2023 marks our first year-long dive into the world of physical media. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably already read our monthly lists of the most promising new Blu-rays and 4K UHD discs. We build those collections based on exciting planned new releases, often giving a heads up before we’ve had a chance to see them for ourselves.
This list is different – and more prestigious. Here we collect the best discs of the year. We tried them. We love them. We want to share them. That is it! We do not place any additional limits on our curation. Whether you want a killer midnight horror movie or a challenging collection of arthouse cinema, you’ll find something to appreciate.
The following recommendations are listed in reverse chronological order of these disc releases, so you always see the newest entries on top. The list will be updated throughout the year and in December we will release a final update along with awarding our favorite disc of 2023.
Be sure to share your own favorite new discs in the comments!
The best Blu-ray and 4K releases of 2023
Superman collection (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital) – May 9
The next Superman movie won’t hit theaters until mid-2025 at the earliest. If you’re in the mood for heroics in blue spandex and red cape, this collection is the way to go. The collection spans the entire Christopher Reeve era: Superman 1-4along with the alternate Richard Donner cut of super man 2.
The set also includes a Superman smorgasbord. For fans of the movies, the package includes a truckload of commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a making-of TV special, and deleted scenes. And for people who love all things Superman, Warner Bros. bundled in a grab bag of episodes from the classic Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons.
I hadn’t seen the movies until this release, and they are a delight – and a refreshing alternative to the current trend of self-conscious superheroes. Plus, they’re chock-full of top talent of their time, including Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, Marlon Brando, and Margot Kidder.
Police Story 3: Super Cop (4K UHD + Blu-ray) – April 25
When some friends visited recently, I took this disc off the shelf and promised to show them one of the most dangerous stunts they’d ever seen on film. Police story 3 is of course a great movie. So instead of jumping ahead, we decided to check out the whole thing.
Every few minutes they would ask if this was the extremely dangerous stunt I had mentioned. Michelle Yeoh jumping on a moving train with a motorbike? No. Jackie Chan dangling from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter? Nah, not that one.
For me, the most stomach-wrenching stunt comes towards the end, throwing Yeoh off the roof of a truck onto the windshield of a speeding convertible. Behind the scenes, Yeoh actually performed the stunt multiple times, almost falling off the car and under the wheels in two takes.
Let me be clear: I’m thrilled that filmmaking has moved away from actors feeling like they have to risk their lives for one incredible shot. Yeoh’s Most Recent Hit — Everything Everywhere Everything at once – shows that a good action movie can be made in a humane way. But I also have a conflicting respect for this amazing stunt work.
Watching with newcomer friends, I realized that this movie doesn’t have one of the most mind-blowing stunts in history. It has many. Yeoh and Chan bring out the best in each other as two of the last great performers in a form of filmmaking we’ll probably never see again. Fortunately, we can now look back on it through this breathtaking 4k restoration, knowing that both would survive and have long, successful and safer careers.
Image: Amazon Studios
Small axe (Blu-ray) – April 25
One of the greatest directors of our generation released five films in one calendar month. Hardly anyone saw them. You can blame the pandemic (the films premiered in the fall of 2020) or the distribution and marketing of streaming cinema (they launched on Prime Video), but the blame does not solve the problem.
However, this collection makes an effort. Small axe collects Steve McQueen’s latest films ranging from one to two hours and blurs the line between prestige TV, anthology series and arthouse cinema. The result reflects McQueen’s history with visual arts and nods on every page of his portfolio, from his Turner Prize-winning art to the Academy Award-winning 12 years slave to the heist thriller ‘should have won every prize’ widows.
McQueen’s films cover a wide range of subjects, but what connects them is a historicist approach to filmmaking, emphasizing truthfulness and the sublimity of unheard voices. Small axe is perhaps the pinnacle of this focus. All five films capture the lives of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s. They range from petty domestic dramas and romances to police interrogations and jail time.
The Criterion Collection is the best way to watch these movies, not just because the picture is as good as any other Criterion transfer, but because the set comes with some additions that feel like they’ve always belonged to the anthology: a filmed conversation between McQueen and Professor Paul Gilroy, and the entire three-part documentary Revoltreleased the following year by McQueen and James Rogan Small axedocumenting the New Cross house fire in 1981.
McQueen’s work is bold, smart and important – which can sound difficult and intimidating. But here’s the good news: Small axe it’s entertaining. Extremely entertaining. You don’t have to watch the movies in any order, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed, start with Lovers rock.
Image: Severin
Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection (Blu-ray) – March 28
violent streets is the most challenging pick on our list, but depending on your stomach for blood, it’s also one of the most rewarding. Italian director Umberto Leniz and Spaghetti Western star Tomas Milian teamed up in the 1970s to create five gripping crime films. The subgenre, called poliziotteschi, now serves as a time capsule from Italy’s turbulent decade. But for the average English-speaking movie fan, where do you even begin with a genre you’ve never heard of, of a socio-political moment that wasn’t taught in your history class?
History – from the mouth of those involved – is the power of Severin’s Blu-ray collections. Not only does the team provide the best possible way to see each movie (beautifully restored, uncensored clips), they also collect the bonus feature equivalent of a college seminar. The first film alone includes audio commentary with the screenwriter and critics, interviews with Lenzi and Milan, and additional contextual featurettes.
I dove in first Almost human, the most famous movie of the bunch, trying its English-language track. It played like a wacky, but unpleasantly violent grindhouse bobble. Then I switched to the original audio and went all the way with some featurettes. And I felt like I’d gotten to know a whole different world and a different moment – enjoying a wonderfully sweaty crime lord performance that would make Al Pacino blush.
If you like film as a means of understanding the world, warts and all, you’ve got your next box set.
The house that screamed (Blu-ray) – March 7
The house that screamed is pitched as Suspiria meets Psycho. The problem with a pitch like this is that the movie in question can’t possibly live up to the equation. Technically, that’s correct here. No, The house that screamed isn’t as good as two of the greatest horror movies ever made. But damn, it’s getting close.
For film buffs like myself, its status as “Spain’s first major horror production” and its early place on the timeline of giallo, slasher and gothic cinematic horror make it a must-watch. For everyone else, there’s the tawdry (but rarely lurking) tale of a killer prowling the woods of an all-female boarding school.
The set includes both the uncut version, titled The finishing school (La Residencia), and the 11-minute shorter US version. Go for the longer version, which has room for the characters to breathe and the tension to boil. Also included: some archive interviews and a new commentary from critic Anna Bogutskaya.
Image: Best Buy
John Wick 1-3 Stash Book Collection (4K UHD + Blu-ray) – February 28
One of the great modern action franchises has just received its celebrated fourth entry and Lionsgate has released this fantastic “stashbook” box set that replicates Wick’s own stashbox from Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Designed like a Russian tome, with religious iconography on the cover, the three film cases are hidden under about a dozen pages of a book of Russian folk tales. The set includes all three films, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and audio commentary from Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski. The only drawback is that it is not included Chapter 4! —Piet Volk
Image: United Artists
Gone home (4K UHD + Blu-ray) – January 31
Patrick Swayze rips out a guy’s throat and then roundhouse kicks him into a lake. That is it. That’s the field.
Vinegar Syndrome’s colossal celebration of this modern masterpiece includes a commentary track with the director, another with Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, many brand new interviews with on- and off-screen talent, a one-hour documentary, multiple featurettes, a 40-page book, and of course the brand new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative.