The Criterion Collection is pulling out all the stops this April, delivering one of the most eagerly awaited physical media releases of the past year: Anora, the acclaimed 2024 film by Sean Baker. In a treat for Baker fans, the collection also dips into his earlier work, offering a new release of his sophomore feature. Beyond Baker’s contributions, April’s lineup includes cinematic masterpieces from legendary filmmakers Billy Wilder and Wong Kar Wai, as well as a compelling double feature from Claude Berri.
Here’s a full breakdown of what The Criterion Collection has in store for April 2025:
Ugetsu (directed by Kenji Mizoguchi)
From The Criterion Collection: By the time he made Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi was already an elder statesman of Japanese cinema, fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other directors of a younger generation. And with this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers whose pursuit of fame and fortune leads them far astray from their loyal wives. Moving between the terrestrial and the otherworldly, Ugetsu reveals essential truths about the ravages of war, the plight of women, and the pride of men.
The 4k edition of Ugetsu releases April 1, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Some Like it Hot (directed by Billy Wilder)
From The Criterion Collection: One of the most beloved films of all time, this sizzling masterpiece by Billy Wilder set a new standard for Hollywood comedy. After witnessing a mob hit, Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, in landmark performances) skip town by donning drag and joining an all-female band en route to Miami. The charm of the group’s singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe, at the height of her bombshell powers), leads them ever further into extravagant lies, as Joe assumes the persona of a millionaire to woo her and Jerry’s female alter ego winds up engaged to a tycoon. With a whip-smart script by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, and sparking chemistry among its finely tuned cast, Some Like It Hot is as deliriously funny and fresh today as it was when it first knocked audiences out several decades ago.
The 4k edition of Some Like it Hot releases April 8, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Chungking Express (directed by Wong Kar Wai)
From The Criterion Collection: The whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and the film that made Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out food stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.
The 4k edition of Chungking Express releases April 15, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring: Two Films by Claude Berri
From The Criterion Collection: A sprawling tale of greed, betrayal, and revenge plays out amid the bucolic splendor of the French countryside in Claude Berri’s masterly two-film adaptation of a literary work by the legendary Marcel Pagnol. Spanning three generations in the lives of two families, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring vividly recreate the provincial world of an early-twentieth-century village, where an outsider’s arrival sets in motion a devastating chain of events. With gorgeous cinematography, keen insights into human nature, and superb performances from icons of French cinema (Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, and Emmanuelle Béart), these richly absorbing moral tales—at the time of their production, the most expensive French films ever made—are triumphs of epic storytelling in the classical tradition.
The 4k editions of Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring release April 22, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Anora (directed by Sean Baker)
From The Criterion Collection: Contemporary cinema’s foremost chronicler of American dreamers and schemers hustling on the margins of capitalist promise, Sean Baker, reaches new heights of mastery with this audacious anti–Cinderella story—a whirlwind neorealist screwball comedy with an aching heart. In an electric, star-is-born performance, Mikey Madison soars as Anora, an enterprising, ferociously foulmouthed Brooklyn erotic dancer and sex worker whose Prince Not-So-Charming comes along in the form of a Russian oligarch’s wild-child son (Mark Eydelshteyn). This is the beginning of a fractured fairy tale—also featuring standout performances from Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov, and Vache Tovmasyan—that turns the cruel realities of class inside out. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Anora confirms Baker as one of our preeminent auteurs.
The 4k edition of Anora releases April 29, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Read our review of Anora (2024).
Prince of Broadway (directed by Sean Baker)
From The Criterion Collection: A raw, disarmingly moving slice of neorealism, this early-career triumph from DIY auteur Sean Baker plunges into the world of West African immigrant Lucky (Prince Adu) and his Armenian Lebanese boss Levon (Karren Karagulian), two unlikely friends who peddle knockoff designer goods in Manhattan’s wholesale district. When a long-forgotten ex forces him to take care of a young son he didn’t even know he had, Lucky must figure out how to become a father without losing his edge in the counterfeit-merch game. Capturing the chaos of urban life through expressive handheld camera work, remarkably naturalistic performances, and flashes of manic humor, Prince of Broadway is one of Baker’s most vivid explorations of the illusory nature of the American dream.
The blu-ray edition of Prince of Broadway releases April 29, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
Read our review of Prince of Broadway (2008).
Basquiat (directed by Julian Schnabel)
From The Criterion Collection: Julian Schnabel’s tribute to his friend and fellow painter Jean-Michel Basquiat is less a conventional biopic than an impressionistic, sensory immersion into the much-mythologized downtown-Manhattan art world of the 1980s. Jeffrey Wright, in his first lead film role, stars as the visionary artist whose rise from graffiti tagger to art star forces him to confront the glare of sudden fame, along with racism, his own struggles with addiction, and the difficulties of being self-determining and free in America. Bolstered by an ensemble cast that includes a sublime performance by David Bowie channeling Andy Warhol, Schnabel’s directorial debut—presented here in the filmmaker’s own luminous black-and-white remastering—is a profoundly expressive elegy for a radiant life cut short.
The 4k edition of Basquiat releases April 29, 2025 from The Criterion Collection and can be pre-ordered here.
