The sublime Hanna Schygulla stars as a plucky frau perennially separated from her husband, first by war, then by prison, and finally by pervasive capitalist malaise. She channels her frustrated romantic energy into the construction of an industrial empire--a plot that mixes love and money in the manner of Mildred Pierce. Though Fassbinder takes a more open attitude toward his characters, letting them exist as fully developed psychological specimens, his deadly irony continues to operate on the level of mise-en-scene, drawing his actors into an unstable world of seductive surfaces and shifting meanings. Fassbinder argues that happiness delayed is happiness denied, tempering the film's emotion with precise analysis.

Excerpted from a review by Dave Kehr from the Chicago Reader

Only sold presently as part of the BRD Trilogy Blu-ray by Criterion:

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 47,673,400,197 bytes

Feature: 34,796,292,096 bytes

Video Bitrate: 34.11 Mbps

• Audio commentaries from 2003 featuring filmmaker Wim Wenders and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (The Marriage of Maria Braun), film critic and author Tony Rayns (Veronika Voss), and film scholar Christian Braad Thomsen (Lola)
• Interviews from 2003 with actors Hanna Schygulla, Rosel Zech, and Barbara Sukowa (32:00)
Life Stories: A Conversation with R. W. Fassbinder, an interview filmed for German television in 1978 (48:27)
Trailer (03:29)

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (July 2019): A new 4K digital restoration of The Marriage of Maria Braun appears on Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (which also includes "Veronika Voss" and "Lola"). The included booklet notes that "This 4K digital restoration was undertaken by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation from the 35mm original camera negative at ARRI Media in Grunwald, Germany." The first big improvement one will notice is that gone is the strange 1.75:1 overmatting. The film is now shown in 1.66:1 and this seems to fix a lot of strange framing issues. Also gone is the somewhat pesky yellowish hue that seemed to plague many a DVD. The clarity of the image also significantly benefits from this new 4k restoration, just look at the last comparison capture, with the bed linens looking more distinct. Colors seem to be closer to what I imagine is a faithful representation of the original presentation.

Criterion have chosen wisely to release the film with its original German mono track, in linear, uncompressed 24-bit PCM. The included booklet notes that "[t]he original monaural soundtrack was remastered from the 35mm magnetic track." Dialogue sounds quite crisp, and the film has a nice range for a 1.0 track. The score is thanks to frequent R.W. Fassbinder collaborator, Peer Raben. Other music in the film includes Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade, and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 (Adagio) appears during a dinner scene. There are optional English subtitles on this Region 'A' Blu-ray from Criterion.

The first extra on this disc is the fantastic audio commentary (that appeared on the DVD set) featuring two major figures of the New German Cinema: Michael Ballhaus, cinematographer on many R.W. Fassbinder films, as well as Wim Wenders, Fassbinder's friend and colleague. Supplemental text was written by Kate Elmore and Issa Clubb and read by Robb Webb. "Hanna Schygulla" is a 32-minute interview with the actor, filmed by Criterion in 2003 at her home in Munich. Schygulla starred in twenty film and television productions by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including his first feature from 1969, "Love is Colder Than Death", his TV miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980), as well as the autobiographical "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" (1972). Her most iconic role is certainly the lead in "The Marriage of Maria Braun" and here she spends much of the interview discussing her collaborations with Fassbinder. "Eric Rentschler" is a 20-minute piece featuring German film scholar and author of 'West German Film in the Course of Time: Reflections on the Twenty Years Since Oberhausen' (1984). Rentschler became fascinated with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the 1970s. In this 2003 interview, the scholar relates how "The Marriage..." is an example of the great German director's frequent use of the melodrama genre. "Life Stories" is a 49-minute piece from 1978. Just before shooting began on "The Marriage...", German film scholar Peter W. Jansen brought a 16mm film crew to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's house in Paris. The resulting film, "Life Stories: A Conversation with R.W. Fassbinder", is the longest interview with the director ever recorded on film. Fassbinder is extremely open about many subjects, from his youth to his style of shooting and working with cast and crew, his personality, etc. Jansen was able to get a very personal interview thanks to his close relationship with the director. Jansen had previously co-edited the first book on the director. This interview was first aired on German television on March 18, 1978. This set also features a 52-page booklet featuring the essay "Heartbreak House" by film critic Kent Jones and production histories by author Michael Töteberg.

Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy is sure to excite his many fans. "The Marriage of Maria Braun" certainly benefits from an all new 4k digital restoration an a correction of the 2003 DVDs overmatting.