12 Angry Men (Criterion Collection) - BLU-RAY

12 ANGRY MEN, by Sidney Lumet, may be the most radical big-screen courtroom drama in cinema history. A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system as riveting as it is spare, the iconic adaptation of Reginald Roses teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the initially dissenting member of a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father. What results is a saga of epic proportions that plays out in real time over ninety minutes in one sweltering room. Lumets electrifying snapshot of 1950s America on the verge of change is one of the great feature-film debuts.

Melodrama casts noir shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. It's iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations. Recasting James M. Cain's rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional. Run Time 111 minutes

James Cameron's action-packed sequel finds Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) accompanied by a platoon of space marines as she reluctantly returns to the planet where her crew discovered the alien. But their mission to rescue a group of colonists turns into a desperate battle for survival as they find themselves up against an entire hive of the lethal creatures. Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen also star. Theatrical version; 137 min./Extended version; 154 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks English Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, DTS HD stereo Master Audio, Dolby Digital 4.1, DVS Dolby Digital stereo, French DTS HDHR 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles English (SDH), French, Spanish. Three-disc set.