Criterion Collection May 2025 Brings 4K Upgrades for ‘Withnail and I,’ ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,’ Two ‘Musketeers’ from Richard Lester and Much More
One of the busiest months of Criterion additions in some time, as six films get their introduction in the famed physical media collection, while two other films get 4K upgrades. Kicking things off this May are the premium 4K-Blu ray re-releases of Criterion classic’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and In the Heat of the Night. Jacques Demy’s musical not only launched star Catherine Deneuve into international stardom, but is one of the most visually important musicals of all time, revered for its unique, unorthodox style, told entirely though Michel Legrand’s impeccable music and Demy’s exquisitely vibrant colors; it’s a must own if you don’t already have it. For all of you Oscar lovers out there, you can add to your collection In the Heat of the Night on 4K for the first time; the Best Picture winner of 1967. Known for being one of the most enduring Hollywood films of the civil rights era, director Norman Jewison splices relevant social commentary into this thrilling police procedural. With Haskell Wexler’s vivid cinematography, Quincy Jones’s iconic score, and two stellar performances from Sidney Poitier and Rob Steiger, this is an important piece of film history you will want to pick up in the first week of May.
The second week of May brings us the work of two master filmmakers in Abbas Kiarostami and Wim Wenders with The Wind Will Carry Us and Room 666 / Room 999. With one of his greatest cinematic achievements, Kiarostami delivered a brilliant piece of self-reflexive commentary on his own work, as we follow an undercover documentarian (Behzad Dorani) whose assignment to cover a small village’s funeral rites is continually frustrated by an elderly woman’s refusal to die. Injected in the film is the director’s love for people, various forms of art, and the beauty of rural Iran. It’s a meditative, introspective film that will transfix you with how intimate and graceful it is. Wenders, on the other hand, uses his project to ponder an important cinematic question; “Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” It’s a question that he tries to answer over the course of two films, and with countless interviews from directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Susan Seidelman, Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Lynne Ramsay, and more. By doing so, he connects the past and present of cinema to explore what could be the future of the art form, and if it will survive. Both fascinating pieces of filmmaking coming out together on May 13.
The following week brings two Bruce Robinson directed cult British comedy classics into the collection, Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising. In 1987, Robinson teamed with Oscar-nominee Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann for a semi-autobiographical account of a bender with quick dialogue delivered brilliantly deadpan by two actors playing unemployed actors in the 1960s. One of the most quotable British comedies of all time, Withnail and I is a cult classic is hilarious as well as bittersweet in its depiction of a friendship slowly coming apart over the course of the events of the film. Two years later, Robinson and Grant reunited for a gonzo business satire set within Thatcher–era England. With How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Grant delivers one of the best performances of his career as a crazed, Jekyll-and-Hyde figure in a tale about going for broke and learning that greed can destroy you.
Lastly, we take a look at two vastly different projects from the 1970s. Ricard Lester, known for making films with The Beatles in the 1960s with A Hard Day’s Night and Help, cashed in his blank check to make two swashbuckling epics with The Three Musketeers, and just a year later, The Four Musketeers. In breathing new life into author Alexandre Dumas’s classic tales, Lester made the finest adaptations these stories ever put to screen, with dazzling swordfights, slapstick, inventive action set pieces with incredible attention to detail within the time period, and an all-star supporting cast that includes Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway, Geraldine Chaplin, and Charlton Heston. These films are pure fun and a welcome addition to the Criterion Collection. In 1977, a revelation of American independent filmmaking was released in Charles Burnett’s directorial debut Killer of Sheep. As lyrical of a film as you will ever see, we watch as we see a mosaic of Black life in the Watts Neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the common struggles people of all ages go through. Acting as the film’s acting as director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and editor, Burnett was able to find the humanity and poetry found in these character’s everyday lives, and thus explore the beauty within. Though unseen for decade, it has been restored and remastered by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Milestone Films, and the Criterion Collection for all to see this masterpiece.
Below are the special features for each other films from the May 2025 Criterion Collection releases.
THE UBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG 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
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT Special Edition Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Interviews with director Norman Jewison and actor Lee Grant
- Segment from a 2006 American Film Institute interview with actor Sidney Poitier
- Interview with Aram Goudsouzian, author of Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon
- Audio commentary featuring Jewison, Grant, actor Rod Steiger, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler
- Turning Up the Heat: Movie-Making in the ’60s, a program about the production of the film and its legacy, featuring Jewison, Wexler, producer Walter Mirisch, and filmmakers John Singleton and Reginald Hudlin
- Quincy Jones: Breaking New Sound, a program about Jones’s innovative soundtrack, including the title song sung by Ray Charles, featuring interviews with Jones, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and musician Herbie Hancock
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic K. Austin Collins
WITHNAIL AND I Director Approved Special Edition Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Peter Hannan, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Two audio commentaries, one from 2020 featuring director Bruce Robinson, and the other from 2001 featuring actors Ralph Brown and Paul McGann
- New short program featuring Robinson and actor Richard E. Grant
- Withnail and Us (1999), a documentary on the making of the film
- British Film Institute Q&A from 2017 with Robinson and Grant
- Stills gallery featuring photographs by artist Ralph Steadman
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic David Cairns
HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING Director Approved Special Edition Features:
- 2K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Peter Hannan, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New documentary featuring interviews with writer-director Bruce Robinson and actor Richard E. Grant
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic David Cairns
THE WIND WILL CARRY US Special Edition Features:
- 4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- A Week with Kiarostami (1999), a documentary by Yuji Mohara on the making of the film
- Interview from 2002 with director Abbas Kiarostami
- New video essay presenting Kiarostami’s poetry narrated by Massoumeh Lahiji, a longtime translator and creative collaborator of the director’s
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar
THE THREE MUSKETEERS/ THE FOUR MUSETEERS: TWO FILMS BY RICHARD LESTER Special Edition Features:
- New 4K digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- In the 4K UHD edition: Two 4K UHD discs of the films presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the films and special features
- Two for One, a new documentary by critic David Cairns
- The Saga of the Musketeers (2002), a two-part documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew members
- The Making of “The Three Musketeers,” a 1973 featurette with behind-the-scenes footage of director Richard Lester
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Stephanie Zacharek
KILLER OF SHEEP Director Approved Special Edition Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Charles Burnett, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Burnett and film scholar Richard Peña
- New interviews with Burnett and actor Henry Gayle Sanders
- New appreciation by filmmaker Barry Jenkins
- Two short films by Burnett: Several Friends (1969) and The Horse (1973), with a new introduction to the latter by Burnett
- Excerpt from the 2010 UCLA LA Rebellion Oral History Project, featuring an interview with Burnett by film scholar Jacqueline Stewart
- A Walk with Charles Burnett (2019), a documentary by Robert Townsend
- Documentary by Ross Lipman on 2007 cast reunion
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Danielle Amir Jackson
ROOM 666/ROOM 999 Special Edition Features:
- Meet the Filmmakers, a new interview with Room 999 director Lubna Playoust
- Trailer
- AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 287 – 78th Cannes Film Festival Preview with Special Guest Christina Birro - May 9, 2025
- Directors Watch Podcast Ep. 98 – ‘The Frighteners’ (Peter Jackson, 1996) with Special Guest Brian Tallerico - May 8, 2025
- AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 286 – ‘Thunderbolts*’ Review - May 5, 2025
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