenwriter David Giler) with this return to the form of modest however muscular character-driven leisure that started his profession. Like his debut, “Arduous Occasions,” it’s a boxing image: a riff on the real-life story of Mike Tyson, through which a heavyweight champion (Ving Rhames) goes to jail for rape and finds himself up in opposition to the jail’s reigning undefeated fighter (Wesley Snipes). Hill and Giler skillfully keep away from nearly each sports activities film cliché whereas nonetheless delivering the style’s rousing satisfactions — this can be a spectacularly enjoyable film regardless of its typically grim material. This lengthy overdue 4K improve consists of interviews with Hill, Snipes, and Rhames, and a brand new audio commentary with movie historian Mike Leeder and filmmaker Matt Routledge.
Obtainable September 2
“He Who Will get Slapped” (Flicker Alley, Blu-ray)
Victor Sjöström is greatest recognized to up to date cinephiles for his memorable efficiency in Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries,” however many years earlier than that 1957 masterpiece he was directing silent movies of remarkable subtlety and lyricism. This atmospheric 1924 thriller a few humiliated clown (Lon Chaney) plotting revenge in opposition to his tormentor is one among Sjöström’s most celebrated works, and the Flicker Alley Blu-ray affords up a model new restoration of a movie by no means earlier than out there in HD. Chaney provides a nuanced, uncharacteristically subdued efficiency as “HE,” the tortured circus performer, and this Blu-ray affords up an evaluation of Chaney’s work by way of an audio commentary by make-up artist and Chaney fanatic Michael F. Blake. Additional context is supplied by a brand-new documentary on the early days of MGM, the place Louis B. Mayer green-lit “He Who Will get Slapped” as the brand new studio’s first movie. (It didn’t find yourself being launched first after Mayer held it for the profitable Christmas vacation, but it surely was the primary movie to sport MGM’s lion mascot in its opening.)
Obtainable September 9
“Excessive and Low” (Criterion, 4K UHD)
Curiosity on this Akira Kurosawa basic has surged with the discharge of Spike Lee’s remake “Highest 2 Lowest,” and Criterion’s shimmering 4K improve is the proper strategy to expertise it. A bifurcated story that spends its first half within the “excessive” environs of higher class industrialist Toshiro Mifune earlier than shifting gears to the “low” metropolis lifetime of a kidnapper who upends his life, this 1963 adaptation of Ed McBain’s crime novel “King’s Ransom” goes each broad and deep — it’s a sweeping portrait of post-war Japan in addition to a meticulously detailed character examine. And it’s one hell of an entertaining trendy noir, kinetically directed by Kurosawa with a complete mastery of the expansive TohoScope body. The Criterion version is important viewing not just for the movie itself however for the distinctive supplementary options, the perfect of which is an insight-packed audio commentary by movie scholar Stephen Prince, who brilliantly breaks down Kurosawa’s strategy to lenses, digicam motion, composition, and modifying.
Obtainable September 9
“Materialists” (A24, Blu-ray)
Celine Music’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut characteristic “Previous Lives” is the perfect form of second movie, a film that each deepens the concepts of its predecessor whereas discovering extra assorted technique of expression and new areas for additional inquiry. “Materialists” is as ethereal and expansive as “Previous Lives” was hermetically sealed and claustrophobic; it’s bought the bubbling allure of early Nora Ephron, however the exploration of how class, tradition, and romance intersect is extra complicated — and in the end extra satisfying — than something you’ll discover in “Sleepless in Seattle” or “You’ve Acquired Mail.” Music’s visible style is beautiful; her expertise for locating probably the most felicitous digicam angle and her eye for edits that convey a mess of feelings makes her a form of modern-day Ernst Lubitsch, and “Materialists” is a rom-com (sure, it’s a rom-com, opposite to what a few of my colleagues have argued) each bit as romantic, humorous, and clear-eyed as that grasp’s greatest work. Particular options on the Blu-ray embody a commentary with Celine Music, an in-depth making-of featurette, and a composer deep dive with Japanese Breakfast.
Obtainable September 9
“The Wes Anderson Archive: Ten Movies, Twenty-5 Years” (Criterion, 4K UHD and Blu-ray)
To name this generously appointed and handsomely packaged assortment a crash course within the movies of writer-director Wes Anderson isn’t actually doing it justice; with over 25 hours of particular options and essays unfold throughout 10 illustrated books, it’s probably the most complete boxed units ever devoted to a single filmmaker. Containing all 10 of Anderson’s options from “Bottle Rocket” to “The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Night Solar,” the bundle is stuffed to the hilt with audio commentaries, interviews, documentaries, deleted scenes, auditions, quick movies, residence motion pictures, commercials, storyboards, animation checks, archival recordings, nonetheless pictures, and visible essays dedicated to probably the most unique voices in up to date world cinema.
Obtainable September 30
