Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It's a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called "a Grapes of Wrath for our time."

El Norte has been announced for a US release in January 2009 (exact date to be confirmed) by Criterion as both a director approved 2-disc Special Edition DVD and a dingle disc Blu-ray. Both releases will boast a new, restored high-definition 1.78:1 digital transfer (anamorphic on the DVD) supervised and approved by director Gregory Nava and the following special features:

with a new restored high-definition 1.33:1 digital transfer, Dolby Digital mono 1.0 sound and the following special features:

• New audio commentary featuring Gregory Nava;
• In the Service of the Shadows: The Making of 'El Norte': a new video program featuring interviews with Nava, producer and co-writer Anna Thomas, actors Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez and David Villalpando, and set designer David Wasco;
• The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva, the 1972 award-winning student film by Nava;
• Gallery of Chiapas location-scouting photographs;
• Theatrical trailer;
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring an essay by novelist Héctor Tobar and Roger Ebert's 1983 review of the film.

In addition the DVD will feature Wall of Silence, a new short documentary by Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner, concerning the building of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.