Sean Axmaker
Seattle, WA, USA
http://parallax-view.org

1. The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)
2. Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Berthelet, 1916) Flicker Alley; R0
3. Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, Flicker Alley (R0)
4. Le Silence de la Mer (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1949) Criterion (RA)
5. The Connection (Shirley Clarke, 1962) Milestone; R0
6. Moana with Sound (Robert Flaherty, 1925) Kino Classics RA
7. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) Universal Studios; R0
8. Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Montgomery, 1947) Criterion (RA)
9. A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936) Criterion (RA)
10. House of Bamboo (Samuel Fuller, 1955) Twilight Time

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. The House of Mystery (Alexandre Volkoff, 1923) Flicker Alley R0
2. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
3. Eclipse Series 42: Silent Ozu - 3 Crime Dramas (Criterion); R1
4. Eskimo (W.S. Van Dyke, 1934) Warner Archive R1
5. Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume 9 Warner Archive R0
6. Run of the Arrow (Sam Fuller, 1957) Warner Archive R0
7. Trader Horn (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931) Warner Archive R0
8. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2015) Paramount R0

Richard Burt

Professor of English and Increasingly Advanced Loser Studies

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015

1.  The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)

2.  Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)

3.  Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) Arrow (RB)

4.  Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Vinterberg, 2015) 20th Century Fox

5.  A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936) Criterion (RA)

6.  The Tales of Hoffmann (Powell and Pressburger, 1951); Studio Canal (RB)

7.  Big Eyes (Tim Burton, 2014) Anchor Bay

8.  Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972) Criterion: RA

9.  The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964) RB UK Arrow

10.  My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991) Criterion  and Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1965) Criterion

Rants and Raves section

Since I didn’t watch any newly released DVDs from 2015, let me add the following Blu-rays I would have liked to include in the top ten above:

Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957) Criterion

Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980) Criterion

Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962) - RB UK BFI

Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) Criterion

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014) Sony

The Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966) Criterion Collection

The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942) Criterion

Dog Day Afternoon 40th Anniversary (Sidney Lumet, 1975) Warner

Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985) RB UK Masters of Cinema

Far from the Madding Crowd (John Schlesinger, 1967) Warner Archive Collection

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014) Universal Studios

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941) Criterion

Stormy Weather (Andrew L. Stone, 1943)

Syncopation (William Dieterle, 1942) Coen Media

The Other (Robert Mulligan, 1972) RB UK Eureka

Gates of Heaven/Vernon, Florida (Errol Morris, 1978/1984) Criterion

The Man with the Movie Camera (D. Vertov, 1929) Flicker Alley; R0

A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949) RB UK Masters of Cinema

The Wire: The Complete Series (various directors & years) HBO, R0

Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, 2014) RB UK Artificial Eye

Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) RB UK BFI

Burt!

Simón Cherpitel

1. The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)
2. Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)
3. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001) Criterion Collection (RA)
4. The Man with the Movie Camera (D. Vertov, 1929) Flicker Alley; R0
5. Rossellini: The War Trilogy (Limited Edition Numbered), BFI (RB)
6. The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 1948) Studiocanal; RB
7. Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller, 1957) Masters of Cinema; RB
8. Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1957) Koch Media RB
9. The Story of Adèle H (François Truffaut, 1975) Twilight Time R0
10. Welcome to L.A. (Alan Rudolph, 1976) Kino; RA

New release: Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015) Warner (R0)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015

1. Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray, Budd Schulberg, 1958) Warner; R0
2. Farewell My Lovely (Dick Richards, 1975) Shout! Factory

CineVentures Blog

Sacramento, CA, USA

1. Wolfen (Michael Wadleigh, 1981) Warner Archive; R0
2. The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983) Warner Archive; R0
3. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Miss Osbourne (W. Borowczyk) Arrow; R0
4. Sexworld (Anthony Spinelli, 1978) Vinegar Syndrome; R0
5. Nightmare Castle (Mario Caiano, 1965) Severin Films; RA
6. Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner, 201) Film Movement; RA
7. What Have You Done to Solange? (M. Dallamano, 1972) Arrow; R0
8. Axe / Kidnapped Coed (Frederick R. Friedel, 1974/1976) Severin Films; R0
9. The Young Like It Hot / Sweet Young Foxes (Bob Chinn, 1983) Vinegar Syndrome; R0
10. Corruption (Roger Watkins, 1983) Vinegar Syndrome; R0

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. Fruit of Paradise (Vera Chytilová, 1970); Second Run R0 - PAL
2. All My Good Countrymen (Vojtech Jasný, 1969); Second Run R0 - PAL
3. Long Jeanne Silver (Alex deRenzy, 1977) Vinegar Syndrome R0
4. Polish Cinema Classics Volume III; Second Run R0 - PAL
5. Human Capital (Paolo Virzì, 2013) Film Movement; R1
6. The Dinner (Ivano De Matteo, 2014) Film Movement; R1
7. Les Combattants/Love At First Fight (Thomas Cailley, 2014) Strand R1 or Artificial Eye; R2 PAL  
8. The Lesson (Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, 2014) Film Movement; R1
9. Dragon's Return (Eduard Grecner, 1968); Second Run R0 - PAL
10. Story of My Death (Albert Serra, 2013); Second Run R0 - PAL
 

Worst transfer: Traps (Věra Chytilová, 1998) Second Run; R0 PAL (probably not the absolute worst transfer or 2015 but the self-described "new anamorphic digital transfer" falls well short of the label's standards and of this decade's digital mastering standards, looking like a digital master struck in the late nineties/early 2000s)

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015
1. Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchism Arrow (RB)
2. The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)
3. Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964) Criterion Collection (RA)
4. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, 2014), Music Box Films, RA
5. The Man with the Movie Camera (D. Vertov, 1929) Flicker Alley; R0
6. Speedy (Ted Wilde, 1928), Criterion Collection, RA
7. Catch Me Daddy (Daniel Wolfe, 2014), Studio Canal, RB
8. Rossellini: The War Trilogy (Limited Edition Numbered), BFI (RB)  
9. Murmur Of The Hearts (Sylvia Chang, 2015), Edko Films, RA
10. Masterworks of American Avant-garde - Flicker Alley; R0

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015

1. Battleship Potemkin and October (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, 1928), Edition Filmmuseum, R0
2. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
3. Cart (Boo Ji Young, 2014), Ace Media, R0
4. I Want to Live! (Robert Wise, 1958), Kino, R1
 

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. Maude – The Complete Series (various, 1972-78) Shout! Factory; R1
2. Foyle’s War: The Complete Saga (various, 2002-2015) Acorn Media; R1
3. Face of Fire (Albert Band, 1959) Warner Archive Collection: R0
4. The Complete Steve Canyon on DVD – Volume 3 (various, 1959) Milton Caniff Estate; R0
5. Hand of Death (Gene Nelson, 1962) Fox Cinema Archives; R0
6. The Rebel – The Complete Series (various 1959-61) Shout! Factory; R1
7. The Lost World (Harry Hoyt, 1925) Flicker Alley; R0
8. The Rockford Files Movie Collection, Volume 2 (various 1995-97); Universal; R0
9. Trader Horn (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931) Warner Archive Collection; R0

Rants and Raves:
As studios stubbornly move away from physical media, they likewise are moving away from providing reviewers with streaming media to review physical discs. Ethical reviewers should flat-out refuse to review discs in this manner.

Best Packaging: Lost in Space – The Complete Adventures and Battles w/o Honor + Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku, 1973+) Arrow; R0
Best Value for the Money: Severin’s Nightmare Castle (plus Castle of Blood & Terror-Creatures from Beyond the Grave)

Top Blu-ray releases of 2015
1. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) Ltd Edition SteelBook Masters of Cinema; RB .
2. The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard, 1979) Criterion: RA
3. Tu dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur, 2014), Séville Films/Christal, RA
4. My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) Paramount;  R0
5. Red Army (Gabe Polsky, 2014), Sony, RA
6. Around the World With Orson Welles (Orson Welles, 1955) BFI; RB
7. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015) Walt Disney Studios; RA
8. Breaking Away (Peter Yates, 1979), Twilight Time, R0
9. Lambert & Stamp (James D. Cooper, 2014), Sony, R0
10. Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934; Douglas Sirk, 1959), Universal, R0

+ 25 others worth mentioning: Force Majeure (Magnolia), Life Itself (Magnolia), To Sir, with Love (Twilight Time), 101 Dalmatians: Diamond Edition (Disney), Love is Strange (Sony), Wild Tales (Sony), Leviathan (Sony), Paper Moon, Winter Sleep (New Wave), Vivre sa vie (BFI), Moonlighting (B2MP), Day for Night (Criterion), The Apu Trilogy (Criterion), Shane (Masters of Cinema), Into the Woods (Disney), Devil in a Blue Dress (Twilight Time), Spirited Away (Disney), Citizenfour (Anchor Bay), Man with a Movie Camera (either the R0 from Flicker Alley or the RB from BFI), Speedy (Criterion), Clouds of Sils Maria (Orange), Germany Pale Mother (BFI), Fair Play (Magic Box), Birdman (Fox), The Wire: The Complete Series (HBO).
———————————
Top 10 SD-DVD releases of 2015
 
1. The Jewel in the Crown [Remastered Anniversary Edition] (Various, 1984), PBS, R1
2. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
3. Les Combattants (Thomas Cailley, 2014) Strand R1  
4. Our Man in Teheran (Drew Taylor & Larry Weinstein, 2013), First Run, R0
5. Fruit of Paradise (Vera Chytilová, 1970); Second Run R0 - PAL
6. Tokyo Fiancée (Stefan Liberski, 2014), First Run, R1
7. All My Good Countrymen (Vojtech Jasný, 1969); Second Run R0 - PAL
8. The Pleasures of Being Out of Step (David L. Lewis, 2013), First Run, R1
9. British Noir: Five Film Collection - Kino R0
10. Deutschland 83: Season 1 (Edward Berger & Samira Radsi), Kino, R1
—————————
Rants & Raves 
Rants: 1) Criterion: What’s up with all those foldout leaflets? Can’t you afford stapled booklets anymore? Foldouts are far more cumbersome to read. 2) Overkill Dept.: Multiple commentary tracks. Really, does anyone have the time to listen to more than one commentary (if they bother to do even that)? 3) Back-to-the-Trough Dept.: Just because Julie Andrews is hired to walk us through Salzburg and do a glorified celebrity travelogue doesn’t mean I’m going to shell out for another Blu-ray edition of The Sound of Music, no, thank you. 4) Whatever happened to Paramount’s back catalogue on Blu-ray? The studio only had one release worth mentioning in 2015, My Fair Lady, while leaving Twilight Time to pick up the rights to Paper Moon – where’s Bob Evans when you need him?

Raves: 1) A big yes! to the extra features on Sony’s Red Army BD, including the interview with former NHL coach Scotty Bowman (a Montrealer, so I guess I’m biased). 2) There was a wealth of material on Orson Welles released in the centennial year of his birth, including his Around the World … TV series and the Magician doc – good on, archivists! 3) The restoration of My Fair Lady was simply glorious (what a difference from the DVD); ditto for The Black Stallion 4) Disney’s fine BD releases of the Ghibli Studios catalogue have been very welcome; the icing on the cake was the latecomer Spirited Away. 5) Booklets: Eureka!’s Masters of Cinema series continue to have the best and thickest (bravo also to Arrow and the BFI), and kudos to Julie Kirgo for her essays over at Twilight Time – always pertinent.

My pet peeves:
1) Subtitles or lack thereof: a) Burned-in subs on foreign films (e.g. TT’s The Bride Wore Black & Bandit Queen), b) no original-language subs (K-Films’ Les combattants), c) subs that only activate when one language is spoken, not others (a problem in multiple-language films like Suite Française, where the German doesn’t get subtitles but the French does when the French dub is on, or Diplomatie, which has similar problems). 2) Blu-rays that don’t have a resume-play feature (i.e. that go back to the main menu when you stop and close and then open and try to play again). 3) Blu-ray re-releases that drop the previous DVD edition's booklet and now have nothing contextual to read at all.
 

Biggest disappointments
1) The Bride Wore Black (because of the burned-in subs), 2) A Room with a View (because Criterion dropped many extras that were on the old BBC Blu-ray/double-DVD sets), 3) The finely observed films on childhood and adolescence by Danish director Nils Malmros (especially Tree of Knowledge) remain unavailable outside his home country – a real shame; 4) Whit Stillman’s Barcelona and Antonioni’s Blow-Up are still not available on Blu-ray (c’mon, Criterion), 5) I like digibook Blu-ray editions and want more, but the studios seem to have goven up on the format (although thank you, Sony, for Capra’s You Can’t Take it With You, just in time for Christmas!

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015
1. Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966) The Masters of Cinema; RB
2. My Darling Clementine + Frontier Marshall (John Ford, 1946) Arrow (RB)
3. Dragon Inn (King Hu, 1967) The Masters of Cinema; RB
4. The Third Man (4K) (Carol Reed, 1949), Studio Canal (R0)  
5. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) BFI; RB
6. Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973) Masters of Cinema; RB
7. Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960) BFI; RB
8. Wild River (Elia Kazan, 1960) Masters of Cinema; RB
9. Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966), BFI (RB)
10. Thief (Michael Mann, 1981) Arrow (RB)

Rants and Raves:
What a year! Whilst a lot of my favourite American filmmakers have finally made it to Blu-ray here in the UK (Frankenheimer a particular highlight), there have been some art house classics as well(Hu, Franju, Kurosawa, Dreyer, Oshima, Sembene)! There are still plenty I need to catch up on (Bernard, Yoshida, Rossellini, Preminger, Menzel, Lanzmann, Fukasaku), but I've been very pleased with the three key labels here in Britain: Eureka, the BFI, and Arrow. It's nice to see some other labels filling in the gaps, including the recent appearance of Signal One who look to be a promising contender in the new year especially.
Looking forward to the new year, where we already have plenty to look forward to in just the first quarter - Kitano, Resnais, Yates, Fleischer, Fuller, Pasolini, Miike, D'Antoni, Costa, Chen, Godard, Watkins, Linklater, Rivette, Kusturica, Forsyth, Jeunet, Fassbinder, and another Hu!
Keep up the goods Gary!
Ben Keeler, UK
 

Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)

My Darling Clementine + Frontier Marshall (John Ford, 1946) Arrow (RB)

Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchism Arrow (R0)

Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966), BFI (RB)

Walden/ Lost Lost Lost (Jonas Mekas, 1969/76) Kino; RA

Je t'aime, je t'aime (Resnais 1968) Kino Lorber; RA

2015 was an unrelentingly strong year, cementing the niche place of blu-ray within the evolving model of film consumption in the 21st century. I didn’t set out to be so parochial, but British distributors – rising to and arguably matching the long established standard of Criterion - have clearly had an exceptional roster of releases. There are other equally good discs by the BFI, Arrow and MoC (especially the Preminger Film Noir box, Closely Observed Trains and Cruel Story of Youth) that I regret not finding room for. Arrow’s Yoshida box exemplifies these distributors’ bold spirit and their confidence in reaching small but secure audiences, and their Rivette box, delayed to 2016, redefines the meaning of the phrase ‘keenly anticipated’! If that delay was a bit disappointing, the news was more than compensated for by the jackpot of Alain Resnais releases – not just Je t'aime, je t'aime but Cohen Media’s impressive hi-def double bill of Love Unto Death and Life Is a Bed of Roses, Criterion’s Hiroshima mon Amour and Moc’s attractive presentation of his swansong Life of Riley. It was heartening to see so many releases of marginal commercial prospects (Germany Pale Mother - wow) receiving lavish treatment.

If there was a slight disappointment, it was that the English subtitled films released in France on Blu-ray this year, by companies like Pathe and Gaumont, were of a calibre that was a notch below their products of the previous few years. Still, interesting (if relatively minor) works by the likes of Abel Gance, Jean Gremillon and Julien Duvivier appeared during the course of the year as subbed blu-rays.
 
DVDs of 2015
1. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
2. Pictures of the Old World (Dusan Hanák, 1972); Second Run R0 - PAL
3. Spring in a Small Town (Mu Fei, 1948); BFI R2 - PAL
4. Rebels of the Neon God (Ming-liang Tsai, 1992); Big World, Region 0 (ineligible - on Blu-ray)
5. Fruit of Paradise (Vera Chytilová, 1970); Second Run R0 - PAL
6. Polish Cinema Classics Volume III; Second Run R0 - PAL
7. Entente Cordiale (Marcel L’Herbier, 1939) Crucial Films, R2 (France) PAL
8. Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938) Sidonis Calysta (France); R2 PAL
9. All My Good Countrymen (Vojtech Jasný, 1969); Second Run R0 - PAL
10. Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray, Budd Schulberg, 1958) Warner; R0

Rants and raves
The German Blu-ray of Dupont’s Variety seems to have provoked the strongest reaction I can recall a home video releasing receiving, on account of the horrible 'Tiger Lilies' score – this is highly unfortunate as the restoration is excellent and worth the effort of watching the film silent or synchronizing some other musical accompaniment.

I also detect a growing dissatisfaction with Criterion on some of the forums (particularly in the light of the hugely ambitious projects unveiled by Arrow in the last few years) – this is highly unfair as the standard of their Blu-rays remains superb - The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, State of Siege, Jan Troell’s Here is Your Life, Scola’s A Special Day, Haneke’s Code Unknown and Renoir’s A Day in the Country could all have made my list…
 

Top SD-DVD Releases of 2015
1. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
2. Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume 9 Warner Archive R0
3. Intégrale Frederick Wiseman vol.1 : 1967-1979, Blaq Out R2 - PAL
4. The House of Mystery (Alexandre Volkoff, 1923) Flicker Alley R0
5. Dragon's Return (Eduard Grecner, 1968); Second Run R0 - PAL
6. Riff-Raff (Ted Tetzlaff, 1947) R0 Warner
7. British Noir: Five Film Collection - Kino R0
8. Silent Dust (Lance Comfort, 1949) R2 UK Network
9. Crime and Punishment (Josef von Sternberg, 1935) Mill Creek
10. The Whistler films starring Richard Dix (The Whistler, 1944 - The Power of the Whistler, 1945 - Voice of the Whistler, 1945 - Mysterious Intruder, 1946) Sony MOD
 

Leonard Norwitz
Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015

1. The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)
2. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015) Warner (R0)
3. My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) Paramount;  R0
4. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015) Walt Disney Studios; RA
5. The Wire: The Complete Series (various directors & years) HBO, R0
6. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) Universal Studios; R0
7. Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)
8. The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994) Sony Cinema Series 4K (R0)
9. Kill La Kill: Parts 1-2 (Hiroyuki Imaishi, 2013-2014) Anime Limited (RB)
10. Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964) Criterion Collection (RA)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. Prisoners Of War: Season 1 (Gideon Raff, 2010) Shout Factory (R1) (came out 2014)
2. Mr Denning Drives North (Anthony Kimmins, 1952) Network (R2/PAL)
3. Prisoners of War: Season 2 (Gideon Raff, 2012) Shout Factory (R1)  (came out 2014)
4. Home At Seven (Ralph Richardson, 1952) Network (R2/PAL) (came out 2014)

I realize that a few of these titles (and about all of the DVDs) were released in 2014, but I didn't get to them until last year. In any case, they were ignored by most everyone, and my small voice aim's to put that right.
 

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015
1.  Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchism Arrow (R0)
2.  Out 1 (Jacques Rivette, 1974), Carlotta R0
3.  The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)
4.  Martin Scorsese Presents, Polish set
5.  The Confession and State of Siege, Criterion
6.  Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)
7.  Battles w/o Honor + Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku, 1973+) Arrow; R0
8.  Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966), BFI (RB)
9.  Tsai Ming Liang Collection 1992-1997, Sony Music (R0)
10. Cruel Story of Youth (Nagisa Ôshima, 1960) The Masters of Cinema; RB
 
Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. Polish Cinema Classics Volume III; Second Run R0 - PAL
2. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
3. The House of Mystery (Alexandre Volkoff, 1923) Flicker Alley R0
4. Lee Seong-Gu Collection, KOFA
5. Intégrale Frederick Wiseman vol.1 : 1967-1979, Blaq Out R2 - PAL
6. Pictures of the Old World (Dusan Hanák, 1972); Second Run R0 - PAL
7. All My Good Countrymen (Vojtech Jasný, 1969); Second Run R0 - PAL
8. Dragon's Return (Eduard Grecner, 1968); Second Run R0 - PAL
9. Spring in a Small Town (Mu Fei, 1948); BFI R2 - PAL
10. M (Joseph Losey, 1951) Films San Frontieres R2 - PAL

Best Company: Arrow
Best commentary: Adrian Martin on Night and the City (BFI)

Top SD-DVD

1. Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) Criterion: RA
2. Jauja (Alonso, 2014) Cinema Guild, RA
3. Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966), BFI (RB)
4. The Man with the Movie Camera (D. Vertov, 1929) Flicker Alley; R0
5. House of Bamboo (Samuel Fuller, 1955) Twilight Time; R0
6. Some Call It Loving (James B. Harris, 1973) Etiquette Pictures; R0
7. Around the World With Orson Welles (Orson Welles, 1955) BFI; RB
8. The Wire: The Complete Series (various directors & years) HBO, R0
9. Ex Machina (Garland, 2015) Lions Gate, RA
10. Pasolini (Ferrara, 2015) BFI, RB

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1. Spring in a Small Town (Mu Fei, 1948); BFI R2 - PAL
2. Eclipse Series 42: Silent Ozu - 3 Crime Dramas (Criterion); R1
3. Fruit of Paradise (Vera Chytilová, 1970); Second Run R0 - PAL

Rants and Raves section:
Cohen Media’s Blu-Ray of Syncopation was chiefly notable for its excellent restorations of several key jazz shorts as extras.
The Maddin shorts on Criterion’s My Winnipeg were exceptional.
Gilliam’s audio commentary on The Fisher King was first-rate.

Bill Rout

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2015

1. Jealousy aka Variety (Dupont 1925) DE Edel Germany; RB
2. Je t'aime, je t'aime (Resnais 1968) Kino Lorber; RA
3. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (Takahata 2013) Madman Australia; RB
4. When Marnie Was There (Yonebayoshi 2014) Madman Australia; RB
5. Watership Down (Martin Rosen, 1978), Criterion RA
6. Jellyfish Eyes (Murakami 2013) Criterion; RA
7. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson 2012) Criterion; RA
8. Dragon Inn (King Hu, 1967) The Masters of Cinema; RB
9. Lucy (Luc Besson 2014) Universal; R0  
10. Interstellar Digibook (Nolan 2014) Warner Bros/Paramount; R0

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015

1. Eclipse Series 44: Julien Duvivier in the Thirties (Criterion Collection); R1
2. Everything I Have Is Yours (Leonard 1952) Warner Archive
3. Helena. Der Untergang Trojas (Noa 1924) Editions Filmmuseum; R0

Rants and Raves section
Tag Gallagher already deserves a Career Beaver. (ED. Agreed!!)
Still waiting for the box set(s) that Alain Resnais merits.

1.  Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014) Artificial Eye; RB
2.  Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014) Artificial Eye; RB
3.  The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders, 2014) Artificial Eye; RB
4.  My Darling Clementine + Frontier Marshall (John Ford, 1946) Arrow (RB)
5.  La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001) Criterion; RA
6.  About Elly (Asghar Farhadi, 2009) Cinema Guild; R0
7.  Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014) New Wave Films RB
8.  Rossellini: The War Trilogy (Limited Edition Numbered), BFI (RB)
9.  Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection (Dreyer), BFI (RB)
10. The Story of Adèle H (François Truffaut, 1975) Twilight Time R0

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2015
1.  Nude Area (Urszula Antoniak, 2014) Njuta Films R2 PAL
2.  Eclipse Series 43: Agnes Varda In California (Criterion Collection); R1

Big thanks to ARROW Video for bringing Walerian Borowczyk’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Miss Osbourne to Blu-ray, even tough the film is a little to much CAMP, to be selected for best films in 2015.

The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955+) Criterion Collection (RA)

The Third Man (4K) (Carol Reed, 1949), Studio Canal (R0)  

Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964) Arrow R0

Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985) The Masters of Cinema; RB

 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Miss Osbourne (W. Borowczyk) Arrow; R0

Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Montgomery, 1947) Criterion (RA)

The Long Good Friday / Mona Lisa (Mackenzie, Neil Jordan) Arrow; RB

Honorary Mentions:   
Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Lucio Fulci, 1971) Mondo Macarbo; RA
Thundercrack! (Curt McDowell, 1975) Synapse Films (R0)