Blu-ray collectors, rejoice. The Criterion Collection unveiled its November 2024 slate of releases this week, and the month looks like an embarrassment of riches for cinephiles looking to expand their physical media collections. The boutique distributor will be rolling out six new titles, several of which have long been coveted by Criterion fans: “Funny Girl,” “Paper Moon,” “Demon Pond,” and “Scarface,” along with new 4K editions of “Godzilla” and “Seven Samurai.”
William Wyler’s 1968 film adaptation of the musical “Funny Girl” marked Barbara Streisand’s big screen debut, turning the actress into one of Hollywood’s biggest stars overnight and earning her an Oscar for Best Actress on her first nomination. The film quickly became a cultural phenomenon and has remained one of the most popular (and quoted) movie musicals of all time.
Peter Bogdanovich’s “Paper Moon” is widely regarded as one of the greatest showcases for a child actor in film history. Ryan O’Neal stars alongside his daughter, Tatum O’Neal, in a story of a con man who takes a newly orphaned girl under his wing in Depression-era Missouri. Tatum won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the age of 10, making her the youngest winner of all time — a record that still has yet to be broken.
Like many a Howard Hawks film, his 1932 take on “Scarface” is a foundational text for its genre. While the classic bootlegging film has in many ways been overshadowed by Brian de Palma’s cocaine-fueled remake that it inspired, Hawks’ original Chicago-set story remains one of the earliest bona fide classics in the American gangster movie canon.
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” felt like the culmination of a career spent obsessing over the beauty that can be found in creatures that society deems to be “monsters.” The Old Hollywood-inspired romance about a woman who connects with a creature being held in an experimental lab riffs on everything from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” to “Beauty and the Beast,” resulting in an Oscars sweep for del Toro that ushered in one of the most fruitful eras of his career.
Masahiro Shinoda’s “Demon Pond” is a subversive blend of theatre and film from one of the most exciting filmmakers from the Japanese New Wave. An adaption of the play of the same name by Kyoka Izumi, the folk horror combines the conventions of stage and screen with an iconic electronic score by Isao Tomita.
Both Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” and Ishirō Honda’s original 1954 “Godzilla” have been fixtures of the Criterion Collection for years, but both films are set to receive major upgrades in November. Both foundational pillars of pop culture in their own way — “Seven Samurai” for its profound influence on action cinema, and “Godzilla” for launching the biggest kaiju franchise of all time that shows zero signs of stopping — the two films will finally be available in 4K this month. This also marks the first time that “Godzilla” will be able to purchase individually through Criterion, as it was previously only available through the distributor’s comprehensive “Godzilla: The Showa Era Films, 1954-1975” box set.
All titles are now available to pre-order.
