Best DVDs of 2008: The top 20

1. Murnau, Borzage and Fox -- An important historical work and a mighty entertainment. 

Fox returns to its early years with salutes to founder William Fox's prestige directors. Of the set's 12 movies, only one has had a major U.S. DVD release.

German director F.W. Murnau's 1927 "Sunrise" is the artistic pinnacle here, a mostly silent movie that represents the state of the art in the days just before talkies. 

The visually stunning movie -- about a farmer who takes up with an urban vixen and plots the death of his faithful wife -- has undergone a major restoration. Murnau's lesser "City Girl" also looks sensational.

The films of Frank Borzage, an American romanticist, make up the rest of the set, notably "7th Heaven" (1927) and "Bad Girl" (1931). The DVDs include imaginative partial restorations of Murnau's lost "4 Devils" and Borzage's "The River."

Fox led this list of the top DVDs of 2007 with its John Ford collection and repeats easily with this remarkable set. (Fox Home Entertainment)

2. The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration -- Blows away any other video incarnation of the Francis Ford Coppola gangster classics, especially when seen on Blu-ray. That amber tone comes on orders from cinematographer Gordon Willis.

My A-B comparisons of the new and old "Godfather" DVDs quickly demonstrated why the restoration was overdue. Even when the 2001 DVDs were given the advantage of upconversion, there was simply no contest. Comparing the Blu-rays to the old DVDs proved ... ridiculous. (Paramount Home Entertainment)

Read the full review of "The Godfather" on Blu-ray

3. The Films of Budd Boetticher -- Contains most of the filmmaker's great cycle of low-budget westerns starring the leathery cowboy star Randolph Scott. In westerns, "There's John Ford and there's Howard Hawks and there's Budd Boetticher," director Taylor Hackford says in the extras for this essential five-DVD set. 

Highlights include "The Tall T" (1957, with Richard Boone and Maureen O'Sullivan) and "Comanche Station" (1960, Claude Akins, Nancy Gates). A revelation for Boetticher greenhorns. (Sony Pictures) 

Read the full review of the Boetticher westerns set.

4. Baraka -- A classic of the "non-verbal" school of time-lapse movie-making returns in what could be the best-looking Blu-ray of them all. This 1992 parade of ohh-ahh images from the cinematographer of "Koyaanisqatsi" received obsessive care, starting with the Todd-AO 65mm print. Each frame was scanned at a resolution of about 8k, the first time that amount of detail has been extracted from a full feature film. 

The movie teems with exotic images from across the planet, from the sublime (snowflakes fall on an orangutan in a mountain hot spring) to the alarming (Kuwait's burning oil fields). " 'Baraka' by itself is reason to acquire a Blu-ray player," Roger Ebert raved in his high-def review. I believe there are some high-def discs to rival "Baraka's" visuals, but here is proof that Blu-ray as a format has much more to show us. (MPI Home Video)

5. Vampyr -- All the way from 1932 comes the year's best video creepshow. Criterion resurrected Carl Th. Dreyer's tale of the occult, making for the most complete presentation seen in our lifetimes. The German movie, as expected, still suffers from a great deal of damage. In this case, that's not all bad. "Vampyr" plays like a warning of evil afoot from 75 years ago, like shadows from hell picked up on some distant UHF station.

 Don't miss the imaginative making-of in the twisted spirit of the film. (The Criterion Collection) 

Read about 2008's top horror videos.

6. Touch Of Evil -- The three faces of "Touch of Evil" finally are on display in Universal's 50th anniversary edition of the dark Orson Welles B-movie classic. This DVD set brought together the preview, theatrical and restored versions of the movie, about drugs, sex and violence in a Mexican border town. 

A generous collection of extras explain the versions' differences and detail the long twisted history of the film. Each version has its own commentary. Stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh participated in two documentaries. 

Compare, contrast and argue, you can't go too far wrong in selecting one of these as the best "Touch of Evil." (Universal Pictures)

 Read the full "Touch of Evil" DVD review.

7. The Nightmare Before Christmas -- Gorgeous animated visuals, this time out in anamorphic widescreen, but the star of the show on Blu-ray is the state-of-the art audio. All 7.1 channels of Dolby TruHD encircle the video room, with bold playful signals. Heard this way, Danny Elfman's score can make your heart race. Among the best home video audio I've experienced. 

New commentary from Tim Burton and Elfman (recorded separately, alas). Thrill the big kids and terrorize the tots with this truly fine Blu-ray. (Disney)

8. El Cid -- February's DVD release of “El Cid” marked the return of one of the 1960s’ most-remarkable epics. The film about Spain’s unifying hero of the 11th century is beautifully rendered in 2:35 widescreen. The battling stars were Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. 

DVD extras include profiles of three off-camera forces: producer William Bronston, director Anthony Mann and composer Miklos Rozsa. You’re lucky to get one good bio on most DVD sets -- here we have three. (Weinstein Company/Genius Products) 

Read the full "El Cid" review.

9. The Thief of Bagdad -- This 1940 fantasy classic makes schoolboys out of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. The directors contributed a commentary to this double-disc version of "The Thief of Bagdad," an "Arabian Nights"-like tale complete with a genie in the bottle. Scorsese and Coppola try to stick to their knitting during the talk, but for the most part they're nostalgia-sodden fans, remembering how it was as boys, letting the magic wash over them. 

The long-awaited release includes abundant extras and of course a beautiful version of the film, directed in part by Michael Powell. (Criterion) 

Read the full "Thief of Bagdad" review.

10. Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho -- Universal added three of the best-known Alfred Hitchcock films to its Legacy Series, providing what will be definitive DVD versions for some time. The three titles last appeared in the pricey "Masterpiece Collection" of 2005; these are essentially those versions enhanced with thoughtful and comprehensive sets of extras features, some new. All have audio clips from the famed Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews. 

Also this fall, the fine and ambitious "Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection, from MGM, suffered some DVD production flaws, a shame because it rounded up eight of the master's earlier works, starting with a good-looking version of 1927's "The Lodger." The MGM set also returned "Spellbound" to distribution.

More of 2008's top DVDs and Blu-rays:

• Post-War Kurosawa (Criterion Eclipse)
• The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection (RHI/Genius)
• James Bond Blu-rays: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball (MGM)
• Hiya Kids! A '50s Saturday Morning Box (Shout! Factory)
• I Got the Feelin': James Brown in the '60s  (Shout!)
• The Big Trail (Fox)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman (WEA)
• Dark City (Blu-ray version, New Line)
• Wall-E (Disney)
• The Last Emperor (Criterion) 

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Comments

[SBL]

Nice list. Thanks.

Regards,
SBL

[Sports Couch Potato]

Really good list. "The Godfather" is one of the most stunning Blu-Ray restorations available.