There’s still some time left in the holiday buying season. If you’re struggling to pick out the perfect gift for your movie geek loved ones, CraveOnline is here to help. I’ve been reviewing Blu-ray throughout the year, and now I’ve looked back and rounded up the 14 best releases of 2014. I’ve even added a few titles that I never got around to writing up earlier in the year.
I realized I picked relatively few new releases. I’m finding that these days they always wait to put out a really good special edition, so the first releases is just a formality. I also don’t have a 3D TV so unfortunately this is a 2D only edition of the Top 14 Blu-rays of 2014. Classic TV shows had a big year on Blu-ray, and as Franchise Fred, I’m always excited about series collections.
The Top 14 Home Video Releases of 2014:
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
The Top 14 Home Video Releases of 2014
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14. Guardians of the Galaxy
Marvel’s most colorful movie looks great on Blu-ray, although it’s a shame it’s not the IMAX version. In addition to the funny and rockin’ film, the bonus features feature James Gunn’s signature sense of humor. In one, Gunn appears as an 8-bit video game explaining the filmmaking to the characters. He also gives a rather technical commentary, but keeps the discussion moving as the film proceeds.
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13. Transformers: Age of Extinction
Wherever you stand on Michael Bay’s summer robot movies, and many rightfully stand against them, they look great in HD. There is an Imax 3D version of Age of Extinction available, however I cannot personally vouch for it. I can only say that 2D already blew me away, and the bonus features do a really good job illustrating what it’s like to be on the set of a Michael Bay movie.
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12. Winter’s Tale
Perhaps the worst reviewed movie of the year, but people who only watched the film itself only know half the story. The film’s Blu-ray and DVD include deleted scenes that are even crazier than what ended up in the maligned movie. The film was already dropping an infant in the ocean and headbutting Colin Farrell off of a bridge. At that point, why pull punches? Show Russell Crowe’s frozen corpse and a little girl whimsically making snowballs out of his face!
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11. Veronica Mars
The VOD release of the Veronica Mars movie was a landmark for Hollywood. A film that existed because of the fans, both due to their demand and their contributing to the budget via Kickstarter. It set a precedent. Both die hard fans and casual viewers agreed that the film ended up kind of lackluster, but its sheer existence will be important for years to come.
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10. Pumping Iron
The documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bodybuilding career did not come out on Blu-ray, but it premiered on Digital HD on popular VOD services. If you’re an Arnold fan, you’ve got to see this. It’s his best performance ever, playing himself. Also watching Arnold lift weights is more thrilling than any special effect in his movies. The digital HD version retains the ‘70s documentary grain, but includes new bonus features that have Arnold relating his bodybuilding experience to his political and motion picture success, and a great spot where bodybuilding experts lay out the science of their craft in plain English.
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9. 22 Jump Street
Easily the best new release Blu-ray of the year, 22 Jump Street seems to have gone all out. The film looks great in HD with Michael Bay-quality spring break action, and tons of bonus features that are just as funny as the film. While I love the joke of culling exactly 22 deleted and extended scenes, they’re all so funny that I sort of wonder if there was a 23rd and 24th that had to go just for that joke. While Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s other 2014 movie, The LEGO Movie, also looks great on Blu-ray and has funny outtakes of Morgan Freeman yelling at the directors, it feels like there’s a bigger special edition coming for that one.
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8. Star Trek: The Next Generation Seasons 6 and 7
This project began in 2012 as Paramount and CBS Home Entertainment began re-editing every episode of the series from 35mm film materials, since the broadcast shows were edited in standard def. Visual effects were recomposited digitally, but I marvel more at the practical task of editing episodes exactly as they were originally constructed, only decades later. It’s well worth the effort as the episodes now sport new detail and clarity, although a little grainy residue as well. It’s a great new way to binge “TNG.”
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7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Black Maria Special Edition
I was nervous about a 4K remastering of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but I needn’t have worried. The Blu-ray preserves the 16mm grain and ‘70s color scheme of the down and dirty film beautifully. Bonus features include all previously produced extras (and there have been many over the years) and a few new ones. Plus the Black Maria edition comes in a truck!
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6. Godzilla Double Features
When Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla came out this year, Franchise Fred had been woefully lacking in Gojira studies. Seeing the original film at SXSW, I was motivated to explore the sequels and these Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releases helped me catch up quick. The ‘90s and ‘00s films fall in the Heisei and Millennium era, and illustrate just how varied and clever Godzilla films can be. They all look great on Blu-ray and some have bonus features showing the Japanese crew stomping on model sets!
Read my full review of the Godzilla Blu-ray Double Features.
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5. Halloween: The Complete Collection
While all the Halloween films have been on Blu-ray before, getting them all in one set was a logistical triumph given how many different studios were involved. While there’s little to add about the John Carpenter original, given it gets re-released every five years or so, Franchise Fred enjoyed many of the sequels' bonus features. My favorite was Jamie Lee Curtis’s audio commentary on my favorite of the series, Halloween H20. Putting the Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers producer’s cut on Blu-ray was a landmark too, and even the Halloween regulars were able to share new information in their in-depth interviews.
Check out "10 Things We Learned from Halloween: The Complete Collection."
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4. Twin Peaks: The Complete Mystery
I missed "Twin Peaks" in its initial run and then I missed the Blu-ray set when it came out this year, but reading how happy it made the Twin Peaks fans made me happy. By all accounts, the Blu-ray transfer was on par with the top TV on Blu-ray titles in this list, and 90 minutes of deleted scenes would be enough to make any TV fan giddy 25 years later. Honorable mention to Breaking Bad: The Complete Series coming in a barrel, but that’s just a collection of all the recent TV seasons, which were already available in HD.
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3. Ace in the Hole (Criterion Collection)
I happened to see the 4K transfer of Ace in the Hole projected theatrically, so the fact that you can own that version of the movie on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray is amazing. It was also part of my film history homework, and seeing a Billy Wilder film for the first time is a privilege. It was prescient and timeless about the media circus, as a reporter (Kirk Douglas) trades the safety of his story for prolonging the event itself. Criterion bonus features include film historian analysis and excerpts of archival interviews with Wilder!
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2. Pee-Wee's Playhouse: The Complete Series
Paul Reubens’ landmark Saturday morning children’s show came to Blu-ray not just one season at a time, but with the entire five year run. Remastered from film elements, as has become common practice for upgrading TV shows on Blu-ray, the wild colors and jagged edges of the Playhouse are almost a brand new whimsical world of their own. Thorough bonus features also include all of the creative talent (except Reubens, not breaking character I’m guessing), famous players like Laurence Fishburne and even tangentially associated talent like John Singleton!
Read my full review of Pee-Wee's Playhouse: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray.
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1. Mr. Nobody
I discovered this 2009 movie in 2011 when the Los Angeles Film Festival showed it in their “Films That Got Away” series. It blew my mind so I bought the Blu-ray from the UK. Four years later, it got distribution from Magnolia in the States and the Blu-ray came out earlier this year. Now I don’t have to worry about endorsing sketchy international region-free product. This profound, visionary film is available in the U.S. on the HD format so all the futuristic stem cell pigs and surreal past and present scenes can be experienced in full detail.
Read my interview with Mr. Nobody director Jaco Van Dormael.
