The 20 best home enter­tain­ment releas­es of 2020

In the cur­rent issue of LWLies, writer Matt Thrift looks into the phe­nom­e­non of bou­tique Blu-ray labels and how they hap­pen to be thriv­ing at a time when dig­i­tal democ­ra­ti­sa­tion and sub­scrip­tion sign-ups are the prize in everybody’s eyes. On the evi­dence of 2020’s home ents haul, there are absolute­ly no signs of decline for phys­i­cal discs – if any­thing, pro­duc­ers are putting togeth­er even more expan­sive, cre­ative and thor­ough­ly researched pack­ages than ever before. Here are just 20 that tick­led our fancy…

One of Robert Altman’s less­er-known, mid-career titles is unearthed and giv­en a spit-shine, telling the sto­ry of a tale of long-game black­mail in 1930s Kansas City, Mis­souri, which sees the worlds of polit­i­cal dem­a­goguery and impro­vised Jazz inter­sect in many dra­mat­ic ways. Worth the price alone to see a young Jen­nifer Jason Leigh chew­ing up the scenery and then spit­ting it out again.

The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion were called out this year for their habit­u­al pref­er­ence of white male auteur releas­es, and so Dorothy Arzner’s spiky fem­i­nist cabaret dra­ma from 1940, Dance, Girl, Dance, offered up a pleas­ing cor­rec­tive. It’s a sting­ing study of art ver­sus com­merce and dig­ni­ty vers­es humil­i­a­tion, as a bal­let dancer attempts to secure her dream by exhibit­ing her classy wares in dingy dive bars.

This clas­sic, ultra-poised and process-dri­ven neo-noir remains one of French film­mak­er Jean-Pierre Melville’s crown­ing achieve­ments, and it looks the absolute busi­ness on its new, restored Blu-ray edi­tion. An ex-con played by Alain Delon is drawn back to a life of crime and, with­in hours of release, is assem­bling a band of broth­ers to pull off an impos­si­ble Parisian jew­ellery heist.

Anoth­er mon­ster endeav­our from a man for whom the term ​“R&R” doesn’t appear in his per­son­al lex­i­con. Women Make Film is the addic­tive 40 chap­ter, 14-hour ode to women film­mak­ers from writer, broad­cast­er and cinephile Mark Cousins which com­pris­es expres­sive clips, poet­ic com­men­tary and a host of icon­ic women who have been brought in for nar­ra­tion duties.

The bril­liant pur­vey­ors of top east Asian cin­e­ma, Third Win­dow, released one of our favourite films of last year (Shinichi­rou Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead), and among their cat­a­logue this year have been a selec­tion of restored and re-released ​“Pink” films from Japan. These are short exploita­tion fea­tures which strad­dle the world of art and porn, and this first set includ­ed the fas­ci­nat­ing two­some of Inflat­able Sex Doll of the Waste­lands and Gush­ing Prayer.

Hong Kong direc­tor Fruit Chan has had a long and not par­tic­u­lar­ly remark­able career as an all-pur­pose genre hand, but in his ear­ly days he was more akin to a bud­ding Wong Kar-wai. This rois­ter­ing, low-bud­get, huge­ly enter­tain­ing sec­ond fea­ture fol­lows a bag­gy-jeaned slack­er and wannabe gang­ster whose tough guy brava­do ends up cost­ing his friends and fam­i­ly dearly.

As a love­ly lit­tle apéri­tif to 2019’s The Irish­man, you could do a lot worse than snap up this com­pendi­um of Marty’s medi­um-length doc projects and pre-fame stu­dent films. Col­lec­tive­ly, these works high­light Scorsese’s Ital­ian roots, from his obses­sive for­ma­tive love of Fed­eri­co Felli­ni through to his momma’s killer meat­ball recipe.

One of the most maligned British films of the mod­ern era is repack­aged and recon­tex­tu­alised, and though it may be a bit of a reach to class it as a lost mas­ter­piece, it’s cer­tain­ly a fran­tic and weird­ly mov­ing mael­strom of hor­ror, humour and sev­ered heads. This final chap­ter to Lind­sey Anderson’s ​‘Mick Travis’ tril­o­gy tracks a day in the life of a Lon­don hos­pi­tal as the Queen her­self is set to vis­it to open a strange new wing.

Film­mak­er William Greaves holes up in New York’s Cen­tral Park on a hot day in 1968 and films a scene between two actors. Some­one then films him film­ing. And some­one else films the per­son who’s film­ing him. And more and more and more until most peo­ple on set have a cam­era point­ed at some­one or some­thing. This mis­chie­vous essay on dra­mat­ic cul­pa­bil­i­ty and the divid­ing lines between fic­tion and real­i­ty remains a ground­break­ing feat of con­cen­tric sto­ry­telling, and also may be one of the funnest exper­i­men­tal films ever made.

Jeanne Mor­reau doesn’t just turn it up to 11, she breaks the damn dial in the title role of Joseph Losey’s stark, unfor­giv­ing and long hard-to-see 1962 psy­chodra­ma Eva. This disc con­tains four sep­a­rate edits of this film about a Welsh lit­er­ary celebri­ty (Stan­ley Bak­er) who falls for a high-rolling pros­ti­tute while swan­ning around Venice dur­ing the low sea­son. It’s a sand-blast­ed cru­cible of tor­ment and spite that nonethe­less gets at some­thing pro­found about love, arro­gance and per­son­al ambition.

One of the less­er known films from the direc­tor of A Touch of Zen and Drag­on Inn – Hong Kong’s wux­ia mae­stro King Hu. The Three Trea­sures Tem­ple is a vast com­plex, and in a locked cham­ber is a valu­able scroll called the Trip­i­ta­ki, desired by Esquire Wen (Suen Yuet) and his accom­plices. So it’s a mar­tial arts heist movie, and Hu is just as inter­est­ed in accli­mat­ing the view­er to the geog­ra­phy of the land­scape as he is depict­ing his trade­mark acro­bat­ic fight sequences.

There’s no room to namecheck all four of the films (none of which are west­erns!) on this stel­lar col­lec­tion of John Ford’s col­lab­o­ra­tions with Colum­bia Stu­dios, but maybe it’s worth pick­ing out one of his best: 1955’s The Long Gray Line. It sees Tyrone Pow­er as an avun­cu­lar drill sergeant at West Point, and the film begins as a slap­stick com­e­dy before it sub­tly drifts into a sweet­ly melan­cholic trea­tise on war, death and family.

Every­one has their own favourite David Finch­er film, but this one – re-released in a brick-sized lim­it­ed edi­tion pack­age by Arrow – may just be mine. This cor­po­rate thriller-cum-exis­ten­tial para­ble stars Michael Dou­glas as a soul­less exec who is made to see the light when his younger bro (Sean Penn) signs him up for an immer­sive, expe­ri­en­tial ​“game” in which he must sur­vive hav­ing been stripped of all earth­ly pos­ses­sions. Watch it, mar­vel and the slick­ness of the sto­ry­telling, and then have a good old argu­ment about the ending.

Japan­ese renais­sance man Takeshi Kitano went from laud­ed MVP of the glob­al fes­ti­val cir­cuit in the ​’90s to some­thing of an indul­gent enig­ma in the new cen­tu­ry. This BFI pack­age brings togeth­er three of his ear­ly clas­sics, 1989’s Vio­lent Cop, 1990’s Boil­ing Point and 1993’s Sonatine, in new restora­tions, and allows us to remem­ber the glo­ry days of this artist who was able to fuse abra­sive vio­lence and the absolute dregs of human­i­ty, with the arch, dead­pan com­e­dy stylings of Buster Keaton.

Those in the know believe this 1989 TV adap­ta­tion of Susan Hill’s ghost sto­ry best­seller to be one of the scari­est hor­ror films ever made. And, wit­ness­ing its low-fi atmos­pher­ics, chill­ing sound design and total­ly com­mit­ted per­for­mances, it’s not dif­fi­cult to see why. Chuck in a hor­ri­fy­ing­ly bleak dénoue­ment and one of the all-time great jumps scares, and you’ve got per­haps the most bizarre film ever to pre­mière at Christ­mas Eve on prime time ITV.

This mam­moth and mag­nif­i­cent lat­est from Indi­an film­mak­er and preser­va­tion­ist Shiv­en­dra Singh Dun­garpur is, as the title sug­gests, a look at the life and work of the gift­ed Czech film­mak­er behind the 1966 Acad­e­my Award win­ning polit­i­cal com­e­dy, Close­ly Watched Trains. But, as a delight­ful treat, we’re actu­al­ly giv­en a sup­ple­men­tal sur­vey of the entire Czech New Wave move­ment, and the entire under­tak­ing has been put togeth­er with such care and inter­est that, despite the prospect of the extend­ed run­time, it’s a rol­lock­ing and immer­sive cinephile treat.

A lit­tle per­son­al favourite, and one that offers a won­der­ful remem­brance of the non-Bond tal­ents of the late, great Sean Con­nery. This spec­u­la­tive fic­tion on the lat­er life of Robin Hood and Maid Mar­i­an (beau­ti­ful­ly played by Audrey Hep­burn) offers a whim­si­cal med­i­ta­tion on the process of grow­ing old togeth­er and attempt­ing to ward off the essen­tial lone­li­ness of death. It’s also hilar­i­ous and action-packed – a real lost treasure.

Made just eight years after the nuclear bomb­ing of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, Hideo Sekigawa’s extra­or­di­nary 1953 film relays the events sur­round­ing that fate­ful day, with many sur­vivors of the real inci­dent brought back in front of the cam­era to relive the hor­rors and edu­cate future gen­er­a­tions. The film is unflinch­ing in its depic­tion of the grim real­i­ties of nuclear fall­out, and was thus sup­pressed by Japan­ese author­i­ties and hasn’t seen any sig­nif­i­cant cir­cu­la­tion for well over half a cen­tu­ry. To think that there may be oth­er bur­nished pearls like this still to be discovered.

I would hap­pi­ly die on the hill which says that Bob Fosse’s debut as a fea­ture direc­tor stands as one of the great Hol­ly­wood musi­cals. Loose­ly adapt­ed from Fed­eri­co Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, telling of a work­ing girl who is look­ing for love, and star­ring Shirley MacLaine at her most bois­ter­ous and per­fect, Sweet Char­i­ty real­ly is just the whole pack­age: stun­ning songs, tremen­dous danc­ing, and an inter­lude with Sam­my Davis Jr as a hip­py cult leader in Lennon specs. Indicator’s big-box treat­ment is one of the year’s most beau­ti­ful phys­i­cal objects in any medium.

It seemed inevitable that the num­ber one spot would go to the film that no less than Apichat­pong Weeasethukal him­self would describe as, ​“The best film of the past 125 years.” The ear­ly work of Tai­wanese direc­tor Tsai Ming-liang has been noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to source on home video, and so it was with great excite­ment that Sec­ond Run announced their release of this long-cher­ished but lit­tle-seen 2003 mas­ter­work. And upon revis­it­ing, we can con­firm that it’s not only even greater than our very fond mem­o­ries would have us believe, but also per­haps a defin­ing artis­tic state­ment for a year which saw most cin­e­mas forced to shut­ter and films forcibly divert­ed through alter­na­tive dig­i­tal release patterns.

The action slow­ly unfurls in some­thing close to real time, as a once-grand Taipei pic­ture palace screens its final film before clo­sure: King Hu’s Drag­on Inn. We then watch the watch­ers as they spend a rain-soaked evening under cov­er of dark­ness and light, all sat in front of this action epic for their own unique rea­sons. It’s a love sto­ry, a ghost sto­ry, and a nos­tal­gia piece, at once per­fect­ly encap­su­lat­ing the joy of this frag­ile medi­um and the irre­press­ible cul­ture sur­round­ing it, but also the sad­ness that comes with time, progress and, ulti­mate­ly, human decline.