The Criterion Collection is starting off hot in January 2025, releasing a handful of new 4k restorations for a variety of movies from different time periods and regions of the globe. Among them are upgrades to movies from Akira Kurosawa, Richard Pryor, and Anthony Mann. The January 2025 releases from The Criterion Collection include:
Yojimbo / Sanjuro: Two Samurai Films by Akira Kurosawa
From The Criterion Collection: Thanks to perhaps the most indelible character in Akira Kurosawa’s oeuvre, Yojimbo surpassed even Seven Samurai in popularity when it was released. The masterless samurai Sanjuro, who slyly manipulates two warring clans to his own advantage in a small, dusty village, was so entertainingly embodied by the brilliant Toshiro Mifune that it was only a matter of time before he returned in a sequel. Made just one year later, Sanjuro matches Yojimbo’s storytelling dexterity yet adds a layer of world-weary pragmatism that brings the two films to a thrilling and unforgettable conclusion.
The 4k editions of Yojimbo and Sanjuro release January 7, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
The Mother and the Whore (directed by Jean Eustache)
From The Criterion Collection: After the French New Wave, the sexual revolution, and the upheavals of May 1968 came the near religiously revered magnum opus by Jean Eustache. In his long-unavailable body of work, ranging from documentaries about his native village to closely autobiographical narrative films, Eustache pioneered a forthright and fearless brand of realism. The pinnacle of this innovative style, The Mother and the Whore follows Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a Parisian pseudo-intellectual who lives with his tempestuous girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette Lafont), even as he begins a dalliance with the sexually liberated Veronika (Françoise Lebrun), leading the three into an emotionally turbulent love triangle. Through daringly sustained long takes and confessional dialogue, Eustache captures a generation navigating the disillusionment of the 1970s, and in the process achieves an intimacy so deep it cuts.
The 4k edition of The Mother and the Whore releases January 14, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (directed by Richard Pryor)
From The Criterion Collection: One of the greatest comedians of all time, Richard Pryor gets raw and real in this brutally funny and lacerating self-portrait. Following the notorious incident in which he caught on fire while high on cocaine, nearly losing his life, Pryor exorcised his inner demons by writing, producing, directing, and starring in this dizzying hall-of-mirrors biopic and backstage drama, which traces a young comedian’s rise to fame, from his childhood growing up in a brothel to the colorful experiences that shaped his edgy comic voice to the addiction struggles that brought him to the brink of death. As he did in his legendary stand-up sets, here Pryor fearlessly turns his soul inside out, revealing the deep vulnerability that made his art so compelling.
The 4k edition of Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling releases January 14, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
The Grifters (directed by Stephen Frears)
From The Criterion Collection: A dark-hearted neonoir comes to a boil under the bright Los Angeles sun, in British director Stephen Frears’s rousing adaptation of the novel by dime-store bard Jim Thompson, a film that raises pulp to the realm of existential tragedy. A possessive mother (Anjelica Huston), her cynical son (John Cusack), and his scheming, seductive girlfriend (Annette Bening) are career swindlers circling one another in an elaborate emotional confidence game that grows increasingly perverse as love and trust turn to betrayal and Oedipal undercurrents rise to the surface. In Frears’s first Hollywood film, the ever-assured director and his trifecta of magnetic actors conjure a moody, unstuck-in-time vision of toxic Americana.
The 4k edition of The Grifters releases January 21, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Winchester ’73 (directed by Anthony Mann)
From The Criterion Collection: Noirish shadows spread across the frontier in this landmark western, the first of the celebrated collaborations between director Anthony Mann and actor James Stewart that redefined the genre with their moral and psychological intensity. Beginning his midcareer transition into increasingly edgy roles, Stewart portrays an avenging sharpshooter whose stolen rifle becomes a harbinger of death as it is passed from one doomed hand to the next. Featuring a stellar cast that includes a touching Shelley Winters, a sensationally sleazy Dan Duryea, and a pre-stardom Rock Hudson, this elemental tale of violence begetting violence broke new ground with its evocation of the West as a no-man’s-land of antiheroes and villains.
The 4k edition of Winchester ’73 releases January 28, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
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