The BFI has announced today the home entertainment releases lined up for January, February and March 2025, with all titles now available to pre-order. Highlights of this first quarter of the new year include a new restoration of Guillermo del Toro's debut feature Cronos, the first volume of Belgian director Chantal Akerman's groundbreaking films, and this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light.

20 January: High and Low and Stray Dog on Blu-ray.

HIGH AND LOW [TENGOKU TO JIGOKU] (Japan 1963)

Based on an Ed McBain novel, High and Low is a gripping police thriller starring Mifune Toshiro.

Wealthy industrialist Kingo Gondo (Mifune) faces an agonising choice when a ruthless kidnapper, aiming to snatch his young son, takes the chauffeur’s boy by mistake – but still demands the ransom, leaving Gondo facing ruin if he pays up.

An anatomy of the inequalities in modern Japanese society, High and Low is a complex film noir, where the intense police hunt for the kidnapper is accompanied by penetrating insight into the kidnapper’s state of mind. Kurosawa’s virtuoso direction provides no easy answers, and in short, the police and the criminal as equally brutal, but nonetheless human.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Newly recorded audio commentary by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp
• Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create – High and Low (2002, 38 mins): the director discusses how High and Low came to exist, and how specific sequences were filmed. Also features interviews with actors Nakadai Tatsuya, Kagawa Kyoko, Kato Takeshi, and Mihashi Tatsuya , as well as cameraman Saito Takao and Ueda Masaharu and script supervisor Nogami Teruyo
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet with new essay on the film by Alex Barrett, archive essay by Philip Kemp and an original review from Monthly Film Bulletin

STRAY DOG [NORA INU] (Japan 1949)

A masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of occupied Tokyo.

When rookie detective Murakami (Mifune Toshiro) has his pistol stolen from his pocket while on a bus, his frantic attempts to track down the thief lead him to an illegal weapons market in the Tokyo underworld. But the gun has already passed from the pickpocket to a young gangster, and Murakami’s gun is identified as the weapon in the shooting of a woman. Murakami, overwhelmed with remorse, turns for help to his older and more experienced senior, Sato (a superb performance by Shimura Takashi). The race is on to find the shooter before he can strike again…

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Newly recorded interview with Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp
• Newly recorded audio commentary by Kenta McGrath
• Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create – Stray Dog (2002, 32 mins)
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet with new writing on the film by Barry Forshaw, archive essay by Philip Kemp and original review

24 February: Cronos on UHD and Blu-ray and Chantal Ackerman: 1967-1978 on Blu-ray:

CRONOS (Mexico 1994)

Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro’s (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) directorial debut offers a unique take on the classic vampire story and went on to win the Critics’ Week award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993.

When antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) discovers an ancient artifact, in the form of a golden mechanical scarab, he is unaware of the power it holds. Whilst the parasite inside the device grants eternal life to its new host, it also causes an extreme aversion to daylight and an unquenchable thirst for human blood. Desperate to claim the device for himself, a dying millionaire (played by Claudio Brook) and his brutish nephew (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) are in hot pursuit.

UHD & BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Newly recorded audio commentary by Jason Wood
• Audio commentary with Guillermo del Toro (2002)
• Audio commentary with producers Arthur H Gorson and Bertha Navarro and co-producer Alejandro Springall (in English and Spanish with optional English subtitles)
• Optional original Spanish-language voice-over introduction
• Cronos – An Introduction (2024, 34 mins): director Guillermo del Toro in conversation with the former head of the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes film festival and current managing director of Arte France Cinéma, Olivier Père (2024, 34 mins)
• Geometria (1987, 7 mins): a short film by Guillermo del Toro about a young man who pays dearly to have his dreams come true
• Guillermo del Toro on Geometria (7 mins): a short interview with the director about Geometria
• BFI Screen Talk: Guillermo del Toro (2017, 74 mins): filmed around the release of The Shape of Water, the writer and director discusses his career with journalist, author and screenwriter Mark Salisbury and the BFI London Film Festival
• The Making of Cronos: An Interview with Federico Luppi (2006, 5 mins): a short archival interview with the actor
• Interview with the director (2010, 60 mins): an archival interview with Guillermo del Toro
• Interview with Guillermo del Toro (2010, 18 mins): an interview with the writer and director
• Interview with Guillermo Navarro (2010, 13 mins): an interview with the film’s cinematographer
• Interview with Ron Pearlman (2010, 7 mins): an interview with the actor who since Cronos has gone on to become one of Del Toro’s regular collaborators
• Theatrical trailer
• Stills gallery
• 60-page book featuring new essays by Michelle Kisner, Rich Johnson, Barry Forshaw, and Michael Leader. Also includes and edited version of Guillermo del Toro: The origins of horror and Cronos, an interview that originally appeared in The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema, by Jason Wood and an original Sight & Sound review by John Kraniauskas.
• Fold-out poster featuring the new artwork for the film

CHANTAL AKERMAN VOLUME 1: 1967-1978

Born in Brussels in 1950 and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman directed more than 40 films (short, medium, and feature-length) in almost 50 years, spanning fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation. Today she is regarded as one of the most important and influential directors of her generation.

Akerman’s personal, non-conformist body of work has become increasingly relevant since her death in 2015, resonating with cinephiles globally as well as filmmakers including Joanna Hogg (The Eternal Daughter), Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine as Light), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Sean Baker (Anora), Alice Diop (Saint Omer) Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) and Charlotte Wells (Aftersun) citing her radical and experimental approach to filmmaking as a direct inspiration.

Representing the first significant release of Chantal Akerman’s work in the UK, this 5-disc set spanning 11 years includes her most famous film, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which topped the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll in 2022.

The films:

• Examen d’entree INSAS x 4 (1967)
• Saute ma ville (1968)
• L’enfant aime ou je joue… (1971)
• Hôtel Monterey (1972)
• La Chambre (1972)
• Hanging Out Yonkers (1973)
• Le 1⅝ (1973)
• Je tu il elle (1974)
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
• News from Home (1976)
• Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

LIMITED EDITION 5-DISC BLU-RAY BOX SET SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Autour de Jeanne Dielman (68 mins): documentary by Sami Frey, and co-edited by Akerman, which explores the on-set relationships between Akerman, Delphine Seyrig and the crew
• Audio commentaries on Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxellesand Les Rendez-vous d’Anna by Kate Rennebohm
• Audio commentary on Je tu il elle by So Mayer and Selina Robertson
• Interview with cinematographer Babette Mangolte (32 mins)
• Interview with Natalia Akerman (28 mins)
• Interview with actor Aurore Clement (18 mins)
• Video essay by Sarah Wood looking at the early films of Chantal Akerman (2024)
• Perfect-bound book with new essays by Catherine Bray, Justine Smith, Gerald White, Sarah Wood and Hannah Strong

17 March: All We Imagine as Light on Blu-ray/DVD and Sanjuro and Yojimbo together on UHD and Blu-ray:

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (France / India / Netherlands / Luxembourg / Italy 2024)

Prabha, Anu and Parvaty are employees at a hospital in Mumbai. They grapple daily with the opportunities and hardships of existence in the city. 

Balancing an immersive verité style with a touch of the surreal, Payal Kapadia's Cannes Grand Prix-winning drama captures the many shades of working-class life in Mumbai. The result is a profound and deeply humanist meditation on urban migration and dislocation.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Introduction by Payal Kapadia (2024, 1 min)
• An Alternative Family (2024): an interview with the writer and director of All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia, recorded exclusively for this release
• Trying to Survive (2024): a newly recorded interview with actor Kani Kusruti
• Indian Background (1946, 9 mins): a documentary looking at progress versus tradition in India, comparing rural traditions to developments in industry and science
• U for Usha (2019, 22 mins): a subtle portrayal of how naïve attraction can empower a woman to take control of her life
• UK trailer
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet featuring a new essay on the film by Elhum Shakerifar, writing by Isabel Stevens, an original review by Arjun Sajip and film credits

YOJIMBO & SANJURO (Japan 1961 / 1962)

Like Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo was Kurosawa Akira's tribute to the widescreen action Westerns of John Ford and was itself remade as a Western by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Played by the great Mifune Toshiro, the film's enigmatic samurai is a scruffy and itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of a war between two clans. Showing his skills with the sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town's rival factions competing for his services.

Kurosawa's genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone's, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make Yojimbo an irresistible widescreen action adventure.

In response to the huge critical and commercial success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa and Mifune re-teamed a year later to make Sanjuro, a hilarious comedy of manners altogether more light-hearted than its predecessor. The story has Sanjuro (Mifune) running lazy rings around nine naïve and clean-cut samurai and two genteel ladies, whilst also cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government.

Whilst Kurosawa plays most of it for laughs, expertly parodying the conventions of Japanese period action films, he stages a startling switch of mood with an intense finale which may well be the briefest, and most breathtaking duel in all cinema.

UHD & BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Newly recorded interview with Jasper Sharp (2024)
• Audio commentary on Yojimbo by film critic Philip Kemp
• Introduction to Sanjuro by filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 5 mins)
• Interview with filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 9 mins)
• Original trailers for both films
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet featuring new and archival essays on both films, original reviews and full film credits
• Other extras TBC