At this point, what corner of popular culture hasn’t “K-Pop Demon Hunters” conquered? Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans’ animated musical became a genuine global phenomenon in 2025, spawning chart-topping songs, an enormous fanbase, and the kind of cultural ubiquity few movies—animated or otherwise—ever achieve. And now comes perhaps the strangest sign yet of just how pervasive it has become: “KPop Demon Hunters” is joining The Criterion Collection.
Yes, Criterion. The home of Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Varda, and seemingly every film-school canon staple imaginable is giving “K-Pop Demon Hunters” the full prestige physical-media treatment this November. It’s a selection that will almost certainly raise eyebrows among some of the Collection’s more staunch cinephile devotees, but it’s also difficult to argue with the reality of the movie’s impact. Criterion has never exclusively been a mausoleum for established classics, and if the Collection is partly meant to capture films that define their cultural moment, “KPop Demon Hunters” has a fairly undeniable case.
The Academy Award-winning animated hit arrives November 3 in 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD editions. The director-approved release features a new 4K digital master with Dolby Atmos, a full feature-length animatic introduced by Kang and Appelhans, a new making-of documentary, two video essays from Every Frame a Painting filmmakers Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou, lyric videos, and collectible postcards featuring original illustrations by artists who worked on the film. The 4K edition will be presented in Dolby Vision HDR.
And while that addition is inevitably going to generate most of the conversation, Criterion’s November slate is stacked with considerably more traditional Collection fare, including new editions of “Wild at Heart,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Right Stuff,” “Harold and Maude,” “Shoot the Piano Player,” and “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,” along with Sophy Romvari’s recent feature debut “Blue Heron.”
Also arriving November 3 is “Harold and Maude,” Hal Ashby’s beloved 1971 black comedy starring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon. Criterion’s 4K restoration includes an audio commentary from Ashby biographer Nick Dawson and producer Charles B. Mulvehill, illustrated excerpts from seminars by Ashby and writer-producer Colin Higgins, and an interview with Yusuf/Cat Stevens, whose music became inseparable from the film. The 4K UHD edition will be presented in Dolby Vision HDR.
November 10 brings “Marie Antoinette,” Sofia Coppola’s candy-colored, deliberately anachronistic 2006 portrait of the doomed French queen, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. The new 4K restoration was supervised and approved by Coppola and cinematographer Lance Acord and arrives with a new Coppola interview, a new selected-scene commentary from Dunst, and a new program featuring Acord, production designer KK Barrett, and costume designer Milena Canonero. Deleted scenes, Coppola’s music video for Phoenix’s “Run Run Run,” and the Schwartzman Louis XVI parody short are also included.
François Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” joins Criterion on 4K the same day. The French New Wave filmmaker’s freewheeling 1960 riff on film noir stars Charles Aznavour as a timid pianist pulled into a violent criminal underworld by his gangster brothers. Supplements include commentary from film scholars Peter Brunette and Annette Insdorf, an introduction by Noah Baumbach, archival Truffaut interviews, and interviews with cinematographer Raoul Coutard, Aznavour, Marie Dubois, and Truffaut collaborator Suzanne Schiffman.
Criterion is also giving a physical release to one of last year’s festival discoveries. “Blue Heron,” Romvari’s feature debut, arrives on Blu-ray and DVD November 10 as part of Criterion Premieres. The coming-of-age drama follows eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), whose Hungarian-Canadian family relocates to Vancouver Island, only to see their fresh start destabilized by the increasingly dangerous behavior of her older brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes). The disc includes a Criterion Channel interview with Romvari, her 2020 short “Still Processing,” and notes by critic Beatrice Loayza.
Then comes one of the month’s biggest catalog titles: “Wild at Heart,” David Lynch’s Palme d’Or-winning 1990 fever dream starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, arrives November 17. Criterion’s new 4K restoration of the unrated international version was supervised by cinematographer Frederick Elmes and approved by the David Lynch Estate. The release includes a newly created alternate 5.1 mix by longtime Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley, a new introduction by critic and programmer Dennis Lim, archival documentaries and interviews, deleted scenes and outtakes, readings from Lynch and Kristine McKenna’s “Room to Dream,” and Lynch’s music video for Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”
Sergei Parajanov’s “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” also arrives November 17 with a new 4K restoration from The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project. Martin Scorsese provides a new introduction, while the supplements include a new commentary by historian Joshua First, an interview with actor Larysa Kadochnykova, Ali Khamraev’s 2025 feature documentary “The Lilac Wind of Paradjanov,” and Martiros Vartanov’s 2026 experimental short “Shadowsur.”
Finally, Criterion closes out the month on November 24 with “The Right Stuff.” Philip Kaufman’s sprawling 1983 space-race epic, starring Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, and Fred Ward, receives a new 4K restoration supervised and approved by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. The two-disc edition includes archival Kaufman interviews, new programs examining the film’s visual effects, sound design, and editing, selected-scene commentaries, deleted scenes, and several archival programs about both the production and the real-life pioneers behind the story.
“KPop Demon Hunters” and “Harold and Maude” arrive November 3; “Marie Antoinette,” “Shoot the Piano Player,” and “Blue Heron” follow November 10; “Wild at Heart” and “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” land November 17; and “The Right Stuff” closes out Criterion’s November slate on November 24.
