Criterion Collection January 2025  – ‘The Grifters,’ ‘Winchester ’73,’ ‘The Mother and the Whore,’ ‘Jo Jo Dance, Your Life Is Calling,’ and more Kurosawa on 4K

A neo-noir classic from the 1990s, a James Stewart western, a French relationship drama, feature directorial film for legendary comedian Richard Pryor, and two classic, paired samurai films from the master Akira Kurosawa highlight the first batch of films to make their way into the Criterion Collection this year. For Stephen Frears’s The Grifters, we follow a possessive mother (Anjelica Huston), her cynical son (John Cusack), and his seductive girlfriend (Annette Bening) who are career swindlers circling one another in an elaborate emotional confidence game that grows increasingly perverse as love and trust turn to betrayal. Adapted from a novel by Jim Thompson, Frears’s Hollywood debut expertly showcased a toxic version of America that landed four Oscar nominated including Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Speaking of noir, Anthony Mann’s Winchester ’73 uses that genre to shadow his frontier western alongside the help of legendary actor James Stewart to create a morally intense, evocative tale of obsession and violence. Stewart portrays an avenging sharpshooter whose stolen rifle becomes a harbinger of death as it is passed from one doomed hand to the next, with a supporting cast of Shelley Winters, Rock Hudson, and Dan Duryea working alongside him. It was the first celebrated collaborations between Mann and Stewart, and it ranks as one of the best westerns of all time. From one screen legend to the next, Richard Pryor was one of the greatest comedians ever, and with his feature directorial debut, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, he delivered a raw, personal examination of himself that was equal parts funny and brutally honest. Following the real life events that almost saw his death, Pryor used this film as a chance to flex his creative muscles to showcase the inner pain he was dealing with, and through his work in the film, found therapy in speaking his truth on the screen. Fearless, lively, he was able to make a compelling, vulnerable film that looked deeper within than most of his work up to that time; the late 1980s. While it received mixed reviews upon release, it’s entry into the collection serves as the comedian getting the last laugh, as well as a spotlight on a project most haven’t seen before.

Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore was birthed as a massive result of the French New Wave, and became the director’s signature film he was known for, as well as an important opus to French cinema. Using his fearless brand of realism and innovative style, his examination of an emotionally turbulent, deeply honest love triangle is an essential piece of French filmmaking that is long overdue for its entry into the Criterion Collection. On the subject of essential filmmaking from one of a kind filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo / Sanjuro is the luck film this month that is being upgraded by the collection for a 4K Blu-ray. The visually stunning, darkly comedic samurai films are not only linked due to their main character (portrayed by the incomparable Toshiro Mifune), but they are considered by many to be some of the finest work Kurosawa ever created, drawing inspirited remakes from Sergio Leone and Walter Hill. If you don’t own these films, or aren’t familiar with them, go ahead and grab them this month. You won’t regret it.

Below are the special features for each other films from the August 2024 Criterion Collection releases.

THE GRIFTERS Director-Approved Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack 

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• Audio commentary featuring director Stephen Frears, actors John Cusack and Anjelica Huston, and screenwriter Donald E. Westlake

• New interview with actor Annette Bening

• Short making-of documentary featuring Cusack, Frears, Huston, Westlake, and production designer Dennis Gassner

• Seduction, Betrayal, Murder: The Making of “The Grifters,” featuring interviews with Frears, Stapleton, editor Mick Audsley, executive producer Barbara De Fina, and coproducer Peggy Rajski

• The Jim Thompson Story, featuring Westlake and Robert Polito, biographer of The Grifters novelist Jim Thompson

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

WINCHESTER ’73 Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• Audio commentary featuring actor James Stewart and film historian Paul Lindenschmidt

• New interview with film programmer Adam Piron on the portrayal of Native Americans in the western genre

• Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1951

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith

JO JO DANCER, YOUR LIFE IS CALLING Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New interview on the film with filmmaker Robert Townsend

• Interview with director Richard Pryor from a 1985 episode of The Dick Cavett Show

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An appreciation by critic Hilton Als

THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New interview with actor Françoise Lebrun

• New conversation with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin and writer Rachel Kushner

• Program on the film’s restoration

• Segment from the French television series Pour le cinéma featuring Lebrun, director Jean Eustache, and actors Bernadette Lafont and Jean-Pierre Léaud

• Trailer

• New English subtitle translation

• PLUS: An essay by critic Lucy Sante and an introduction to the film by Eustache

YOJIMBO / SANJURO: TWO SAMURAI FILMS BY AKIRA KUROSAWA Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks

• Two 4K UHD discs of the films and two Blu-rays with the films and special features

• Optional DTS-HD Master Audio Perspecta 3.0 soundtracks, preserving the original simulated stereo effects

• Audio commentaries by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince

• Documentaries on the making of Yojimbo and Sanjuro, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create

• Teasers and trailers

• Stills galleries of behind-the-scenes photos

• PLUS: Essays by film writers Alexander Sesonske and Michael Sragow and comments from Kurosawa and members of his casts and crews