Criterion have announced some tantalising Blu-ray and DVD releases for March 2010, including four Blu-ray releases that are likely to have UK viewers cursing the concept of regional coding.

On DVD only is the 1969 Dillinger is Dead (Dillinger è morto). In this magnificently inscrutable late-sixties masterpiece, Marco Ferreri, one of European cinema's most idiosyncratic auteurs, takes us through the looking glass to one seemingly routine night in the life of an Italian gas mask designer, played, in a tour de force performance, by New Wave icon Michel Piccoli. In his claustrophobic, mod home, he pampers his pill-popping wife, seduces his maid, and uncovers a gun that may have once been owned by John Dillinger—and then things get even stranger. A surreal political missive about social malaise, Dillinger Is Dead finds absurdity in the mundane. It is a singular experience, both illogical and grandly existential.

Featuring a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Mario Vulpiani, the disc will have the following extras:

• New video interviews with actor Michel Piccoli and Italian film historian Adriano Aprà;
• Excerpts from a 1997 roundtable discussion about director Marco Ferreri, with filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Francesco Rosi and film historian Aldo Tassone, including clips of interviews with Ferreri;
• Theatrical trailer;
• New and improved subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Joshua Rowin and a selection of reprinted interviews with Ferreri.

Dillinger is Dead will be released by Criterion on US DVD on 16th March 2010 at the SRP of $29.95.

To be released simultaneously on DVD and Blu-ray is Nicholas Ray's 1956 Bigger than Life. Though ignored at the time of its release, Bigger Than Life is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father (James Mason, in one of his most indelible roles) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family; that it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking—and wildly entertaining.

With a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, both discs will have the following extras:

• Audio commentary featuring critic Geoff Andrew (The Films of Nicholas Ray);
• Profile of Nicholas Ray (1977), a half-hour television interview with the director;
• New video appreciation of Bigger Than Life with author Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City);
• New video interview with Susan Ray, the director's widow and editor of the book I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies;
• Theatrical trailer;
• An essay by film writer B. Kite.

Bigger Than Life will be released by Criterion on US DVD and Blu-ray 23rd March 2010 at the SRP of $39.95 each.

Coming to Blu-ray only and a film that was just made for high definition is Terence Malick's 1978 Days of Heaven. One-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has created some of the most visually arresting movies of the twentieth century, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros, stands out among them. In 1910, a Chicago steel worker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and little sister (Linda Manz) to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire – Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating at once a timeless American idyll and a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labour.

Boasting a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey, and a new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the disc will have the following extras:

• Audio commentary featuring editor Billy Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden;
• New video interviews with cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey;
• A booklet featuring essays by critic Adrian Martin and director of photography Nestor Almendros.

Days of Heaven will be released by Criterion on US region A Blu-ray on 23rd March 2010 at the SRP of $39.95.

Also coming to Blu-ray only (the DVD versions have been available for some time) are two of the most popular films made by the great Akira Kurosawa, the 1961 Yojimbo and its 1962 semi-sequel Sanjuro.

The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa's visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars) and Walter Hill (Last Man Standing), this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films ever produced. Featuring an all-new, restored high-definition digital transfer and optional Dolby Digital 3.0 soundtrack, preserving the original Perspecta simulated-stereo effects, and the following extras:

• Audio commentary by film historian and Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince;
• A 45-minute documentary on the making of Yojimbo, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create;
• Theatrical trailer and teaser;
• Stills gallery of behind-the-scenes photos;
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Alexander Sesonske and notes from Kurosawa and his cast and crew.

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a "proper" samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but just as engaging, this classic character's return is a masterpiece in its own right, now presented in a new high-definition digital transfer with optional Dolby Digital 3.0 soundtrack, preserving the original Perspecta simulated-stereo effects, and the following extras:

• Audio commentary by film historian and Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince;
• A 35-minute documentary on the making of Sanjuro, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create;
• Theatrical trailer and teaser;
• Stills gallery of behind-the-scenes photos;
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Sragow and notes and statements from Kurosawa and his cast and crew.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro will be released on US region A Blu-ray by Criterion on 23rd March 2010 at the SRP of $39.95 each. They will also be released together as two-film set at the SRP of $69.95.