Film fans are notoriously hard to shop for: hoarders by nature, obnoxiously opinionated, and weirdly unpredictable in our tastes. But the good news is, there are so many options for the movie lover on your gift list – so many must-have box sets, 4K discs, deep-dive books, and other essentials – that only the rich ones (and seriously, how many rich movie nerds do you know) could possibly have them all, already. So whether you’re shopping for a film freak or you are one yourself, these are our recommendations for this holiday season.
BOX SETS:
The Criterion Collection remains the gold standard for physical media collections, and their output this year was as stellar as ever. Controversies over directorial tinkering aside, their most essential recent release is “World of Wong Kar-Wai” (review here), assembling all of the Hong Kong master’s films from 1988’s “As Tears Go By”through 2004’s “2046,” and allowing the viewer the rare opportunity to watch his distinctive voice emerge. Asian cinema fans will also want to nab “Once Upon a Time in China: The Complete Films,” collecting the five epic films in director Tsui Hark and star Jet Li’s thrilling and stylish wuxia saga.
“Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films” (review here) is a magnificent tribute to the recently departed groundbreaker, showcasing the versatility that allowed him to make broad comedies, character dramas, political manifestos, and musicals with equal élan. Less known before his Criterion coronation but just as worthy of celebration, “The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs” (review here) spotlights Riggs’ unique fusions of narrative, documentary, and meta-commentary. And though all were previously released, Criterion’s “Three Films by Luis Buñuel” (review here) gives you “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” “The Phantom of Liberty,” and “That Obscure Object of Desire” for under fifty bucks, and seriously, what more could you ask for?
Also under the “more bang for your buck” heading: Paramount’s “Best Picture Essentials: 10-Movie Collection” (review here), which gives you “Wings,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Godfather,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Forrest Gump,” “The English Patient,” “Titanic,” “American Beauty,” “Gladiator,” and “No Country For Old Men” at the dirt-cheap price (as of this writing) of $35. “My Fair Lady” also pops up in Paramount’s “Audrey Hepburn 7-Movie Collection”, alongside “Funny Face,” “Paris When It Sizzles,” “Roman Holiday,” “Sabrina,” “War and Peace,” and (of course) “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which makes this another essential for connoisseurs of the classics.
Or you can pick up ”Little Fugitive: The Collected Films of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin” (review here) Kino-Lorber Classics’ vital tribute to the influential mid-century filmmakers; their work is modest but lovely, and a key link in the chain from experimental film to foreign art movies to early indie cinema. KL’s “Carole Lombard Collection II” (review here) is also a treat, with the queen of screwball at her loveliest and funniest in three fabulous films: “Hands Across The Table,” “Love Before Breakfast,” and “The Princess Comes Across.”
The must-have for comedy fans this holiday season is “The Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection: Uncensored”(review here), which includes not only Pryor’s four solo stand-up films – enough alone to warrant the recommendation, frankly – but the full run of his short-lived but groundbreaking NBC series, a treasure trove of television guest spots, rarities, and more. Or you can pick up the “John Hughes 5-Film Collection” (review here), which includes the Thanksgiving favorite “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” as well as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Pretty in Pink,” “She’s Having a Baby,” and “Some Kind of Wonderful.” And if you’d like more of the ‘80s vibe of that set, try Fun City Editions’ “Primetime Panic” (review here), a trio of ace television movies from the era.
For the Western fan on your list, Kino-Lorber’s “Western Classics II” offers up three lesser-known gems of the genre: “The Redhead from Wyoming,” “Pillars of the Sky,” and “Gun for a Coward.” And if you really want to get wild, pick them up a copy of Arrow’s “Vengeance Trails” box, featuring a quartet of stylish, blood-soaked Spaghetti Westerns, including “Massacre Time” (by Lucio Fulci!), “My Name is Pecos,” “Bandidos,” and “And God Said to Cain” (featuring a particularly unhinged Klaus Kinski performance, and that’s saying something.)
Diving deeper into the cinema of Italy, we have “Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973-1977”(review here), an engaging quintet of poliziotteschi films, combining police procedural and mystery elements with the brutal, stylized violence that the region was known for. For those whose tastes run a bit bloodier, Arrow’s brand new “Giallo Essentials” box (out next week) runs the gamut from the moody, black-and-white proto-giallo “The Possessed” to the Franco Nero-fronted “The Fifth Cord” to the ornate “The Pyjama Girl Case.” Giallo lovers will also dig “The Sergio Martino Collection” (review here), which collects three of the Italian suspense-master’s best efforts. And cult fans with even wilder tastes are likely to love “The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee” (review here) and “Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection” (review here).
And while they’re technically television, you can’t go wrong gifting Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon’s four-part documentary “Muhammad Ali” (review here), which latches on to the lightning of the champ’s ascension and moves through his complicated career with a similarly joyfully furious energy. Or you can try KL’s “Kolchak: The Night Stalker (The Complete Series),” which gives the Blu-ray boost to the 20 episode cult mystery series; mark my words, when all those “Columbo” fans on Film Twitter run out of episodes, this is the show they’ll embrace next.
4K DISCS:
If you’re shopping for a film fan who’s recently made the upgrade to 4K UltraHD Blu-ray, you cannot go wrong with the “Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2” (review here), featuring knockout new transfers of “Anatomy of a Murder,” “Oliver,” “Stripes,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “The Social Network,” and best of all “Taxi Driver” (the grime is so thick you almost have to scrape it off the screen).
Similarly essential: the “Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection” (review here) and the “Mad Max Anthology” (review here), which present those long-running and inimitable franchises with the big, booming sound and crystal-clear images they deserve. Or you can go with “Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection,” which (true to its title!) assembles the first four “Trek” pictures, from 1979’s “The Motion Picture” to 1987’s “The Voyage Home,” in crackerjack transfers with copious bonus features.
Meanwhile, there’s an embarrassment of riches for the HD-minded horror fan. Start with the roots: “Universal Icons of Horror” (review here) collects the inaugural entries in the “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man,”and “The Invisible Man” series in gorgeous black and white, just as haunting as ever. Then there’s Scream Factory’s stunning presentation of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (review here), preserving that rich, inky, frightening darkness forevermore. And horror-heads will also want the recent, to-die-for restorations of “The Silence of the Lambs” (review here) and “Dead & Buried” (review here).
Other recent(ish) 4K releases of note include “A Clockwork Orange” (review here), “Inglourious Basterds” (review here), “True Romance” (review here), and “Almost Famous” (review here). The TCM watcher on your list will want “My Fair Lady” (review here) and/or “The Ten Commandments” (review here); Spaghetti Western aficionados will die for the 4K editons of “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” (review here) and “Django” (review here).
But the real treats are the cult titles, and we heartily recommend “Labyrinth” (review here), “Spaceballs” (review here), “Tremors” (review here), “Dune” (review here), “Santa Sangre” (review here), “The Final Countdown” (review here), “The Hills Have Eyes,” and Arrow’s must-own Dario Argento trio: “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage” (review here), “The Cat O’ Nine Tails” (review here), and “Deep Red” (review here).
BOOKS:
If you’re more in the market for film-related books, good news: there’s a whole boatload of them this holiday season. “Hollywood Victory: The Movies, Stars, and Stories of World War II” by Christian Blauvelt delivers exactly what its title promises: a comprehensive (but breezily written) look at when Hollywood went to war, with the handsome layout and copious photos one would expect from a book brought to you by TCM. #TCMParty types will also love “Anvils, Mallets & Dynamites: The Unauthorized Biography of Looney Tunes,” Jaime Weinman’s fast-paced and funny history of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, and the gang, from their heyday to their current, compromised iteration. And while “The Godfather” isn’t exactly untilled soil, film book-wise, Mark Seal’s “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of ‘The Godfather’” is a thorough, detailed, and beautifully written account of the creation of a masterpiece, as much of a page-turner as the novel that inspired it all.
The big, illustrated, directorial monograph has become one of the cornerstones of the film book industry, and no one does them better than Adam Nayman. He follows up his essential volumes on The Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson with “David Fincher: Mind Games,” which digs into the Fincher filmography with a microscopic attentiveness to detail that befits its subject, illustrated like a cross between a coffee-table book and a madman’s string-and-thumbtack corkboard. Spike Lee, on the other hand, takes care of his own mythologizing in “Spike,” a handsome career retrospective, though he lets the gorgeous photographs (most of them by his talented brother David Lee) do most of the talking. (And yes, the text is all in that Insane Sentence Case That Lee Uses On Instagram And Twitter.)
“Gus Van Sant: The Art of Making Movies” is more of a standard-sized hardbound volume (albeit with numerous, wonderful illustrations), and that’s as it should be. Katya Tylevich’s text takes on something of a scholarly tone, but in the best possible way; the book is deeply analytical but never alienating. And though “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel” isn’t technically a directorial study, it may as well be; Quentin Tarantino’s after-the-fact novelization is as much a catalogue of his obsessions and preoccupations as any critical work, and the new hardbound “Deluxe Edition” augments the prose with color photos, a merch-and-marketing gallery, the full “Bounty Law” script, and a MAD Magazine “Bounty Law” parody.
And cult movie fans will think they’ve died and gone to heaven when they unwrap Mondo’s “Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive,” which is like three must-have volumes in one: an entertaining oral history of the origin of the Alamo Drafthouse’s cult movie series (and how it morphed into AGFA), a series of profiles of essential cult directors, and an A-Z compendium, complete with original capsule reviews, of their favorite films. Mondo is also behind “These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World,” Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali’s funny, fascinating, and encyclopedic (unsurprising, considering the authors) rundown of martial arts movies, their stars, their subgenres, and their influence. Much of that book is illustrated with original posters and newspaper ads, and those who appreciate that kind of ephemera will love “Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the ‘70s and ‘80s,” Michael Gingold’s compendium of ads for genre movies in their finest decades; it’s like a combination guided tour (few folks know this era like Gingold) and scrapbook, capturing the forbidden fruit quality of those mysterious newsprint teases.
Oh, and this book is out too, you might enjoy it as well.
ODDS & ENDS:
Okay, yes, “The Beatles: Get Back” is technically both a television docu-series and marketed to music fans, but! It is also a new directorial effort from Peter Jackson, and that’s a good enough reason to include it here. The big buy here, for Beatlemaniacs, music lovers, and/or people who enjoy good things is the new, deluxe “Let It Be” box set, which we recommend in the “Super Deluxe” version: a new mix of the original album on both CD and (glorious) Blu-ray, plus a CD of alternate takes, a CD of rehearsals and jams (including many early versions of later Beatle and solo tracks), and the fabled first Glyn Johns mixes of the album and EP. It sounds impeccable (unsurprisingly), but also offers a rare opportunity to hear the songs come together, and the album’s evolution to its current form. And the details of that evolution are further examined in “The Beatles: Get Back,” a companion book to the series featuring essays, transcripts, and luminous photographs.
The Cinephile card game remains a must-have for film buffs, a clever twist on the old “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game that challenges us to use the IMDb of our big ol’ nerd brains to connect actors, films, and collaborations. This year, they’ve added on an expansion Action Pack – which you can get on its own, in a limited edition (with stand-alone illustration) or in a “Triple Feature” pack (with the “L.A. stories” and “splat pack” expansions).
Of course, there’s always the subscription route; we film fans love our streaming services, and a gift of The Criterion Channel, Shudder, Arrow Player, Kino Now, Magnolia Selects, Film Movement+, IFC Films Unlimited, HBO Max, or MUBI is truly the gift that keeps on giving. But the best of the bunch this year may well be MUBI’s new hybrid MUBI GO, which combines the MUBI curated streaming membership with a ticket to a new, hand-picked theatrical release, every week.
And maybe that, ultimately, is the gift to give this season: a nice gift card to your film fan’s favorite cinema. The theaters that made it through the pandemic intact still need the boost – and who among us couldn’t use a trip to the movies?
