my week with marilyn: The Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2012

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It's the end of the year again, and time to recap the DVDs and Blu-rays I've checked out over the course of the year. Of course, I'm only one man, so I don't have the time to review absolutely everything, nor is absolutely everything offered to me for review. So this is an incomplete list, but a good, solid list nonetheless. Additionally, the list is also intended as a holiday gift guide for the movie fan in your family. (Clicking on the box covers will bring you to the Amazon page.) Hopefully there's something here for everyone. Enjoy!

10. The Gold Rush (Criterion Collection)Frankly, neither the Image nor the Warner Chaplin DVDs were ever very satisfactory, so it's great news that the Criterion Collection has taken over and given the great filmmaker a home video treatment worthy of his genius. The Gold Rush is their third Chaplin release, and it's a great success. I showed Chaplin's preferred 1942 cut, with a shorter running time and narration taking the place of intertitles, to my son -- and it was a big hit, just as it was for audiences all over back in its day.

9. Black Sunday (Kino Lorber)It wasn't so long ago that Anchor Bay released two enormous Mario Bava DVD box sets, which began a new course of appreciation for a neglected filmmaker. This year, Kino upgraded four Bava titles to Blu-ray: Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Lisa and the Devil, Baron Blood, and this one, the king of them all. It's an aytpical Bava in that it's shot in black-and-white -- his genius lay in his use of color -- but it's perhaps his most highly-regarded and/or famous film, and its moody, spooky atmosphere makes it worth revisiting.

8. Letter from an Unknown Woman (Olive Films)One of the greatest of all Hollywood films, this 1948 Max Ophuls film has not been available on home video for decades. It makes the list merely by existing. Olive's Blu-ray has no extras, but the film's graceful, luminous visuals finally get the fresh treatment they deserved.

7. Les Vampires (Kino Lorber)Louis Feuillade's seven-hour silent-era serial was released on DVD back in the late 1990s, but it's safe to say that that edition was outdated. Kino Lorber upgraded it for Blu-ray with a new score. Though it's nearly 100 years old, it's still an energetic example of great storytelling, and viewers used to powering through entire TV seasons on DVD and Blu-ray will have no trouble doing the same here.

6. Johnny Guitar (Olive Films)Another great American classic, a bizarre, so-called Freudian Western, unavailable for decades and rescued by Olive Films. Nicholas Ray directed this with an eye on the operatic and unrealistic with bursting colors and rampant emotions. It's a film to be studied and admired as well as to be watched with your jaw on the floor. At last, it finally looks as good as it might have during its original 1954 run.

5. Certified Copy (Criterion Collection)One of the very best films of the decade so far was barely seen, and so it's great news that the Criterion Collection gave it their special touch. It's from Abbas Kiarostami, who is surely one of the greatest living filmmakers, taking on some of his most challenging, and yet emotionally gratifying material. As a bonus, Juliette Binoche continues her winning streak as one of our best working actresses. If that's not enough, Criterion packed the DVD with an even rarer Kiarostami feature from the 1970s.

4. Casablanca (Warner Home Video)Sure... how many times have we all seen it? But Warner pulled out all the stops for the film's 70th anniversary Blu-ray release. Not only does the movie look amazing, and not only does it include virtually all of the extras ever developed, but now it comes in a huge, exquisite gift set including a poster, a coffee table book, and a leather wallet filled with drink coasters!

3. Belle de Jour (Criterion Collection)Another upgrade, from an older Miramax DVD, this Criterion Blu-ray improves on the original in every way (except the commentary track). But I was very glad to see how Catherine Deneuve's eyes and hair popped in this glorious new transfer, and how much more vivid the film's sexual energy is in high-def.

2. Battle Royale (Anchor Bay)This masterpiece of Japanese cinema, from 2000, hadn't yet received an official DVD release in the United States, though imported versions were readily available. Anchor Bay corrected this oversight with a massive new Blu-ray set that includes Kinji Fukasaku's film on both DVD and Blu-ray, the sequel, and mountains of extras. And best of all was the timing: right on top of the release of that blatant ripoff, The Hunger Games.

1. The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection (Kino Lorber)I'm rolling the dice on this one, as it doesn't come out for another week, and I'm not sure I'll be getting a review set. But I have seen most of the rest of the Keaton collection on Blu-ray, and it rocks. This set -- 15 Blu-ray discs -- includes every Keaton feature, and every Keaton short, including the two discs from the excellent "Lost Keaton" set (talkie two-reelers newly rediscovered from the 1930s). Keaton's beautiful, inventive direction and his graceful performances rarely faltered, and his discourse on the place of man in the world of man-made things is still relevant. He was one of the absolute greatest.
A Selection of Worthy Runners-Up: