Last Summer (Criterion Premieres) - DVD

Aging yet affable everyman Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) was content with his lot cleaning Tokyo's public toilets, with downtime to spare for his pet intellectual pursuits. There'd be a wrench thrown in the works when the runaway teenage daughter (Arisa Nakano) of his long-estranged sister (Yumi Aso) showed up on his doorstep, and spurred him to confront a painful past. Wim Wenders' gentle, Ozu-redolent Japanese language bow also stars Tokio Emoto, Sayuri Ishikawa. 124 min. Standard; Soundtrack Japanese; Subtitles English; bonus short InchSome Body Comes Into the LightInch (2023); featurettes; theatrical trailer. In Japanese with English subtitles.

This radically influential portrait of American dreams and disillusionment from Direct Cinema pioneers David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin captures, with indelible humanity, the worlds of four dogged door-to-door Bible salesmen as they travel from Boston to Florida on a seemingly futile quest to sell luxury editions of the Good Book to working-class Catholics. A vivid evocation of midcentury malaise rendered against a succession of cheap motels, smoky diners, and suburban living rooms, Salesman assumes poignant dimensions as it uncovers the way it's subjects' fast-talking bravado masks frustration, disappointment, and despair. Revolutionizing the art of nonfiction storytelling with it's nonjudgmental, observational style, this landmark documentary is one of the most penetrating films ever made about how deeply embedded consumerism is in America's sense of it's own values.

The Smashing Machine [ULTRA HD] Subtitled Released 2026 product/publication from A24