The Best Discs of 2024

It’s gratifying, I suppose, to see the rest of the world catching up with me and realizing that physical media is the only way to ensure you can watch the films you want to watch, whenever and wherever you want to watch them. But c’mon! That’s why I launched this newsletter in the first place, and why I keep reminding people to buy discs instead of streaming licenses.

Okay, yes, it’s true that some player manufacturers are shutting down their production lines … but that’s because game consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation have cornered the market by virtue of their popularity. (People might not know they can watch 4K discs on ’em, but I bet their kids do.) There will still be ways to play your discs … and there’s nothing preventing you from picking up a spare player once the clearance sales start.

My larger point here is that discs are still being manufactured, and more films are being rescued and resurrected in excellent, lovingly produced 4K and Blu-ray editions than ever before. I’ve had the pleasure of watching a whole bunch of them! And with the caveat that I didn’t have access to every disc released this year, these are the best discs I spun up in 2024.

The Abyss (Disney, 4K/Blu-ray)

It took decades for The Abyss to get a proper high-definition release, and when it did happen it was briefly tainted by controversy about the use of algorithmic smoothing in its restoration. I went into detail about it here; the short version is that while True Lies may look like it was run through a laminator, both Aliens and The Abyss remain unplastinated … though they’re definitely a little brighter and shinier than they were in their theatrical versions. And the 4K edition of The Abyss confirms the film’s reputation as Cameron’s masterpiece, a deeply personal and utterly engaging adventure with sci-fi elements that exist to enhance the human story rather than distract from it.

Cameron is a filmmaker without irony, which is why it works; he can be also a complete asshole on set, which is why it’s so amazing that the LaserDisc documentary Under Pressure: The Making of The Abyss should be included here, with all of the production’s tensions and dangers discussed frankly and openly. Imagine a studio would commission and then release a doc this honest about, say, a Transformers movie. Anyway, yes, this is an all-timer. The Aliens set is pretty damn good too, and Warner’s 4K edition of Terminator brought that movie roaring back to life just last month.

Andor: Season One (Disney, 4K)

Tony Gilroy’s Disney+ series seemed like a weird pitch when it was first announced: Did the world really need a prequel to Rogue One, even if that movie – a prequel itself – turned out be the best expansion of the Star Wars universe since The Empire Strikes Back? Two episodes in, it was clear that Andor was going to do Star Wars differently, charting the radicalization of Diego Luna’s petty thief Cassian Andor into a key player in the Rebel Alliance by showing us what it feels like to live under the boot of the Galactic Empire.

It’s an exceptionally well-told story, turning action figures into richly developed characters – with the possible exception of Adria Arjona’s unfortunate Bix – and reimagining 1977-era sets and props into brutally real locations. Extras are limited to shortish five featurettes, but the opportunity to experience the show at a far higher bitrate than streaming allows, with the attendant improvements in video and audio fidelity, is the reason to grab this set.

Dune (Warner, 4K) and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner, 4K)

Warner Home Entertainment put out some exceptional discs this year, and these reference-level releases are among the best they’ve ever mastered, showcasing the very different visual and aural aesthetics of Denis Villeneuve’s luxurious sci-fi sequel and George Miller’s adrenalized dystopian epic in ravishing 2160p and bolstering them with suites of nerdy special features. The hour-long documentary on Furiosa is an absolute banger, by the way.

Dune (Via Vision, Blu-ray)

And speaking of epic productions of Frank Herbert’s work, Australia’s Via Vision celebrated the 40^th anniversary of an earlier adaptation with a three-disc Blu-ray box that offered the most authoritative look at David Lynch’s Dune yet – with restored presentations of Lynch’s theatrical cut and the botched expanded version Universal Pictures produced for television, and a dense supplemental package that includes an expanded edition of the terrific retrospective documentary The Sleeper Must Awaken. I checked the Via Vision website this morning, and there’s still one copy left in stock. Think about it.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Vinegar Syndrome, 4K/Blu-ray)

Last month’s surprise release of Michael Mann’s The Keep might have grabbed all the headlines, but people were already aware of that movie; for my money, Vinegar Syndrome’s most important restoration of 2024 was Richard Brooks’ 1977 drama about a schoolteacher (Diane Keaton, in her other great performance of 1977) who spends her nights chasing sex and substances, which had been released on videotape and LaserDisc but never on DVD or Blu-ray, rendering it effectively out of print for a quarter of a century.

Restored from the original camera negative, the film looks better than it has in decades; Vinegar Syndrome’s release also includes a modest but focused suite of special features exploring the film’s true-crime origins and the obscenity trial that followed its release, all anchored by an excellent retrospective audio commentary from Gillian Wallace Horvat. By all means grab The Keep, but make sure you get this one too.

No Country for Old Men (Criterion, 4K/Blu-ray)

Criterion brings Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2007 Oscar-winner back into circulation – and back to vivid, brutal life – with an exceptional new transfer and two longish interviews with the filmmakers and their collaborators (conducted by the author Megan Abbott, who did similar duty on Criterion’s release of Miller’s Crossing). And they even rescued an hour’s worth of archival special features from the out-of-print Disney release for good measure. Along with Bound and Dogfight, Criterion is doing a swell job of building out the modern American canon; I’m looking forward to their upcoming release of Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey, too.

Stop Making Sense (A24, 4K)

The remastered, IMAX-friendly version of Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert film – which we premiered at TIFF 2023 – was a proper cinematic event. A24’s physical edition of the movie is the equivalent of a beautifully assembled coffee-table book, offering a pristine restoration of the film (in HDR and Atmos) and supporting it with a mix of new and archival supplements, a beautiful booklet and two additional cuts of the film – a new version produced by the band with alternate takes of “Cities” and “I Zimbra”, and Demme’s own extended version sourced from the 1989 LaserDisc release. Also? Best disc art ever.

Initially available exclusively through the A24 store (4K here, Blu-ray here), it’s since turned up in Toronto at Bay Street Video and the Vinegar Syndrome store, proving once again that God loves Canada and wants us to be happy.

Sam Raimi in 4K (Shout! Studios and Arrow Video)

This was a great year for Sam Raimi fans, who got to welcome Ultra High Definition upgrades of four of his films: Darkman, Drag Me to Hell and The Gift from Shout, and A Simple Plan from Arrow. I didn’t get hold of The Gift, but the other three were everything we could have wanted. A Simple Plan examines what might be Raimi’s best film from a critical and historical lens, beginning with an excellent audio commentary from Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme and moving on to a carefully curated supplemental suite, while Shout’s 4K upgrades also add new extras to their features along with all the goodies produced for their earlier releases.

So Darkman gets a rhapsodic commentary track from filmmaker and superfan Josh Ruben (Scare Me, Werewolves Within), and Drag Me to Hell arrives with the new documentary Pardon My Curse: Making Drag Me to Hell, which runs nearly two hours and is a great deal of fun. I’m also looking forward to the new interviews and both critics’ commentaries on The Gift – one featuring Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, and the other with Meagan Navarro.

 BOXES

All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, Volume Two (Severin, Blu-ray)

Keir-La Janisse and Severin’s follow-up to their brilliant 2021 collection may stretch the definition of folk horror as a genre, but it’s all in the service of a broader understanding of cultural creepers like the dark Filipino drama The Rites of May or the stark Finnish allegory The White Reindeer. In all, two dozen films – most of them arranged in clever double-bills – are presented for our consideration, offered in the best state possible and loaded up with special features. It’s an invitation to explore, and an archivist’s dream.

Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 4 (Sony, 4K/Blu-ray)

Speaking of an archivist’s dream, the fourth release in Grover Crisp’s hit parade of lavish Columbia Pictures boxed sets is certainly that: Not only did we get reference-quality editions of His Girl Friday, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Starman, Sleepless in Seattle and Punch-Drunk Love (with new Dolby Atmos mixes where possible), but each title was accompanied by a fine selection of extras and one remarkable surprise: I don’t know that anyone in Hollywood asked for the complete Starman television series to be remastered in 1080p and presented on two 4K discs, but there it is!

I have yet to pick up Volume 5, but that one throws in a bonus disc of 1920s studio pictures (The Price She Paid, The Scarlet Lady, Ladies of Leisure, The Belle of Broadway and Scarlet Street), just because. Keep on keeping on, Grover.

Directed by Sidney Lumet, Volume 1 (Imprint, Blu-ray)

With Tootsie getting the Columbia Classics treatment in Sony’s latest collection, it’s worth noting that Lumet’s larger filmography has been getting a lot of love on physical media this year – and this boxed set, produced by Australia’s Via Vision, is a highlight, collecting six films produced between 1964 and 1973: The Pawnbroker, The Group, The Offence, The Deadly Affair, Child’s Play and Serpico, in solid 2K transfers with new and archival extras, including a one-hour documentary that anchors the set’s bonus platter. These are the films that won’t get the Criterion treatment, but they’re no less important to understanding why Lumet is held in such high esteem.

Shawscope Volume 3 (Arrow, Blu-ray)

I wasn’t able to cover this in full, but basically? If you loved the ferociously nerdy deep dives of the first two boxes, Arrow’s team has done it again with another massive collection of Hong Kong classics, starting with Chang Cheh’s One-Armed Swordsman trilogy and rolling through the career of Chor Yuen, director of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan and a series of wuxia adventures. There are fourteen features in all – sixteen if you count the unexpurgated version of Chor Yuen’s Clans of Intrigue, or the South Korean cut of Kwei Chih-Hung’s Killer Constable – and a bonus CD of library music used in the film’s soundtracks. It’s what the people what.

And there you have it! Apologies if I left out your favorite disc; this was a terrific year for physical media, and I know at least three or four major November and December titles were held up in the Canada Post strike. But hey, it gives me something to do in the new year.

Up next: The best movies of 2024. See you soon.