Sid & Nancy

". . . a beautifully crafted movie filled with revealing, powerful, unforgettable images"
-- Seattle Post Intelligencer

A lacerating love story, Sid & Nancy chronicles the brief, intense attachment of two of punk's most notorious poster children, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Director Alex Cox balances a bleak evocation of star-crossed love with surreal humor and genuine tenderness, creating a compelling portrait of the late '70s punk scene. With brilliant performances by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, the film's haunting imagery and black comedy resonate long after the final frames.

Special features:

• Audio commentary by stars Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, screenwriter Abbe Wool, cultural historian Greil Marcus, filmmakers Julien Temple (The Great Rock Śną Roll Swindle) and Lech Kowalski (D.O.A.: A Right of Passage), and musician Elliot Kidd
• Transfer supervised by director of photography Roger Deakins
• Liner notes by England's Dreaming author Jon Savage
• More!

  1 disc / $39.95 / 1986
  
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High and Low

"One of the best detective thrillers ever filmed" -- The New York Times

Toshiro Mifune stars a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a ruthless kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa's exemplary film noir. Based on Ed McBain's detective novel King's Ransom, High and Low is both a riveting thriller and a brilliant commentary on contemporary Japanese society. Criterion is proud to present High and Low in a luminous widescreen transfer with new electronic subtitles.

$39.95 / 1963

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Dead Ringers

"A mesmerizing achievement"
-- Janet Maslin, The New York Times

In Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg tells the chilling story of identical twin gynecologists -- suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality -- who share the same practice, the same apartment, the same women. When a new patient, glamorous actress Claire Niveau, challenges their eerie bond, they descend into a whirlpool of sexual confusion, drugs, and madness. Jeremy Irons' tour-de-force performance -- as both twins -- raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity. Criterion is proud to offer a new, streamlined DVD edition of Dead Ringers, featuring:

Special features:

• A new digital transfer, approved by director David Cronenberg and director of photography Peter Suschitzky
• Audio commentary by David Cronenberg, Jeremy Irons, editor Ronald Sanders, production designer Carol Spier, and Peter Suschitzky
• The original designs for the opening credit sequence
• Drawings and photographs of the medical instruments and sculptures designed for the film
• Twinning effect/motion control footage
• The electronic press kit, including a trailer and a featurette

  1 disc / $39.95 / 1988
  
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Alphaville

A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard's irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of a fascist computer Alpha 60.

1 disc / $29.95 / 1965

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M

"One of the true classics of the cinema." -- Herald Tribune

Behind every great suspense thriller lurks the shadow of M. In this, Fritz Lang's first sound film, Peter Lorre delivers a haunting performance as the cinema's first serial killer, a whistling pedophile hunted by the police and brought to trial by the forces of the Berlin underworld. Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" will never sound the same. Criterion is proud to present Lang's seminal film in a new transfer. In German with optional English subtitles.

1 disc / $29.95 / 1931

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Picnic at Hanging Rock

"...An innovative, exciting cinematic discovery." -- Tom Allen, The Village Voice

Twenty years after it swept Australia into the international film spotlight, Peter Weir's stunning 1975 masterpiece remains as ineffable as the unanswerable mystery at its core. A Valentine's Day picnic turns to disaster when a few young girls inexplicably vanish on Hanging Rock. A lyrical, meditative film charged with suppressed longings. Picnic at Hanging Rock is at long last available in a pristine, widescreen director's cut with a newly minted Dolby stereo soundtrack.

Special features:

• The recently released director's cut of the film
• The original theatrical trailer
• Liner notes by Vincent Canby

1 disc / $29.95 / 1975

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Robocop

Called by Ken Russell "the greatest science-fiction film since Metropolis," controversial Dutch director Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop is a special-effects-laden cult phenomenon. The film features a resurrected and roboticized hero (Peter Weller) in a new, supercharged cyborg body, struggling to reclaim his memory and avenge his own death. Brutally violent, gleefully funny, the film is a grown-up superhero fantasy come to vivid, bloody life.

Both Criterion editions include the unrated director's cut master in THX, including "excessively violent" shots, cut from the theatrical release to avoid an X rating.

Criterion's DVD Special Edition includes:

• Screen-specific stereo audio commentary with director Paul Verhoeven, co-writer Ed Neumeier, producer Jon Davison, and Robocop expert Paul Sammon
• Film-to-storyboards comparison
• Extensive still frame supplement chronicling the production of RoboCop

1 disc / $39.95 / 1987

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The Naked Kiss

"True Sam Fuller plot lulu, thoroughly impossible but rich in sentiment, harsh realities, and dialogue dandies. You could call it a mine of misinformation leading to the motherlode of melodrama." -- The New York Post

The set-up is pure pulp: A former prostitute relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in to mainstream society. But in the strange hallucinatory territory of writer/director/producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome facade. Criterion is proud to present The Naked Kiss in a beautiful widescreen transfer.

$29.95 / 1964

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Shock Corridor

"A minor masterpiece." -- Derek Malcolm, The Guardian

Seeking a Pulitzer, a reporter has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Writer/director/producer Sam Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Criterion is proud to present Shock Corridor in a gorgeous widescreen transfer, in black and white with its rarely-seen color sequences.

$29.95 / 1963

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