Arrow Academy today announced asn impressive slate of European classics, award-winning thrillers, and Hollywood psychological drama at its finest. As always, the releases are full of new and archival extras that will delight the most ardent collector.

First out of the gate is Thomas Vinterberg’s acclaimed The Hunt [Jagten], featuring an astonishing performance from Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Casino Royale) as a primary school teacher whose life is torn apart and plunged into danger by an innocent lie. Once seen, never forgotten, the Arrow Academy Blu-ray and DVD releases include a making of featurette, deleted scenes, an alternate ending and more.

The next August title is the Dual Format release of The Tree of the Wooden Clogs [L'albero degli zoccoli], Ermanno Olmi’s epic portrait of peasant life in late nineteenth century Italy. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, the film presents a year in the life of four families working and living on the farm of a landowner in northern Italy. This release features a Brand-new 4K restoration, an introduction from Olmi, and interviews with the director.

Mid-August sees the release of 2016’s Clash [Eshtebak], a film that none other than Tom Hanks says you simply must see. Set entirely in a police truck during the turmoil that erupts following the ousting of former president Morsi in Cairo, this festival smash hit is released with an interview with the director, and a making-of featurette, which details the extraordinary production, with the crew facing genuine protesters and riots.

Next up is the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon’s final film, 1953’s The Love of a Woman [L’amour d’une femme], starring Micheline Presle as a young doctor who encounters love - and hostility - on a remote island. The beautiful and elegiac romance is presented on Dual Format Blu-ray and DVD, and includes a feature length documentary on Grémillon, as well as a collector’s booklet with the first pressing.

At the end of August Kiss Me Deadly director Robert Aldrich’s classic Hollywood take down The Big Knife (1955) is released on Blu-ray. This superb adaptation of Clifford Odets’s play features a mesmerising performance from Jack Palance (Shane) as a film star on the edge, and brilliant turns from Shelley Winters (Lolita) as a starlet with a secret, and Rod Steiger (In The Heat Of The Night) as an intense studio boss. Featuring a brand-new 2K restoration, which shows off Ernest Laszlo’s crisp black and white cinematography to sensational effect, the package also has exclusive new commentaries, and a collector’s booklet with the first pressing.

The Hunt | Blu-ray and DVD | 7 August 2017 | £19.99 (Blu-ray), £15.99 (DVD)

Alongside Lars Von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, Far From the Madding Crowd) is one of Danish cinema’s finest modern exports. Perhaps his greatest film, The Hunt is a sublimely orchestrated exercise in tension which features a tour-de-force central performance from Mads Mikkelsen, who was awarded Best Actor at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for his performance.

Mikkelsen is Lukas, a recently-divorced primary school teacher locked in an acrimonious custody battle over his teenage son but just as his fortunes begin to change with the arrival of a new love his world is torn apart by an innocent lie. Persecuted by his local community, accusations escalate and Lukas soon faces unanimous condemnation from everyone around him, including his closest friends.

Featuring a stellar supporting cast from Danish Film and TV’s finest including Thomas Bo Larsen (Pusher), Anne Louise Hassing (The Idiots) and Susse Wold (Unit 1), The Hunt eschews the rules of Vinterberg and his colleagues’ filmmaking manifesto Dogme95 for one of the most beautifully photographed and perfectly scripted films in recent years.

Special Edition contents:

• High Definition digital transfer
• Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 stereo options (Blu-ray) / Original 5.1 surround sound audio and 2.0 stereo options (DVD)
• Optional English subtitles
• The Making of The Hunt - featuring director Thomas Vinterberg and star Mads Mikkelsen
• Deleted and extended scenes
• Alternate ending
• Outtakes
• Original trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
• First pressing of Blu-ray only: Booklet featuring new writing on the film and a contemporary interview with Thomas Vinterberg, illustrated with original production stills

The Tree of Wooden Clogs | Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD | 7 August 2017 | £24.99

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of the Wooden Clogs is an epic portrait of peasant life in late nineteenth century Italy.

Focussing on four families working and living on the farm of a landowner in the Bergamo region of northern Italy, Olmi presents a year in their lives, charting their daily activities and the natural flow of existence: birth, marriage, death, and the trials and tribulations in between.

Shot on an abandoned farmhouse in Bergamo, The Tree of Wooden Clogs utilised locals of the region for its characters and had them speak in their Bergamasque dialect. The end results are truly remarkable, the apotheosis of Italian cinema’s neo-realism movement.

Special Edition contents:

• Brand-new 4K restoration by The Film Foundation
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations
• Original Bergamasque and Italian mono soundtracks (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles
• Introduction by director Ermanno Olmi
• Two interviews with Olmi from the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, recorded either side of its Palme d’Or win
• Interview with Olmi from Italian film programme Appuntamenti con il cinema
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin
• First pressing only

Clash | Blu-ray and DVD | 14 August 2017 | £19.99 (Blu-ray), £15.99 (DVD)

A festival smash, Clash has wowed audiences worldwide and prompted Tom Hanks to write director Mohamed Diab a personal letter congratulating him for his striking film, telling the world at the same time "If there’s any way you can see Clash..., you must. You simply must. The film will break your heart, but enlighten all."  

Cairo - 2013, two years after the Egyptian revolution, demonstrators of divergent political and religious backgrounds are forcibly detained together in a claustrophobic police truck during the turmoil that erupts following the ousting of former president Morsi from power. The factions quickly divide between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and those backing the military, alongside a pair of neutral journalists and a mother determined to be detained with her son. With all sense of national unity in tatters and the violence on the outside ever-escalating can the prisoners find common ground and stand a chance of survival?  

An intense and staggeringly important portrait of Egypt, Clash is all the more powerful for the incredible spectacle captured as the crew faced genuine protestors and riots.

Special Edition contents:

• High Definition transfer (1080p on the Blu-ray)
• Original 5.1 audio
• New optional English subtitle translation
• Tales From the Van, a new interview with director Mohamed Diab
• Making-of featurette
• Trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring alternate artwork

The Love of a Woman | Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD | 21 August 2017 | £24.99

The Love of a Woman was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as Remorques, Lumière d'été and Pattes blanches.

Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.

Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, The Love of a Woman is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.

Special Edition contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by Gaumont
• Original French mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles
• In Search of Jean Grémillon, a feature-length documentary on the filmmaker from 1969, containing interviews with director René Clair, archivist Henri Langlois, actors Micheline Presle and Pierre Brasseur, and others
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio 
• First pressing only: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Ginette Vincendeau

The Big Knife | Blu-ray | 28 August 2017 | £24.99

Mere months after delivering one of the definitive examples of film noir with Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich brought a noir flavour to Hollywood with his classic adaptation of Clifford Odets’ stage play, The Big Knife.

Charles Castle, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, looks like he has it all. But his marriage is falling apart and his wife is threatening to leave him if he renews his contract. Studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff isn’t taking the news too well, and he’ll do anything he can to get his man to sign on the dotted line – even if means exposing dark secrets…

Winner of the Silver Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival, The Big Knife also boasts a remarkable cast list including Jack Palance (Shane) as Castle and Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) as Hoff, plus Shelley Winters (The Night of the Hunter), Ida Lupino (On Dangerous Ground), Jean Hagen (Singin’ in the Rain) and Everett Sloane (Citizen Kane). 

Special Edition contents:

• Brand-new 2K restoration from original film elements produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations
• Original English mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Commentary by film critics Glenn Kenny and Nick Pinkerton, recorded exclusively for this release
• Bass on Titles – Saul Bass, responsible for The Big Knife’s credit sequence, discusses some of his classic work in this self-directed documentary from 1972
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips