With the imminent demise of the FilmStruck streaming service, owning Criterion Collection titles on physical disc is once again a priority for fans of classic, foreign, or art-house movies. Fortunately, the semi-annual Criterion sale at Barnes & Noble starts this Friday to lessen the burden on your wallet.
At each of these B&N sales, I try to compile a list of recent Criterion titles that are now eligible for the discount pricing. The following is not intended to be a comprehensive listing of every Criterion Blu-ray. This is merely a reference to those discs issued since B&N’s previous sale ended on August 6th. If you plan to buy older Criterion releases during this sale, vote “Other” and tell us which ones in the Comments section.
Starting this Friday, November 2nd through December 3rd, all in-print Criterion Collection titles are 50% off MSRP, both in stores and at barnesandnoble.com. The discounted price applies to upcoming titles that will be released through the end of the sale period, but not to any preorders scheduled for after the sale ends.
Loading ...As is frequently the case, Criterion’s release output has slowed down in the second half of the year compared to the first. Since August, the label has only put out 22 Blu-rays, and two of those were single-disc reissues for titles that had previously been released as Blu-ray/DVD combo packages.
Nevertheless, Criterion once again has some very desirable movies in this bunch, including The Princess Bride, The Tree of Life, Some Like It Hot, the classic screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, and Orson Welles’ almost-masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons (scheduled for November 20th). Fans of Ingmar Bergman will surely find this a great opportunity to pick up the tremendous 39-film box set of his works.
Sadly, I’m cash-strapped right now, but am very interested in Ambersons, Godfrey, Heaven Can Wait, Princess Bride, and Brian De Palma’s Sisters, along with countless older releases still on my wish list.
What’s your plan for this month’s sale?
kurtutt
The princess bride remaster is visually amazing (compared to the prior blu-ray release).
How do we petition Criterion to release other poor existing transfers? (Or get into 4k hdr etc!)
This was from a master from their own late 80′ laserdisc version and mastered in 4k though presented in 1080, but looked better then I thought possible (upscaled on my tv).
Steven
Rebecca
Young Mr Lincoln
William Henley
I am surprised that I actually recognize some of these titles. Still, I am not a fan of any of them (not even The Princess Bride – I never understood why people like it to much), so there is really nothing here for me this month
Stephen
Au Hazard de Balthazar
Guy
I can’t worry about recent releases because I’m still working through my years old backlog of Criterion curiosities. Up for consideration this time:
Pan’s Labyrinth
America Lost and Found: The BBS Story boxset
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Dragon Inn / A Touch of Zen
Colin
With the obvious pick-up of Bergman set..I’m out to get all the Wim Wenders stuff I missed. American Friend, Road Trilogy. The road show, restoration of Wings of Desire, the dedication to Robby Muller at Filmhaus in Berlin last year…I can’t say I haven’t been moved by all this 🙂
Abe
I was able to pick up Tree of life for $11 last month! FilmStruck sent me two $10 coupons in the last year. Both worked during their flash sale. Still haven’t seen it yet – need to alot 3+ hours this month to one of the greatest films ever (as per most reviews). Very sad to see FilmStruck go – I’m binging so many movies the next 30 days!!!
Chris B
Ima grab:
Night of the Living Dead
Kwaidan
Carnival of Souls
Fritz Lang’s M
Chris B
Oh wait, they won’t ship my order to Canada. Great.
Ole Dusty
HEAVEN CAN WAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!
HEAVEN CAN WAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!
HEAVEN CAN WAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!
HEAVEN CAN WAIT FOR ANOTHER DAY!!
\m/
Joshua
I’ll be buying Some Like It Hot, The Great Dictator, It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story, and possibly Smiles of a Summer Night.
Leslie
Antonio Gaudi
La ronde
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV
Z
I Vitelloni
Miss Julie
Sweet Movie
Csm101
I’m probably picking up The Princess Bride and definitely The Naked Prey. I had to have them order them because they didn’t have any in store.
Csm101
On an unrelated note. I have tried to post here since yesterday and my comments won’t post. I turned my wi-fi off and now they post. Is there something wrong on my end? I tried to contact and left a comment on the suggestion page, but I don’t know if there is a more direct method. Have I been shunned by HDD 😳??
Josh Zyber
AuthorLooks like a bunch of your comments were trapped in our spam filter for some reason. I can’t tell why. Sometimes the filter behaves weirdly. If it stopped being a problem when you turned off wi-fi, possibly it doesn’t like that IP address. If this happens again, email me and I’ll look into it further. Sorry about that.
Csm101
Now testing from my WiFi. Let’s see if this posts. Thanks Josh.
Josh Zyber
AuthorWorked this time. Same IP address. I’m at a loss. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.
Shannon Nutt
Nothing, but that’s because Criterion.com had a “Flash” sale in October (50 percent off) during which I picked up Election, The Breakfast Club, and David Lynch: The Art Life.
Dave S.
I’ll be getting The Princess Bride and The Breakfast Club. I also picked up the Equinox DVD because I don’t see that getting a Blu-ray upgrade.