This week on Blu-ray a Best Picture favorite comes to home video, the second season of an incredibly addicting HBO series hits HD, and a classic Pixar title finally gets a Blu-ray release.  Briefly:

Hit the jump for special features details on all of the aforementioned releases.

Anna Karenina (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)

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Director Joe Wright’s gorgeous period piece gets a Blu-ray release that includes an audio commentary from Wright, 13 minutes of deleted scenes, and a collection of featurettes that focus on the adaptation, the theatrical approach to the production, the costumes, and finally an 8-minute featurette that includes time-lapse footage of the construction of the set.

Argo (Blu-ray/DVD Combo+UltraViolet Digital Copy)

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Director Ben Affleck’s thriller is the current favorite to win Best Picture, and now’s the perfect time to bring the film home.  The Blu-ray includes a picture-in-picture feature that plays during the film, featuring interviews with the survivors and many other real-life participants, including President Jimmy Carter and Affleck’s offscreen counterpart, Tony Mendez.  The extras also include an audio commentary by Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrior, a 17-minute featurette that chronicles the real-life event, an 11-minute featurette focusing on the film’s authenticity from a production standpoint, a short featurette covering the CIA/Hollywood connection, and a 47-minute 2005 TV documentary about the event.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (Unrated Edition -Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)

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Originally envisioned as a prequel series, the pilot for Blood & Chrome has been released in lieu of Syfy not moving forward with the show.  The bonus features are thin, as the disc only includes a 23-minute look at the film’s visual effects and a collection of deleted scenes.  So say we all.

Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

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Just in time for the show’s upcoming third season, HBO has released the second season of Game of Thrones on Blu-ray.  The collection includes 12 audio commentaries from the cast and crew, in-episode guides for each episode that allow viewers to delve deeper into the GoT world via maps, character, histories, etc., character profiles, a collection of animated videos called “Histories & Lore” that visualize events that are only referenced to in the series, an interactive guide called “War of the Five Kings”, a half-hour featurette covering the production of the Blackwater Bay battle, a featurette centering on the religions of Westeros, and a featurette called “Game of Thrones Inner Circle” that features a few castmember sitting down with the executive producers for a roundtable discussion.

Insider [Blu-ray]

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Director Michael Mann’s whistleblower thriller is an excellent addition to the Blu-ray family, but sadly it appears that the film’s special features are bare.

Monsters, Inc. (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition : 3D Blu-ray / Blu-ray / DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

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As usual, this Pixar Blu-ray release is absolutely packed with bonus features.  Some of the highlights include an audio commentary by director Pete Docter, co-director Lee Unkrich, writer Andrew Stanton, and executive producer John Lasseter, a filmmakers roundtable discussion with Docter, Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson, and story supervisor Bob Peterson, a collection of pre-production featurettes, some “banished scenes” that were thrown out, and featurettes covering the film’s animation and its release.

On the Waterfront (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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The Marlon Brando classic enters the Criterion Collection Blu-ray family with a number of bonus features, including a conversation between Martin Scorsese and critic Kent Jones about the film, a 1982 documentary called Elia Kazan: An Outsider, another documentary from Criterion called “I’m Standin’ Over Here Now”, individual video interviews with Eva Marie Saint, Elia Kazan, and Thomas Hanley, and much more.

Sinister [Blu-ray]

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This genuinely terrifying horror film includes an audio commentary by director Scott Derrickson, another commentary by Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill, a featurette on True Crime authors, another featurette that focuses on houses in which terrible things have happened, and a few deleted scenes.

Top Gun (Two-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / Digital Copy)

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This Blu-ray release of Top Gun is identical to the film’s previous release, only this time it’s in 3D.  No new extras have been added, so the 2D release’s bonus features have been ported over.  Those include a six-part, feature-length documentary on the making of the film, a collection of storyboards, and a documentary covering real-life fighter pilots.

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