THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE.
WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN OCTOBER: I WANT YOUR SEX, HELL HOUSE, CRITERION’S KUBRICK COLLECTION, AND MORE!
NEW RELEASE WALL
I Want Your Sex (Magnolia): It’s been a big year for Olivia Wilde, who directed and co-starred in indie hit The Invite and has a memorable supporting turn in the upcoming Behemoth! But she also scored a deliciously outrageous lead turn in Gregg Araki’s sex comedy, as an art-world star who enters into a forceful and frisky BDSM relationship with one of her interns, played by a game and daring Cooper Hoffman. It’s an unapologetically sexy farce about the roles we play in life and about discovering what it is we really want and Wilde and Hoffman make one of 2026’s most memorable pairings.
Also available:
By Hook or By Crook (Altered Innocence): 20thanniversary reissue of the breakthrough tale of trans crooks on a crime spree. First time on Blu-ray.
Dead Souls (Kino Lorber): Director Alex Cox says that this political Western will be his final film.
Frankenstein (The Criterion Collection): This Netflix feature comes to physical media in a collection that includes both the 2025 theatrical cut of Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley and the new, slightly longer “Reborn Cut.”
Hadestown: The Musical (Bleecker Street): This musical adaptation of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend became one of the most successful “pro-shot” stage musicals (capturing the West End production) at the US box office.
Highway Hypnosis (Muscle): A collection of queer horror/video avant-garde pieces from filmmaker Ken Camp, made available on physical media for the first time.
Jackass: Best and Last (Paramount): Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and the crew look back on the twisted history of Jackass and offer us a few more outrageous stunts before they officially pack it in.
Late Fame (Magnolia): Directed by Kent Jones (Diane) and written by Samy Burch (Coyote vs. Acme), this drama stars Willem Dafoe as an aging poet whose creative spark is rekindled after a group of young artists discover some of his never-published work.
Masters of the Universe (Amazon MGM): Nicholas Galatzine stars in this tongue-in-cheek reboot of the He-Man universe; naturally, since it’s an Amazon movie, there’s an Amazon exclusive edition.
Moana (2026) (Disney): Probably a better live-action remake of a Disney animated hit than most (if only for Rena Owen’s moving turn as the heroine’s grandmother), but these movies remain, in general, aggressively unnecessary.
One Night Only (Universal): One wonders if the makers of this sex comedy, set in a U.S. where extramarital relations are allowed only one night per year, actually bothered to think through their own premise.
Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM): 4K steelbook edition of the Ryan Gosling sci-fi hit.
Re-Creation (Kino Lorber): Vicky Krieps stars in a fictionalized version of a sensational real-life murder trial.
The Taste of Things (IFC Films): Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel make magic in this kitchen in this drama from Tran Anh Hung (who established his food-movie bona fides some time ago with The Scent of Green Papaya).
NEW INDIE
Boys Go to Jupiter (Video Visions): Charming indie animated feature about a food-delivery boy and some bizarre scientific experiments.
Carlton Taylor Has Major Problems (Freestyle): A textbook editor pushes the boundaries of time and space as he clashes with his company’s new AI-minded CEO.
Olmo (Greenwich): A Mexican-American teen in 1979 just wants to go to a life-changing party in this charming coming-of-age tale.
NEW INTERNATIONAL
Free at Heart (Altered Innocence): Sixteen-year-old Sebastian lives a quiet, sheltered existence in a quiet small town. But everything changes when his father takes in Kolja, 15, son of a recently-deceased family friend. While there’s awkwardness between the two at first, a relationship blooms that neither expected in this touching, festival-fave queer romance from writer-director Max Hegewald.
Also available:
The 47 (Myriad): A working-class neighborhood of Barcelona battles for the right to have bus service in this uplifting drama, based on a true story.
Franz (Cohen Media Group): Agnieszka Holland defies the rules of the biopic, creating a rich portrait of Franz Kafka that jumps around in time and space but does justice to both the author and his work.
NEW DOCUMENTARY
Hell House (AGFA): George Ratliff’s documentary explores the packaged “haunted house” that’s so popular among conservative churches, where the “horrors” have to do with abortion, sexuality, and other topics used to frighten teenagers into staying in line. Here’s how I know the film successfully rides a fine line: I attended a screening of it at the USA Film Festival/Dallas, where members of a nearby church featured in the movie were in attendance. Viewers who thought the “Hell House” model deserves to be mocked felt like the film did so, while those church kids felt like the movie honored their purpose (even if they couldn’t figure out why other people were laughing).
Also available:
Finally Got the News… (Icarus): This essential 1970 documentary follows the League of Revolutionary Black Workers as they fight for labor rights and civil rights in the Detroit auto industry.
Henry Fonda for President (The Film Desk): Ambitious film essay examines the legendary actor’s progressive politics on and off the screen.
Kim Novak’s Vertigo (Kino Lorber): Hitchcock’s leading lady gets to speak for herself in this portrait of her life from stardom to seclusion.
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man (Greenwich): A look at the legendary rock producer, who helped craft the careers of Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and many more.
Roy Orbison Forever (Stanza): The rock legend’s extraordinary career, from being discovered by Johnny Cash in Texas to anchoring the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys before his untimely death at age 52.
Sex, Death and the Hollywood Mystique (Saturn’s Core): True-crime meets Hollywood Babylon in this two-and-a-half hour shot-on-video epic about Tinseltown’s underbelly.
What’s the Story, Wishbone? (Loud Pictures): A celebration of the adorable dog who taught a generation of kids about literature.
NEW GRINDHOUSE
The Blair Witch Project (Lionsgate Limited): 1999 has been celebrated as a year that changed movies forever, and at the forefront of that revolution was The Blair Witch Project – it might not have been the first found-footage horror movie, but it firmly established the genre, breaking out from word-of-mouth Sundance hit to global sensation. This new “definitive” Blu-ray features three different cuts of the film (theatrical and festival), along with a 104-page booklet that includes the original production journal, handwritten notes, and more behind-the-scenes ephemera. This new package is a spooky-season stalwart, and a must for any superfans of the film.
Also available:
Arcane Sorcerer (Vinegar Syndrome): New 4K of the Pupi Avati chiller that Edgar Wright calls “the Barry Lyndon of horror films.”
Aswang (Mondo Macabro): This 1994 take on the Filipino horror legend was the first horror movie to screen at Sundance.
Blades of the Guardians: Wind Rises in the Desert(Well Go USA): This wuxia action epic from legendary director and fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping boasts an all-star cast, including Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse, Max Zhang, and Jet Li.
Bluebeard (KL Studio Classics): Richard Burton and Joey Heatherton, together at last, in this bonkers tale of the legendary wife-killer. Now in lurid, groovy 4K.
A Bucket of Blood/Dementia 13 (Film Masters): Two classics from the Corman era – a legendary dark comedy starring Dick Miller, the other a brooding psychological horror from the dawn of Francis Ford Coppola’s filmography – in a two-disc Blu-ray edition with plenty of extras.
Bunker Heights (MVD): Something awful is lurking beneath the streets of the titular city in this horror comedy.
Burning (IndiePix): There’s a curse in a small village in this Kyrgyz-language psychological horror tale, but no two people describe it the same way.
The Clown Murders (Kino Cult): A young John Candy pops up in this 1976 Canadian horror feature.
Crescendo (Vinegar Syndrome): Stefanie Powers stars in this latter-day (1970) chiller from Hammer Films.
Dead Lover (Video Visions): After a lonely gravedigger loses her one true love to a drowning accident, she will go to any lengths to get him back.
The Devil’s Doorway (Shudder): Two priests in 1960 are sent to investigate a miracle at one of Ireland’s infamous homes for “fallen women,” only to discover something truly horrifying.
Enter the Video Store: Video Vengeance (Arrow): Arrow’s celebration of direct-to-video action epics continues with this latest collection, which includes John Schneider in Ministry of Vengeance, David Hasselhoff and John Saxsonin The Final Alliance, Brad Davis and Kim Delaney in Hangfire, Dolph Lundgren and George Segal in Joshua Tree, and the RoboCop rip-off (they even shot it in Dallas) R.O.T.O.R.
Faces of Death IV (Vinegar Syndrome Archive): They put out a bunch of these, and Vinegar Syndrome is nothing if not completist.
The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume 5 (Pink Line): More from the master of the Japanese “pink” film: Brain Sex, Fuga Music for Alpha and Beta, and Birthday.
Frankenhooker (Synapse): Frank Henenlotter’s outrageous horror comedy, now in 4K.
The Frighteners (Arrow): After Heavenly Creatures and before The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson got his first big Hollywood gig with this horror-comedy; first time in 4K in the US.
Fuck My Son! (Video Visions): As good-taste–violating as you would expect an adaptation of comics by Johnny Ryan – let alone with that title – to be.
Graduation Day (Troma): A “special edition” of the high-school slasher, just in time for its 45thanniversary.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (Paramount): The first of several times that Jamie Lee Curtis would return to the franchise as Laurie Strode, ready to take on the terror of Michael Myers, now in 4K.
The Haunted Cop Shop (88 Films): Wong Kar-wai scored an early screenplay credit on this Hong Kong horror-comedy, where a police station built atop a former wartime site leads to a lot of cops-vs.-ghosts confrontations.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (Dark Sky Films): John McNaughton’s influential and still-controversial take on the inner life of a murderer – if you know actor Michael Rooker only for the Guardians of the Galaxymovies (or Mallrats), get ready to see a whole other side of this talented performer.
Krimis in B&W (Vinegar Syndrome Labs): A trio of influential German crime dramas of the 1960s (two of which feature Klaus Kinski): Indian Scarf, Room 13, and The Squeaker.
Legend of the White Dragon (Well Go USA): Four Power Rangers alums reunite for this sci-fi action adventure.
Made in Hong Kong: Volume Three (Vinegar Syndrome): This box set offers up a mix of genres, along with stars like Chow Yun-Fat and Sammo Hung: Magic of Spell, Scared Stiff, and The Dead and the Deadly.
MAGICK MTN. (Cleopatra Venom): A trio of spooky tales from director Hana Mae Lee.
Manhunt (Toy Robot): North American Blu-ray debut of Junya Sato’s hit Japanese cross-country crime saga.
Marquis (Mondo Macabro): This French cult fave imagines the Marquis de Sade spinning his yarns while imprisoned in the Bastille, acted out by human actors wearing various animal heads.
Models vs. Werewolves (Full Moon): Sometimes the title just tells you everything you need to know.
Morbo (Mondo Macabro): A honeymooning couple parks their camper by the wrong woods in this creepy Spanish chiller.
My Only Friend’s a Corpse (MVD): A teen runaway and his new friend, a corpse, find themselves on what may or may not be a mission from god. Or, rather, a mission to kill god.
Night of the Vamp-Friars (Vinegar Syndrome Pictures): A college student stumbles upon the burial ground of some renegade, blood-sucking monks in this frisky, low-budget horror tale.
Ogroff (Bleeding Skull): A masked lumberjack uses his axe in all the terrible ways in this 1980s French slasher.
Outlaw Ladies (Quality X): 4K restoration of the original 35mm print of this 1981 adult-film fave.
The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (Video Visions): What started as a Bye Bye Man–inspired meme has become a look at a wild Canadian crime spree.
Pet Sematary (Paramount): New 4K steelbook of the original 1989 Stephen King adaptation.
Pretty Peaches Trilogy (Peekarama): Three from X-rated auteur Alex DeRenzy.
Red Flag Down (Blood Sick): Shot-on-video thriller about a paintball park where real bullets come into play.
Repo! The Genetic Opera (Lionsgate): 4K steelbook release of the cult musical.
Rob Zombie’s Firefly Trilogy (Lionsgate): The rock legend had a better run with his creepy original horror tales than in adapting Halloween or The Munsters.
Scary Movie (Paramount): The 2000 original, now in a 4K steelbook.
Sex and the Emperor (88 Films): The sex is front and center in this tale of power and politics from director Sherman Wong.
The Sky Has Fallen (Unearthed): A couple fights for survival as a new disease destroys almost all of humanity.
Surf Nazis Must Die (Troma): They still must, now in 4K.
Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors (Vinegar Syndrome): New Blu-ray of the little-seen 1993 horror melodrama from the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The Vicious Breed (Klubb Super 8): A blistering 1955 portrait of juvenile delinquency – from Sweden!
Watchers (Toy Robot): First North American Blu-ray release of the Dean R. Koontz adaptation featuring Corey Haim, Michael Ironside, and Jason Priestley.
NEW CLASSICS
The Kubrick Collection (The Criterion Collection): A box set that’s pretty much “this is why we’re here”: 13 features and three shorts from the legendary filmmaker, all restored in 4K, plus more than 25 hours of interviews, documentaries, and behind-the-scenes material, plus deluxe packaging featuring photos, artwork, and documents. Among the relative handful of releases that feel essential to every library – Kino’s collection of early silent films by Black and women filmmakers, Criterion’s Godzilla box –this is one for anyone who cares about movies.
Also available:
Christiane F. (The Criterion Collection): Blistering German tale of a young girl’s descent into drug abuse features a cameo from David Bowie in his Berlin years.
Convoy (KL Studio Classics): The odd moment where “Sam Peckinpah” and “novelty Top 40 song” meet on a graph, with Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw starring in a tale of truckers standing up for their rights.
Death on the Nile (KL Studio Classics): While the original Murder on the Orient Express remains the jewel in the crown of big-screen Hercule Poirot adaptations, Peter Ustinov starred in several memorable ones, starting with this steamboat whodunnit.
Duplicity (KL Studio Classics): Julia Roberts and Clive Owen reunite five years after Closer, but the real star here is James Newton Howard’s jaunty, we’re-pulling-a-caper score.
Eclipse Series 5: The First Films of Samuel Fuller(Eclipse/Criterion): The legendary filmmaker shot right out of the gate with I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona, and The Steel Helmet.
The Films of Henry Jaglom: Volume One(Cinématographe): The beginning of a complete collection of the idiosyncratic American auteur shows his marching to his own beat from the start, with Tracks, Sitting Ducks, and Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?
Flic Story (KL Studio Classics): French superstars Alain Delon and Jean-Louis Trintignant clash in Jacques Deray’s cop drama.
Futureworld (Arrow): The follow-up to Westworld, featuring Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, and a returning Yul Brynner, now in 4K for its 50th anniversary.
Ice Cold in Alex (Film Movement Classics): John Mills, Sylvia Syms, and Anthony Quayle star in J. Lee Thompson’s WWII drama set on Africa’s Mediterranean coast.
The Inner Voice (MVD): An aspiring filmmaker finds himself at a crossroads in Francesco Lucente’s drama. MVD is also releasing his 2025 short This Old Man, directed by a 15-year-old Lucente in 1974.
Le joli mai (Icarus): Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme investigate the denizens of Paris, and the city itself, in May 1962, just after the cease-fire with Algeria was declared, leaving France not in a state of war for the first time since 1939.
The Last Boy Scout (Arrow): Perhaps the ultimate 1990s action movie, with Tony Scott directing Bruce Willis in a high-priced script by Shane Black; now in 4K.
Little Shop of Horrors (WBD): Frank Oz’s delightfully dark adaptation of the Ashman-Menken Broadway smash, now in 4K and featuring the original ending.
Madness (Klubb Super 8): In this Estonian WWII drama, a Gestapo officer sent to liquidate a remote asylum finds himself losing his grip on his own sanity.
The Monster (Radiance): A struggling reporter winds up getting too close to his subject – a serial killer – in this 1977 Italian media satire and giallo, featuring a score by Ennio Morricone. First home-video release outside of Italy.
The Pirates of Penzance (KL Studio Classics): The buoyant, all-star Gilbert & Sullivan extravaganza, starring Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, and Angela Lansbury.
Rollercoaster (KL Studio Classics): You can’t really recreate Sensurround on your home theater, but at least now there’s a 4K of this 1970s disaster movie about a terrorist targeting theme parks.
The Shout (The Criterion Collection): Alan Bates is having a moment – in addition to the theatrical reissue of Ken Russell’s The Devils, he also turns up in this legendary 1978 drama about British colonizers in Australia coming up against indigenous Australian magic.
The Silence of the Lambs (The Criterion Collection): This new Criterion edition of the Best Picture winner features a new essay by Corpses, Fools and Monstersauthors Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay about the film’s place in trans-cinema history.
Visitor Q (Radiance): Takashi Miike’s drama about a wildly dysfunctional family has drawn comparisons to everyone from Ozu to Pasolini and John Waters.
Welcome II the Terrordome (The Criterion Collection): Ngozi Onwurah’s 2005 Afrofuturist epic, the first theatrically-released British feature by a Black woman, collapses past, present, and future as it connects the history of slavery to contemporary racial inequity.
White Star (Subkultur USA): Dennis Hopper stars as a washed-up manager who stages riots and street fights to boost the career of his new client, a punk singer.
NEW TV
Heated Rivalry: Season One (Alliance): One of the great TV sensations of the last year has been this romantic and sexy adaptation of Rachel Reid’s series of novels about gay professional hockey players. The mini-series is terrific (and holds up to multiple viewings, can confirm), and this Blu-ray release features all six episodes, but if you want the 4K Collector’s Edition and its various bells and whistles, you’ll have to wait until November.
Also available:
Abbott Elementary: The Complete Fifth Season(WBD): School remains hilariously in session.
The Agency: Season One (Paramount): No shortage of marquee names in this CIA drama, with a cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, Jodie Turner-Smith, Katherine Waterston, John Magaro, and Harriet Sansom Harris.
The Brady Bunch: The Complete Series(Paramount): The fundamental Gen X text, all in one box.
Darkroom: The Complete Series (KL Studio Classics): Fans of TV anthology horror will want to pick up this one-season wonder, with James Coburn serving as a suitably diabolical master of ceremonies.
The Madison: Season One (Paramount): Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell head up a New York City family that finds healing in rural Montana.
Maverick: The Complete Series (Warner Archive): James Garner got the first of two immortal TV characters with this fast-talking, sharp-shooting Wild West gunslinger.
The Morning Show: Season Three (Fifth Season): More high drama as current events meet soap-opera histrionics in one of TV’s most entertaining shows.
Shrinking: The Complete First and Second Seasons (WBD): Jason Segel and Harrison Ford do their thing on the Apple series that finally makes its way to physical media.
South Park: The Complete Twenty-Seventh and Twenty-Eighth Seasons (Paramount): Those kids should be pushing middle age by now.
The Stranger Within (Iconoscope): Richard Matheson wrote this legendary TV movie starring Barbara Eden as a woman who finds herself pregnant – but with what?
Ultraman Legacy Collection (Mill Creek): Amazon exclusive featuring 58+ hours of the kaiju legend.
Untamed: The Complete First Season (WBD): Eric Bana, Lily Santiago, and Sam Neill star as park-service officers who monitor the wilderness for all too human crimes.
